Washington Post reporter David Broder, a Pulitzer Prize-winning political correspondent, will receive an honorary doctorate of laws degree from Ball State May 6 during spring commencement ceremonies. The Ball State Board of Trustees approved Broder's doctorate during its Jan. 27 meeting. He was nominated by the College of Communication, Information, and Media for his distinguished achievement in journalism, and the nomination was supported by Deborah Balogh, interim provost.

A national correspondent reporting on the political scene for The Washington Post, Broder is widely recognized as the preeminent political journalist in America. He writes a twice-weekly, nationally syndicated column that is carried by more than 300 newspapers across the globe. 

He is also familiar to millions of Americans as a regular interviewer on NBC's "Meet the Press" and as a panelist on PBS's "Washington Week in Review."

Born in Chicago Heights, Ill., he earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in political science from the University of Chicago. He has been a fellow of the Institute of Politics of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and a fellow of the Institute of Policy Sciences and Public Affairs at Duke University. Broder also is the author or coauthor of six books, including "The System: The American Way of Politics at the Breaking Point" and "Changing of the Guard: Power and Leadership in America." 

Broder has received many awards for his work, including the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary, the White Burkett Miller Presidential Award and the prestigious Fourth Estate Award from the National Press Foundation. He was named "Washington's most highly regarded columnist" by Congressional members in a Washingtonian magazine survey and "best newspaper political reporter" by the Washington Journalism Review. 

Broder began his newspaper career at the Bloomington (Ill.) Pantagraph. Before joining the Post in 1966, he covered national politics for The New York Times, Washington Star and Congressional Quarterly. He has covered every national campaign and convention since 1960, traveling up to 100,000 miles a year to interview voters and report on the candidates.