James Patterson, Don Rice to Receive UA Honorary Degrees

James Patterson, America’s best-selling author, will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree, and Don Rice, an innovative Wall Street entrepreneur, will receive an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree from the University of Arkansas.

The event will take place at the fall commencement ceremony on Saturday, Dec. 19, at 9 a.m. inside Bud Walton Arena.

Patterson began his career as a novelist in 1976, winning the Edgar Award for Best First Novel by an American Author. He continued to be recognized for his achievements and later held the Guinness World Record for the most No. 1 New York Times bestsellers.

The UA is one of 24 schools where Patterson established the James Patterson Teacher Education Scholarship Fund. His donation in 2013 provided eight $6,000 scholarships to elementary or secondary education majors in the College of Education and Health Professions.

Rice began his career in the financial sector in 1985, working for Merrill Lynch as a founding member of the company’s municipal derivatives products group which created products to reduce borrowing costs for state and local governments.

He pioneered a technique for re-funding municipal debt that later became a common Wall Street practice, and later developed several other new financing products and techniques.

In 1993, he formed Rice Financial Products Co., with a focus on derivative-based borrowing for municipal governments. Today, Rice Financial Products is involved in 10 percent of the state and local government borrowing done in America, and has distinguished itself as the largest financier for historically black colleges and universities.