The UT Board of Trustees approved a proposal Wednesday to award a UT Knoxville honorary degree to Jon E. Meacham, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer, editor, and scholar.
Meacham will receive a Doctor of Humane Letters during commencement in December.
A native of Chattanooga, Meacham is currently the executive editor and executive vice president of Random House Publishing. He has been the editor of Newsweek and a writer for the New York Times and Washington Post. He is a fellow of the Society of American Historians and has served as a distinguished visiting professor of political science at Vanderbilt University.
Three of his five books have been number one on the New York Times best-seller list: American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship, and Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power.
He was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 2009 for American Lion.
Meacham serves on several boards, including those of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, the Andrew Jackson Foundation, the McCallie School, and Harpeth Hall School.