The University of Colombo will be holding its Academic Sessions for the year 2000 from the 4th to the 10th of December, 2000. It has already scheduled a monthly public lecture series as part of the year 2000 Celebrations. The inaugural lecture in this series was delivered by Professor Colvin Gunaratne, Professor of Physiology, on 3rd October, 2000, on the theme ‘ Supplying Western Medicinal Drugs for the People’. It is hoped that the academic sessions and the public lecture series will be sustained as events on the University calendar each year.

The Academic Sessions will be inaugurated with the Millennium Lecture, scheduled for 5.30 p.m. on 4th December, 2000 at the BMICH in Colombo. The Millennium Lecture will be delivered by a distinguished jurist with wide judicial experience on the theme ‘Human Rights in the New Millennium’.

This lecture will be followed by several events. Professor R. Jayasekare, Professor of Anatomy, will deliver the first in a series of inaugural lectures of new Professors appointed in the academic year 1999-2000. A policy dialogue on Higher Education has been scheduled for 6th December at 11.00 a.m. Professor R. P. Gunawardene, Secretary, Ministry of Higher Education and Information Technology, will deliver the keynote address. This address will be followed by brief responses of several speakers representing a variety of disciplines, and an open discussion. It is hoped that this dialogue will attract interest as an event that will raise key issues on reforms in the university system.

The substantive academic sessions of the faculties of Medicine and Science will continue through the week.

The annual convocation of the University of Colombo will be held on 29th and 30th November, 2000. The Senate of the University has decided to confer honorary degrees on several scholars who have made an outstanding contribution at the national, regional and international level. Justice Dr. A. R. B. Amerasinghe will be awarded the degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa. Former Professor of Sociology, and Dean Professor Laksiri Jayasuriya and former Professor of Education and Emeritus Professor Swarna Jayaweera will be awarded the degree of Doctor of Letters honoris causa. Dr. Kamini Mendis, former Professor of Parasitology in the faculty of Medicine will be awarded the degree of Doctor of Science honoris causa. The late Professor S.W. Bibile, Professor of Pharmacology, University of Colombo and late Dr. Neelan Tiruchelvam, President’s Counsel and Visiting Fellow, Harvard Law School will be honoured with the degrees of Doctor of Science and Doctor of Laws honoris causa posthumously.

The Year 2000 Convocation will be held in three sessions on the 29th and 30th November, and degrees in the faculties of Arts, Medicine, Science, Education, Law and Management & Finance will be awarded to 1980 graduands.