Question. Can colleges/universities that ordinarily confer only associates,bachelors and masters degrees, confer honorary doctorates to commencement speakers,donors,distinguished persons etc.? If so what's the deal? Do they just print up a few for commencement? Weird!
The world of honorary doctorates is a strange one, and well-chonicled in Bears' Guides. A story: National University practically created the compressed academic term as a central business model for universities. The school's founding purpose was to bring practical degree programs to working professionals, fitting classes into busy work schedules. To do this the school established the one-course-per-month model. This literally created a 12-semester year! In order to keep up with all of that activity--and to allow students and staff to enter enrollments, course changes, withdrawals, etc. in real time--National developed quite possibly the most advanced database managements system in higher education at the time (late 1970's). Several NU faculty members worked on the project. Their reward: Doctor of Science degrees. Only one snag: National didn't have doctoral programs! Before National was accredited it was California-approved. The school was approved to award degrees from the associate's through the doctorate. They did award doctoral degrees up until their accreditation by WASC, when the school dropped the doctoral programs. (Likely, they dropped them as a condition of candidacy.) But the state approval continued. When the faculty members completed their computer project, they wrote dissertations--not much more than a summary of the project plus a literature review and received their Doctor of Science degrees. How to get around WASC, which didn't allow NU to award earned doctorates? Make them "honorary." But I never saw one listing of their doctorates include any indication that the degrees were honorary. The school--and, I'm sure, the recipients--treated them as earned. Rich Douglas
I was on an interesting (to me, anyway) panel on the Canadian program TalkTV this week (see www.talktv.ca), on honorary doctorates. The other panelists were the hostess of the Canadian version of "Do You Want to be a Millionarie" (who has four honoraries and is very proud of them), the man in charge of choosing recipients for a major university (York), and an activist student who found the whole notion awfully silly. Of the four reasons schools give them out (raising money, attracting celebrities to campus, honoring genuine academics, or making political statements), York is rare in doing only the third, it seems. The student seemed pleased when I quoted the remarks of a student at Southampton College, on the occasion of Kermit the Frog receiving a Doctor of Amphibious Letters from her school and making the commencement speech. Samantha Chie said, "After five years of hard work, now we have a sock talking at our commencement. It's kind of upsetting." The Canadians seemed divided on the merit of the recent creating of Dr. Wayne Gretzky. Other recent ones include Dr. Bob Dylan, Dr. Sting, Dr. Julia Butterfly Hill, Dr. Lennox Lewis, Dr. Placido Domingo, and Dr. Art Linkletter. I haven't yet looked into the 2001 crop, who would be receiving them right around now. If you come upon any of interest, perhaps you'd post it here, and/or let me know directly. John Bear [email protected]
Here are a few: Monmouth University Jon Bon Jovi Quinnipiac University George M. Steinbrenner, principal owner of the New York Yankees State University of New York Maritime College Sebastian Junger, author The Perfect Storm George Washington University Tony Bennett and others Queen's University former US President Bill Clinton University of Glasgow Prince Charles And Martin Sheen's shooting schedule for "The West Wing" kept him from attending Antioch College's commencement to receive an honorary degree. http://www.concordmonitor.com/stories/a&e/people_15y25y26.shtml ------------------ Kristin Evenson Hirst DistanceLearn.About.com
All very interesting, but has anyone ever heard of an RA community college awarding one? I seem to recall this happened at several in my area.How kosher is it if true? Just curious. I suppose if someone donated a couple of million to a community college they could then expand their campus and degree programs and then doctor the donor! Cheers
Yes, community colleges do this fairly often. Typically (but not exclusively) they do it within the community -- the honorary degree to the 76-year-old high school dropout who made good, the local businessperson who donated his/her time to teach courses with little or no pay, that kind of thing. And then there was the mysterious Holy Cross Junior College in Wisconsin, which suddenly was offering Doctorates, primarily to school administrators in the state. It seems that the original school went bankrupt, and others 'hijacked' the name and whatever recognition it may have had. One must question those administrators. I mean, aren't principals who go about saying their Ph.D. is from a junior college a couple of sandwiches short of a school picnic?
