FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Three world-class leaders – Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe; Mike Duke, the former president and CEO of Walmart Stores Inc.; and Andrew Hamilton, the vice chancellor of the University of Oxford – will receive honorary degrees and speak to graduating students as part of the University of Arkansas fall commencement.

The ceremony will begin at 9 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 20, in Barnhill Arena.

“The University of Arkansas is proud to be able to honor these three outstanding individuals,” said Chancellor G. David Gearhart. “They have each made extraordinary contributions in their respective fields: government service, business and education.

“Mike Beebe is widely regarded as among the most capable, accomplished and popular leaders in Arkansas history – a living example of what the term ‘career politician’ should mean. Simply put, he has improved the lives of all Arkansans.

“Mike Duke led a company with more than 11,000 stores and 2.2 million associates in 27 countries, providing a vision for his team of highly skilled retail experts. Walmart prospered, but Duke also realized he was in a unique position to affect the world and the people in it. He took advantage of that opportunity to make significant contributions in the areas of diversity, sustainability and the fight against hunger.

“Andrew Hamilton has dedicated his career to advancing higher education in both this country and his native United Kingdom. As a teacher, researcher and university administrator he has demonstrated an exceptional commitment to the ideals and purposes of a university.”

Gov. Beebe will receive an honorary Doctor of Laws degree. Mike Duke will receive an honorary Doctor of Engineering degree. Andrew Hamilton will receive an honorary Doctor of Arts and Sciences degree.

Mike Beebe

 Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe has served the state for 20 years as an Arkansas state senator, four years as attorney general, and eight years as governor.

His life is a testament to the power of hard work and education.

Beebe was born to a single mother in 1946. They lived in many places around the country as he grew up, finally settling in Newport when he was a teenager. He attended Newport High School, found mentors in the local community and worked at a local grocery store. After graduation, he used an Arkansas Rural Endowment Fund loan to attend Arkansas State University, where he earned an overall 4.1 grade point average.

Beebe graduated from the University of Arkansas School of Law in 1972 and joined the Searcy law firm of Lightle, Tedder and Hannah. He was appointed to the Arkansas State University Board of Trustees when he was 26, and served a five-year term, the last two years as chair.

In 1982 Beebe was elected to the state Senate, where he quickly established himself as an expert on the state budget and legislative process. He was instrumental in crafting legislation for ARKids First, extending Medicaid coverage to the children of low-income working parents, and worked with Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee to win its passage. 

Beebe was elected Arkansas attorney general in 2002, focusing on child safety and law enforcement issues during his four years there.

As governor, Beebe has combined his legislative expertise, passion to improve the lives of all Arkansans, and bipartisan consensus-building and to compile an unprecedented record of accomplishments: 

• Worked with state lawmakers to nearly eliminate the state sales tax on groceries.
• Championed the creation and funding of a statewide trauma care system.
• Led bipartisan efforts to improve education from pre-K to the university level
• Worked with lawmakers and communities to bring new businesses and thousands of new jobs to Arkansas.
• Helped to develop the innovative, bipartisan “private option” plan, making private health-insurance plans available to more than 200,000 previously uninsured Arkansans.

Beebe received the Chancellor’s Medal and the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the University of Arkansas. In 2011 he was named Public Official of the Year by Governing magazine.

Mike Duke

Michael T. Duke served as president and CEO of Walmart Stores Inc. from 2009 until his retirement in 2014, and he is currently chair of the company’s Executive Committee.

Duke was raised on a small farm in rural Georgia. He graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) with a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering and began his 42-year retail industry career in Atlanta. He joined Walmart in 1995 and held several top executive positions before being named chief executive officer of the world’s largest retail company.

Walmart prospered under Duke’s leadership, but he also took bold steps to drive social responsibility across the company’s global footprint.

Duke increased the number of women and minority members in top Walmart positions, earning two awards from the national Network of Executive Women. He was instrumental in Walmart’s pledge to purchase $20 billion in goods from women-owned businesses nationally and globally. Locally, Duke encouraged a partnership with the University of Arkansas that increased enrollment and graduation of minority and underrepresented students in the College of Engineering. 

Duke was also a catalyst for broadening and accelerating Walmart’s sustainability initiatives. He supported The Sustainability Consortium, an independent research partnership between the University of Arkansas and Arizona State University. Walmart’s support was essential to establishing the consortium’s Sustainability Index, which helps global businesses reduce waste and pollution.

Under Duke’s leadership, Walmart led the fight on hunger, committing $2 billion in cash and food donations over a five-year period in the U.S. and pledging support to help food banks and distribution centers operate more efficiently.

Duke urged Walmart associates to get involved in anti-hunger efforts in their own communities and set an example of local involvement, enabling a Walmart Foundation grant to the student-run Full Circle Campus Food Pantry at the University of Arkansas. The gift sparked an outpouring of additional support, enabling the pantry to assist thousands of members of the campus community and become a model for programs at other colleges and universities. Mike and Susan Duke have also been personally generous to many programs at the University of Arkansas.

Andrew Hamilton 

Andrew Hamilton, vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford, was born in Guildford, Surrey (England). He earned his Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from the University of Exeter, his master’s degree from the University of British Columbia, his doctorate from Cambridge University and a year of post-doctoral work at the Université Louis Pasteur.

Hamilton taught chemistry at Princeton University and the University of Pittsburgh before being named the Irénée duPont Professor of Chemistry at Yale University, where he taught molecular biophysics and biochemistry and later chaired Yale’s Department of Chemistry. He became Yale’s Benjamin Silliman Professor of Organic Chemistry in 2004, the same year he was named provost.

Hamilton is a synthetic organic chemist and the co-holder of 19 patents related to medicinal chemistry. His research has concentrated on using synthetic design to understand, mimic and disrupt the biological processes of such diseases as cancer, malaria and Chagras infections.

His research is internationally recognized. In 2004 he was elected a Fellow of both the Royal Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Hamilton’s accomplishments as an administrator are at least as impressive as his roles as teacher and researcher.

As Yale’s provost, Hamilton expanded research programs in the sciences and humanities, increased faculty diversity, and helped create both Yale’s Center for Genomics and Proteomics and the Yale Institute for Nanoscience and Quantum Engineering.

Hamilton returned to England as vice-chancellor of Oxford in late 2009, essentially serving as the university’s chief executive officer. He has been the driving force in what the institution describes as “the biggest fundraising campaign in European history,” with the goal of raising the equivalent of $4.82 billion. At the same time he has been a strong advocate for increased public support for higher education in the United Kingdom, warning that both people and nations are harmed when public funding for higher education is cut.  

Hamilton has continued his own research and still serves as a professor of organic chemistry, spending a portion of each day in the lab. In 2010, he was elected a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and, in 2011, he received the International Izatt Christiansen Award in Macrocyclic Chemistry. Each year he oversees Oxford University’s commemoration of J. William Fulbright, which features a distinguished lecturer, a visiting fellowship, as well as Fulbright rooms at Pembroke College.