What is an Honorary Degree?
A honorary degree is a college degree which is awarded to someone who has not fulfilled the requirements for graduation. Generally, honorary degrees are used to recognize someone’s significant contributions to the academic institution which grants the degree, or the community in general. Some colleges present honorary degrees at commencement ceremonies, while others may hold special ceremonies for the recipients of honorary degrees. At the presentation, the recipient usually makes a speech, and the speech may be a major part of the occasion. The tradition of granting a degree honoris causa or “for the sake of honor” dates to the Middle Ages, when some institutions of higher learning decided to grant honorary degrees to individuals of the community as a mark of honor and respect. In some cases, the degree was clearly used as a reward for granting funds, lands, or other gifts to the community, while in other instances such degrees were awarded for accomplishments, such as developing new
What do Sir Edmund Hillary, Oscar Peterson, Silken Laumann, Pierre Berton and Atom Egoyan all have in common? They re among the 265 artists, scientists, educators, musicians, historians, community workers, politicians, athletes, business leaders, civil rights activists, philanthropists and other lifetime achievers who hold an honorary degree from the University of Victoria. Honorary degrees have been awarded at UVic since its inaugural Convocation in 1964, and are the highest honour the university can give for distinguished achievement in scholarship, research, teaching, the creative arts and public service. Senate confers honorary degrees based on the recommendations of a nine-member committee on honorary degrees and other forms of recognition. That committee, in turn, bases its selections on nominations invited from UVic faculty, staff, students and alumni. Each year, the committee reviews approximately a dozen nominations and those that aren t successful are put in a pool for future
It is a bit like the riddle: What is highly-valued but worth nothing? George Best now has an honorary degree Apart from getting you invited to a rather nice ceremony and sherry afterwards with the vice-chancellor, an honorary degree is just that, purely “honorary”. As David Hockney reportedly said after receiving an honorary doctorate, it doesn’t even allow you to write prescriptions for your own drugs. But if an honour is scattered too widely, and given for the wrong reasons, there is a danger that there will cease to be anything valuable or honourable about it. Honorary degrees have been around a long time. Cambridge gave one of the first in 1493 when it honoured the poet, John Skelton. Changing values For years the tradition was to honour members of the Royal Family, prime ministers, and others with a distinguished record in public service, science or the arts. But more recently there has been a trend to offer honorary degrees to people who are either wealthy or influential, or both
