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CLAYTON TO GET HONORARY DEGREE
AT DEC. 21 COMMENCEMENT
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Indiana University's first mid-year commencement Dec. 21 will include the conferral of an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree on Bernard Clayton Jr., the "Renaissance Man" of Bloomington. Clayton's achievements as a reporter put him on the front lines of history, and his achievements in the kitchen earned him praise from such culinary luminaries as Julia Child.
IU students eligible to participate in the 2 p.m. ceremony in Bloomington's Assembly Hall include undergraduate degree candidates for December as well as graduate students who have fulfilled degree requirements during the past semester.
The commencement speaker will be IU alumna Claudia Mitchell-Kernan, vice chancellor for academic affairs and dean of the graduate division of the University of California, Los Angeles, and a presidential appointee to the governing board of the National Science Foundation.
Conferral of degrees will be led by IU President Myles Brand, assisted by Kenneth Gros Louis, vice president for academic affairs and chancellor of the Bloomington campus, and by the deans of the schools.
Rev. E.D. Butler, pastor of the Second Baptist Church, Bloomington, will deliver the invocation and benediction. The ceremony inducting the graduates into alumni status will be conducted by Jennifer A. Hoffman, representing the Student Alumni Association; John D. Walda, president of the IU trustees; and Clarence W. Boone, president of the Alumni Association. Leading a portion of the musical accompaniment will be David G. Woods, dean of the School of Music.
Mitchell-Kernan, a native of Gary, earned B.A. and M.A. degrees from IU and a Ph.D. from the University of California. Her research and publications are in the areas of Afro-American vernacular, Caribbean cultures, mental retardation, and interracial marriages. She was appointed by President Clinton to the board of the National Science Foundation in 1994.
Clayton is a former reporter, photographer, war correspondent, businessman, chef and cookbook author, whose achievements in any one of these pursuits would have been impressive.
His creativity and enthusiasm were first evident while growing up in Zionsville, Ind., where he sold animals and worked at his father's newspaper. Clayton corresponded for the Indianapolis News while attending IU, then left to become a full-time News reporter and photographer during the Great Depression. During his three years with the paper, he covered the Ohio River flood and also was known as the guy who raced across the track at the Indianapolis 500 to photograph a car that went over a retaining wall.
Life magazine hired Clayton in 1940 as mid-America correspondent, then gave him the responsibility for establishing the Time-Life San Francisco bureau. Clayton coordinated Time-Life's World War II coverage, first in Hawaii, then from a burned-out warehouse in besieged Manila, and later from a fire-bombed industrial plant in Tokyo. He played horseshoes with Admiral Nimitz, interviewed Japanese Crown Prince Akahito, and was on board the U.S.S. Missouri for the historic signing of the 1945 peace treaty ending the war with Japan.
Clayton's wartime work earned recognition from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, General Douglas MacArthur and Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal.
Returning to civilian life, Clayton helped revitalize the cruise ship and hotel business in the Pacific, then came back to Indiana in 1966, successively writing and coordinating media relations for the IU School of Business, the 1970 IU Sesquicentennial celebration, University Relations, and with the former IU News Bureau. Founding editor of the IU Newspaper, the internal publication of the university, he is the author of five communication items placed in the IU Memorial Stadium cornerstone in 1971.
While working for IU, Clayton began a serious sideline study of bread making, an interest that eventually resulted in his 1973 publication, The Complete Book of Breads, a classic cookbook that has sold more than a million copies to date. Featuring recipes from around the world, it also gives tips on equipment, kneading techniques and even building a bread oven. Five other books have followed, from The Complete Book of Pastry to Cooking Across America.
Julie Child called Clayton "the bread missionary -- teaching and writing and giving a great deal of himself to his art." Author Marion Cunningham acknowledged Clayton's books as "classics," and added, "He has set high standards for all of us; his passion and in-depth knowledge of cooking and baking has been a contribution to our profession."
Clayton today continues to cook and write and add even more accomplishments to an already extraordinary list.
For more information, contact Ellen K. Mathia, Office of Communications and Marketing, 812-855-0085 or 812-855-3911, emathia@indiana.edu