FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – James Patterson, America’s best-selling author and a passionate advocate for reading, and Don Rice, an innovative Wall Street entrepreneur and founder of one of the nation’s largest minority-owned municipal investment banking firms, will receive honorary degrees from the University of Arkansas during the fall commencement ceremony.

Patterson will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree.

Rice will receive an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree.

“It is a privilege to be able to recognize two men who have accomplished so much in their chosen fields,” said interim Chancellor Dan Ferritor. “Their success is inspiring, but even more inspirational is the way they have used their success to give back to people and causes that matter. Both men have stories to tell and lessons to teach our students, and we look forward to hearing them at this fall’s commencement.”

Patterson and Rice will speak to the graduating students during the ceremony, which be held at 9 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 19, in Bud Walton Arena.

James PATTERSON

James Patterson received the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community at the 2015 National Book Awards. This award honors individuals for a lifetime of achievement in expanding the audience for books and reading.

Photo by David Burnett James Patterson

Patterson is the most prolific and best-selling American author in modern times. He began his career as a novelist in 1976, winning the Edgar Award for Best First Novel by an American Author with The Thomas Berryman Number. Since then he has published in virtually every genre and is particularly proud of his series aimed at young adults and middle school readers.

Patterson was born in Newburgh, New York, on March 22, 1947. He attended Manhattan College as an undergraduate before earning a master's degree in English literature at Vanderbilt University. He moved to New York City and took a job as a copywriter at the J. Walter Thompson ad agency in 1971. He later became chair of J. Walter Thompson North America.

Patterson holds the Guinness World Record for the most No. 1 New York Times bestsellers – he’s had 117 books make the bestseller list and 68 have hit No. 1. His books have sold more than 325 million copies worldwide.

As stated in the letter nominating him for an honorary degree, “To say that Mr. Patterson is a superstar in the publishing world would be an understatement —  he is a galaxy unto himself.”

Patterson is also a tireless champion of the power of books and reading. His website, ReadKiddoRead.com, is designed to help parents, teachers and librarians ignite the next generation’s excitement about reading. The site is dedicated to helping visitors find books they can read to and with their children.

His mission is exemplified by his new children’s book imprint, JIMMY Patterson, whose mission is simple: to have every kid who finishes a JIMMY Book say: “PLEASE GIVE ME ANOTHER BOOK.” Patterson will invest his proceeds from the sales of JIMMY Patterson Books into pro-reading initiatives.

Patterson has donated more than one million books to students and soldiers. He has also donated millions to independent bookstores and school libraries. In 2015, Patterson partnered with Scholastic Reading Club to distribute $1.75 million in grants to school libraries across the country.

The University of Arkansas is one of 24 schools where Patterson established the James Patterson Teacher Education Scholarship Fund, to support up-and-coming teachers who will help their students develop a lifelong love of reading. His donation in 2013 provided eight $6,000 scholarships to elementary or secondary education majors in the College of Education and Health Professions. The following year he doubled the size of his gift, funding an additional eight scholarships.

Don Rice

Don Rice is founder, president and chief executive officer of the Rice Financial Products Co., one of the nation’s largest minority-owned municipal investment banking firms.

Don Rice

Rice was born on Aug. 22, 1958, and moved with his family to Hot Springs when he was four. Although he only lived in Arkansas for the next decade of his life, he has said his roots are in Hot Springs and he considers himself an Arkansan.

His father, Rev. James Donald Rice Sr., served as pastor of Roanoke Baptist Church and was the president of the Hot Springs NAACP. His mother, Mrs. Ellen Rice, sponsored and operated the city's first Head Start program.

Rice and his sister were the first African American students to integrate Eastside Elementary School in Hot Springs. At Hot Springs Junior High, Rice was the first seventh grader to be elected student body vice president.

Rice earned an engineering degree from Kettering University and worked as an automotive manufacturing engineer for General Motors before attending Harvard Business School, where he received an Master of Business Administration with distinction.

Rice began his career in the financial sector in 1985, working for Merrill Lynch as a founding member of the company's municipal derivatives products group, which developed complex bond-related products to reduce borrowing costs for state and local governments. He pioneered a technique for re-funding municipal debt that later became a common Wall Street practice, and later developed several other new financing products and techniques.

He formed Rice Financial Products Co. in 1993 with a focus on derivative-based borrowing for municipal governments, later expanding into general bond underwriting for municipalities and higher education institutions. Today, Rice Financial Products is involved in 10 percent of the state and local government borrowing done in America, and has distinguished itself as the largest financier for historically black colleges and universities.

In 2000, Black Enterprise named Rice Financial its Financial Company of the Year. Rice was selected as Entrepreneur of the Year by the National Association of Securities Professionals in 2002 and the following year he was inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame. 

Rice has served on the board of directors for Kettering University and New York City's United Neighborhood Houses and on the governing board of the New York City Head Start program. He was appointed by the governor of New York and confirmed by the state Senate to serve on the board of directors for the New York State Thruway Authority.

Rice has also donated to a number of not-for-profit programs and institutions, including the National Urban League and Summer on the Hill, a year-round, supplemental enrichment program for promising, low-income public school students.

About the University of Arkansas: The University of Arkansas provides an internationally competitive education for undergraduate and graduate students in more than 200 academic programs. The university contributes new knowledge, economic development, basic and applied research, and creative activity while also providing service to academic and professional disciplines. The Carnegie Foundation classifies the University of Arkansas among only 2 percent of universities in America that have the highest level of research activity. U.S. News & World Report ranks the University of Arkansas among its top American public research universities. Founded in 1871, the University of Arkansas comprises 10 colleges and schools and maintains a low student-to-faculty ratio that promotes personal attention and close mentoring.