Also scheduled to receive honorary degrees are Paul Marks, physician and former cancer center president; Judith Jamison, dancer and artistic director of Alvin Ailey Dance Theater; and Oscar Schachter, Fish Professor Emeritus of International law and Diplomacy at Columbia. Judge Rolando Tomas Acosta, Civil Court of the City of New York, will receive the University medal for excellence, which is given each year to a Columbia alumnus who has made significant contributions to society.

In addition to the awarding of honorary degrees, more than 9,200 Columbia students will graduate before tens of thousands of their family and friends during a ceremony that will begin at 10:30 A.M. on Low Library Plaza at the center of the Morningside Heights campus, Broadway and 116th Street.

Robert Rubin, chairman of the executive committee of the board and co-chairman of Citigroup Inc., and former Secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton Administration, will receive a Doctor of Laws degree. A highly successful financier in the private sector, Rubin used his considerable talents as a public servant to help spur a lasting boom in the U.S. economy.

Rubin left Goldman Sachs & Co., where he was co-senior partner and co-chairman, in 1993 to become assistant to President Clinton for economic policy. As head of the National Economic Council, he served as the President's chief liaison to Wall Street. He headed the administration's task force on derivatives, worked to secure the passage of the North American Free Agreement (NAFTA) and argued articulately for steep deficit reductions in President Clinton's early budgets.

Named Secretary of the Treasury in 1995, Rubin was a staunch defender of a strong U.S. dollar and of trade balance, and is credited for many of the Clinton Administration's economic policies, including budget cuts and helping to deal with the financial crisis in Asia.

Rubin received an A.B. degree summa cum laude from Harvard University, did post-graduate at work the London School of Economics, and earned his law degree from Yale University.

Martti Ahtisaari, a career diplomat and senior United Nations officer who was elected president of Finland in 1994, will receive a Doctor of Laws degree. Ahtisaari was a key mediator during the conflict in Kosovo in June 1999, playing a pivotal role in getting the Russians to fully back NATO's efforts in Kosovo and in convincing Slobodan Milosevic to accept the peace plan.

Ahtisaari, a graduate of the University of Oulu, Finland, joined the Finish Ministry for Foreign Affairs in 1965. He later served as Finland's ambassador to Tanzania and eventually became Finland's Secretary of State. During his distinguished career with the United Nations, he served as commissioner for Namibia and Under-Secretary General for Administration and Management, and held several UN posts dealing with the conflict in the former Yugoslavia.

David Ho, research physician and virologist, will receive a Doctor of Science Degree. Ho, who was Time Magazine's Person of the Year in 1996, overturned the common assumption that the HIV virus remains dormant for up to 10 years in a person before it develops into AIDS. His recognition that the virus is extremely active right from the beginning of infection led him to initiate the deployment of a combination of drugs to overpower the virus.

Ho, who was educated at MIT, Cal Tech and the Harvard Medical School, is director of the Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York.

Judith Jamison, award-winning dancer and artistic director of the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater and the Ailey School, will receive a Doctor of Arts degree. Since assuming her current position in 1989, Jamison has guided the Ailey organization in new creative directions. As head of the Ailey School, she has implemented innovative curricula, including one that trains students in West African dance, and has institutionalized programs that nurture the development of young artists.

She has extended the Ailey organization's reach by establishing Ailey camps in Boston and Philadelphia.

Paul Marks, one of the outstanding leaders of academic medical research in the United States, will receive a Doctor of Science degree. Marks is a graduate of Columbia College and Columbia's College of Physicians and Surgeons, where, from 1952-1980, he was professor and chair of the Department of Human Genetics and Development, vice president for medical affairs and dean of the faculty of medicine, vice president of health sciences, and director of the Cancer Research Center.

From 1980 to 1999, he was president and CEO of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and since 1980 he has served as an adjunct professor at Rockefeller University and visiting physician at Rockefeller University Hospital.

Oscar Schachter, Fish Professor Emeritus of International law and Diplomacy at Columbia, will receive a Doctor of Laws degree. A graduate of the City College of New York and the Columbia Law School, Schachter was a visiting lecturer at the Yale Law School from 1956-70, and served the United Nations from 1944 to 1993 in a number of capacities including working for the UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, directing the UN legal department and serving as advisor to the Committee on Transnational Corporations.

Rolando Tomas Acosta, judge, Civil Court of the City of New York, will receive the University Medal for Excellence. Elected to a civil court judgeship in 1997, Acosta had previously worked for the City of New York as deputy commissioner for law enforcement, first deputy commissioner and commissioner of human rights. His many community and civic activities include serving on the boards of the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone, Latino Commission on AIDS, Hispanic Federation of New York City and New York Immigration Coalition.

Columbia, a member of the Ivy league, was founded in 1754, making the university the oldest institution of higher education in New York and the fifth oldest in the country.