51–60 of 128 posts
"Supreme Court member Ruth Bader Ginsburg has an honorary degree from every single Ivy League School, with the exception of Cornell, which doesn’t give them out." ...except for her actual undergrad degree, which is from Cornell. (Hey, when you don't have presidents, you take what you can get. And we'll take RBG over several presidents.)
It's just a way to get some press and maybe some money as well. I doubt anyone would be fooled by the title. I went to Oxford, and the arts undergrads there can get an MA OXON 7 years after matriculation (arts courses are generally 3 years, and you don't do anything other than send in a form to get the Master's). I doubt anyone confuses it with the MEng that I got. Using the title is a poncey thing. The last time I r…
Awarding an honorary degree is analogous to liking a status update on Facebook.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. Another form of brand marketing. I do wonder how/when these started.
It started as a way to recognized important contributions to a field outside of the academic process.
Our university boasts the like of Richard Stallman and supreme court justices!
There should be a distinction between an "honorary" degree awarded because a "real" one would be superfluous (Richard Stallman, Increase Mather, etc) and those awarded because of donations or co-branding.
Stallman is a hugely influential person. He has contributed a great deal to the world of free software. And giving him an honorary degree is a great thing, demonstrating his many accomplishments. But it still really bugs me that he calls himself a PhD, and asks for the title "Dr." (And yes, I have a PhD, on which I worked for 11 years, at great cost to myself and my family. So feel free to take my comments with a gra…
The local Universities in my city award honorary degrees to College principles who sometimes don't have advanced degrees or indeed undergraduate degrees. Further Education colleges have a vocational focus here and people can come up via the vocational route, although that is rare now. The main reason for the award was so the Principal has a funny hat and cloak to wear at graduation time. No-one uses the actual title.
The cynical side of me says that honorary degrees are ways of collecting big-name people so that colleges can claim them as one of their own. Our university boasts the like of Richard Stallman and supreme court justices!
I wanted to walk out when they got to his bit of the ceremony but general cowardliness took over - they might have revoked my degree if I had made a scene!
When he was presented for the applause I did my best to remain seated with my arms folded and a look of disapproval. I observed that over on the other side of the room where the parents were seated, he was getting a standing ovation, while my side of the room could be best described as "polite". No-one (as far I could see) was standing.
Awarding an honorary degree is analogous to liking a status update on Facebook.
Not always, it can also be a very overtly political act. Consider playwright Tony Kushner's honorary degree from a CUNY college, among many others.
(Ineffectual potentially but still political.)
"Supreme Court member Ruth Bader Ginsburg has an honorary degree from every single Ivy League School, with the exception of Cornell, which doesn’t give them out." ...except for her actual undergrad degree, which is from Cornell. (Hey, when you don't have presidents, you take what you can get. And we'll take RBG over several presidents.)
An earned undergraduate degree is not an 'honorary degree'.