The honorary doctorate has absolutely no academic value, but is basically a certificate of accomplishment for some life achievement, or for donating money to the school awarding the HD. IMO, it is somewhat misleading to use the title "Dr.," if the degree is honorary. The title "Dr." implies that one has completed a given regimen of study, research and writing. Of course, this is only my opinion, and I am sure those who have HD's will probably disagree. But, alas, everyone can't be right, except in a society given to relativism. Russell
It is similar, David. However, ancestor worship usually involves those already deceased, while relativism promotes the worship and veneration of living relatives. In orthodox relativism one can only worship those relatives who are 4th cousins and beyond. No inbreeding allowed! Russell, A Nephew
In Germany, honorary doctors MUST lead (by law) the title "Dr. (h.c.)", and may not lead the "Dr." alone. I think that´s a good way. Isn´t that so in the U.S.?
Assuming all of the C-Span commencement circuit speakers received honorary doctorates, then I'd add George W. Bush (University of Notre Dame); Barbara Bush (this probably isn't her first); and Chris Matthews (at a small Roman Catholic university, but I can't remember which). Peace, ------------------ Tom Head www.tomhead.net
In the US it is fairly common to see (Hon)after degree letters if the degree was awarded honoris causa.It was much more common in the 1800s and early and mid 1900s. I have old books filled with the names of university trustees,scientists etc. all of which held at least one honorary degree,all of them with the apellation (HON). It is also interesting that some US schools awarded a Bachelor of Philosophy (B.Phil.)back then and I wonder if they still exist.Common also was the awarding of honorary M.A. degrees,usually to medical students who held only B.A. or B.Phil. degrees.Medical school of course was three years maximum,more often two,during the Civil War era and consisted mostly of courses on how to saw off a limb quickly so as not to put your patient into shock. Anyway,Germany may have the right idea in having a legal mandate that an honorary degree must be identified as such but I do not think that's the case in America. It's not a law,just a preference of the honorary degree holder. By the way, I tried to get one from a well known private university by donating a bunch of valuable journals to their library,and I had a well placed friend on the faculty. All was discreet,I didn't mention my sinister experiment.They said thank you and reimbursed me for shipping expences! Maybe I'll try again if I win the lottery.
I think that part of that is due to degree inflation. Back in the 19th century doctorates were less common in the US or UK. Only a few schools, patterning themselves off the German research model, even offered them. You routinely saw renowned scholars and professors operating happily with master's degrees. I have a number of scholarly books written in the first half of the 20th century, and many of them were written by MA's who held professorships at major universities. So an honorary doctorate in those days really was an honor. It was something that was awarded for a lifetime of achievement. I can see why so many people were proud of them. They still meant something. Now the situation is different. A doctorate is increasingly a commodity, a union-card for the teaching profession. A masters has lost its purpose and has turned into a super-bachelors, and a bachelors increasingly resembles a 19th century high school diploma. While an honorary doctorate is something for celebrities, activists and sock puppets.
From MuchMoreMusic news, April 4 2001 at http://www.muchmoremusic.com/theloop/summary/ ------------------ Kristin Evenson Hirst DistanceLearn.About.com
I'll never get an honorary doctorate...if I did...it would have to be through the good ole "School of Hard Knocks."
Kristin writes, "We still think the idea of Honorary Degrees are ridiculous but at least they're in music this time. Usually it's like ... oh you're an actor! Please accept this Honorary Doctorate of Palaeontology." Indeed. One of my favorites, from long ago, was when Harvard gave an honorary Doctor of Music to an industrialist named Clarence Mackay who had given them a lot of money. When asked about the degree title, Harvard explained that the man's daughter had married Irving Berlin.
One doesn't hear too much about honorary masters degrees, but... A few years ago I was in the Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum in Florida. On display was the honorary masters degree Mr. Ripley received. If memory serves correct it was from from Dartmouth. -- Believe It or Not! John
Two universities that do not gradn Honorary Doctorates: MIT, U of Virginia http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/nr/2001/commdegrees.html
I had always thought that Stanford did not present honorary degrees. Until I saw this: http://www.yiffy.com/siliconvalley/marcan.html If it's on the web it must be true, right?
