Three to receive honorary degrees during BSC's commencement

For Immediate Release
May. 13, 2019

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.—Birmingham-Southern College will grant three honorary degrees in addition to more than 300 undergraduate degrees at its 160th spring commencement ceremony at 9 a.m. Friday, May 24 in Bill Battle Coliseum on campus.

The honorary degree recipients, who have devoted their lives to service and the betterment of humanity, are Edward L. Hardin, Jr. ’62, Birmingham attorney, retired executive-vice president and general counsel of CaremarkRx, Inc. (1998-2006), of counsel with the law firm of Burr & Forman LLP (2007-18), and BSC trustee (2005-17); Dr. Sena Jeter Naslund ’64, author, professor, and 2005-06 Kentucky Poet Laureate; and Frank Stitt III, James Beard Award-winning restaurateur.

Hardin will receive an honorary Doctor of Laws for his distinguished career in the law and health care communities and for his generous support of his alma mater. He served as executive vice president and general counsel of CaremarkRx from 1998 until the company merged with CVS in March 2006.

Hardin is listed as one of The Best Lawyers in America in the areas of commercial litigation and insurance law and is a member of the American Health Lawyers Association. He has been recognized as a diplomat and life fellow of the American Board of Trial Advocates, trustee of its foundation, and has served as a member of its national board. He also served as the president of the southeastern chapters of the American Board of Trial Advocates.

Many civic activities decorate Hardin’s years in the legal and health care communities. Most notable is his active participation on The Woodrow Wilson Council, a private-sector advisory group to the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. He is a founding member of the board of directors for the American Sports Medicine Institute. Since 1982, Hardin has served as chair of the board of directors of COSPO, a charitable foundation that has provided funds for college educations for 17 children of Birmingham police officers killed in the line of duty.

He served on the BSC Board of Trustees from 2005-16. A generous supporter of the college, Hardin helped establish the Hardin-Churchill Endowed Travel Award, which provides funds for a Birmingham-Southern student to study at the Churchill Archive Center at the University of Cambridge, and sponsors multiple BSC events at his Birmingham restaurant, Galley and Garden. He received his law degree from the University of Alabama School of Law, where he funded a scholarship for BSC graduates. He and his wife, Lila Manor Hardin ’63, have four children, including Caroline Hardin Butler ’89.

Naslund will receive an honorary Doctor of Letters to acknowledge her exemplary accomplishments as a fiction writer. Naslund published her ninth book, The Fountain of St. James Court; or, Portrait of the Artist as an Old Woman, in 2013. Her books have been national bestsellers and/or selected as Notable/Best Books of the year by major newspapers such as the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Time magazine, and translated into many languages, including Spanish, German, Japanese, Hebrew, and Greek.

After graduating from BSC with a degree in English and as recipient of the B.B. Comer Medal in English, Naslund was accepted at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa, where she earned the master’s and Ph.D. degrees in creative writing. In 1971 she was hired as a visiting professor in the MFA program at the University of Montana. The following year, Naslund accepted a teaching position at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, where she directed the creative writing program and was awarded the university’s first Distinguished Teaching Professor honor. She has also served as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Montevallo University (Paschal Vacca Chair) and twice as a Distinguished Eminent Professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

Naslund recently retired as writer-in-residence at the University of Louisville and as founding program director of the Spalding University brief-residency MFA in writing; she also served as Kentucky Poet Laureate, 2005-2006. Her novels, Ahab’s Wife and Four Spirits (set in Birmingham), were each named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Other best-sellers include Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette and Sherlock in Love. Her fiction has been published in many journals and has won the Harper Lee Award and the Southeastern Library Association Fiction Award. Naslund received BSC’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 2004.

Stitt will receive an honorary Doctor of Laws in recognition of his extraordinary contribution to the city’s culinary culture. Known as the “Godfather of Southern cuisine,” he is the owner and executive chef of Highlands Bar and Grill, Bottega Restaurant, Bottega Cafe, and Chez Fon Fon in Birmingham. He was inducted into the James Beard Foundation’s “Who’s Who of Food and Beverage” in 2011.

After learning and honing his kitchen skills in various Bay Area restaurants, he was allowed into the kitchen of the now legendary Chez Panisse. Afterward, Stitt was able to work throughout the French countryside and in the Caribbean before returning to Alabama. He opened his first restaurant, Highlands Bar & Grill in Birmingham in 1982. Highlands was an immediate success, and he soon after opened Bottega and Café Bottega. In 2000, he opened Chez Fonfon.

A nine-time James Beard nominee, Stitt received its title for Best Chef of the Southeast in 2001 and was a finalist for its national “Outstanding Chef” award. His flagship restaurant Highlands Bar and Grill was selected the winner of the “Outstanding Restaurant” national award in 2018. His pastry chef, Dolester Miles, was the winner of “Outstanding Pastry Chef” that same year.

A native of Cullman, Stitt went on to pursue a bachelor's degree in political science at Tufts University in Massachusetts, but transferred to the University of California, Berkeley, to major in philosophy with the intent of practicing law. It was through philosophical treatises on food by authors such as Richard Olney and Elizabeth David that he developed an interest in cooking.

Stitt and his wife, Pardis — who attended BSC and is co-owner and operator of the four restaurants — have been recognized by many publications and have won numerous national culinary awards. His first cookbook, Frank Stitt’s Southern Table has been a best-seller and was named “Best Cookbook” for 2005 by the Southern Booksellers Association. Stitt was inducted into the Alabama Academy of Honor in 2009.