Honorary degrees

University of Exeter

DD: Desmond Tutu, archbishop, prominent anti-apartheid campaigner, chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa.

DLitt: Bridget Riley, artist; Joyce Youings, historian, the university's first female professor.

DSc: Hugh Allen, mining engineer and academic, former president of the Institute of Mining and Metallurgy; Donald Irvine, president of the General Medical Council.

LLD: Eddie George, governor of the Bank of England; David Tweedie, chairman of the Accounting Standards Board; Mary Holborrow, lord lieutenant of Cornwall; Brian Rix, chairman of Mencap; Tadeusz Mazowiecki, former prime minister of Poland.

University of Portsmouth

DLitt: Alberto Aza, Spanish ambassador who has held posts in Algiers, Rome, Lisbon, Washington and Mexico, ambassador to the UK since 1992; Frank Judd, director of Oxfam, freeman of the City of Portsmouth; James Mirrlees, Nobel laureate and professor of political economics, University of Cambridge.

DSc: Patrick Moore, astronomer, presenter of The Sky At Night since 1957.

LLD: John Hoddinott, chief constable of Hampshire, chairman of the International Advisory Board for the Institute of Police and Criminological Studies; Charles Tidbury, chairman of Whitbread 19780-84, director of the Centre for Policy Studies 1988-89, Trustee of the National Maritime Museum.

University of Nottingham

DLitt: Trevor McDonald, broadcaster and journalist; Michael Grade, former chief executive of Channel Four Television; Ruth Mackenzie, executive director of Nottingham Playhouse, who has been appointed general director of Scottish Opera; Harold Garfinkel, professor of sociology, University of California.

DSc: Harold Kroto, Nobel laureate in chemistry and physics, University of Sussex; Gordon McVie, director general of the Cancer Research Campaign; John MacKenzie, secretary general of the World Federation of Engineering Organisations; Martin Wood, founder of Oxford Instruments.

LLD: Brenda Gourley, vice chancellor and principal of the University of Natal, South Africa; William Purves, group chairman of HSBC Holdings; Richard Sykes, chairman and chief executive of Glaxo Wellcome plc.

DMus: Colin and David Matthews, composers and graduates of the university.

Noticeboard is compiled by Lynne Williams. For further information see NetGazette on http://thesis.newsint.co.uk