Houghton College Grants Honorary Degree to J. Brady Anderson

HOUGHTON, N.Y. —J. Brady Anderson received an honorary doctor of humane letters degree from Houghton College during the college’s commencement exercises, at which he gave the address.  

Presently Anderson is an investor in small businesses, a consultant in international affairs, a member of the Council of American Ambassadors, vice chairman of the board of World Vision, and chairman of the board of Wycliffe Bible Translators.  

In 1994 he was appointed by President Clinton to be the United States Ambassador to Tanzania, a three year diplomatic assignment in Dar es Salaam. In 1998 Clinton appointed him to be the administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).  

As the head of USAID, Anderson directed programs of crisis relief and long-term development in 80 countries. Anderson’s priorities were increasing emphasis on democracy-promotion with special concern in the Balkans; managing a deepening relationship with Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority as a continuation of the Middle East Peace Process; placing growing resources into the HIV/Aids pandemic in Africa; and seeking ways to achieve a more accurate understanding by the American public of the costs, purposes and methods of the U.S. foreign aid program. He was an advisor to the Secretary of State and to the National Security Advisor on development and security policies in the developing world. He also served as chairman of the board of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, created by Congress to encourage U.S. private investment in developing countries.

For eight years, Anderson and his wife, Betty Wray Anderson, lived and worked in Africa where they conducted sociolinguistics research in indigenous African languages for the Summer Institute of Linguistics. They also worked in Nairobi, Kenya and in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where they assisted the Ethiopian Ministry of Education in the creation of a national bilingual education program in 17 languages.  

Anderson holds a bachelor’s from Rhodes College. After a short but career-influencing stint in the office of former U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright, Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, he served in the U.S. Navy, earning the Vietnam Service Medal and Navy Commendation Medal. In 1973 he graduated from the University of Arkansas School of Law. He has engaged in the private practice of law, clerked for a Federal judge and served as assistant Attorney General and assistant to then Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas.