Today, the University of Virginia does not give an honorary degree but provides a Tomas with Jefferson Endowment Medal, a distinction entirely divorced from any connection to the Ph.D.
Celebrities are given honorary degrees to help the college share in the celebrity’s name and appeal. When a college offers an honorary degree to a star, it increases the likelihood that the superstar will notice and endorse the college – thereby raising its prestige.
The yearly collegiate tradition of bestowing honorary degrees has a long history and has had its fair share of critics, including Thomas Jefferson. He prohibited the University of Virginia, founded in 1819, from bestowing honorary degrees to curry favor with the prominent businessman and political figure Thomas Jefferson.
American colleges and universities borrowed the tradition of honorary degrees from Europe, where esteemed universities such as Oxford and Cambridge had been awarding doctoral degrees on paper at ceremonies called Encaenias (festivals of renewal) since the 15th century.
The History of Honorary Degrees
Scanning historical databases at multiple Ivy League schools, honorary degrees are awarded disproportionately to not too influential scientists, engineers, or historians but to pop cultural icons, high-profile political figures, and wealthy businesspeople.
Often, universities offer a degree to a pop culture icon in exchange for speaking at their graduation ceremonies. For instance, in the U.S., universities will often give honorary degrees to the main speakers at their commencement ceremonies, chosen because of their celebrity and presentation skills.
Typically, universities and colleges have nominating systems and boards to help vet those awarded, meaning that no single person is responsible for deciding who gets the honorary degree. In rare cases, honorary doctorate recipients may partner with the university awarding the honor, to teach a class or make a presentation, but do not hold teaching credentials, says Dr. Julie Vollman.
While universities may award celebrities and other notable individuals honorary doctorates, these degrees carry no academic weight. According to the University of British Columbia, individuals receiving an honorary doctorate are not expected to use the title of a doctor outside the ceremony of awarding it or during a formal presentation unless used by the university that conferred the honor.
The Faux Nature of Honorary Degrees
According to scores of university policy statements reviewed by Warren Throckmorton, professor of psychology at Grove City College, there is general agreement that honorary doctorates do not confer recipients the right or privilege to refer to themselves as Doctors.
For instance, the Honorary Doctorate of Auckland University of Technology takes a specific title, HonD, because, in some countries, it is now customary to use some degrees, like an LLD or HonD, as solely honorary. Honorary Doctorates are degrees awarded by a university to someone as a reward for achievement, without them having actually completed the course – or even setting foot on a university campus.
Over three centuries, Yale has awarded 2,805 Honorary Doctorate degrees. Even when celebrities are not taking classes and doing no research, stars are frequently awarded an honorary degree for their work and impact on a particular field. Joining thousands of American Ph.D. students, celebrities, and business moguls–Mike Tyson, Kylie Minogue, Oprah, Ben Affleck, and Bill Gates, among others–flock to university campuses to be awarded an Honorary Doctorate Degree.
Degrees Are Dropping in Value
Perhaps more this year than any, thousands of students’ biggest days are at risk of being tarnished and their achievements diminished by universities growing obsession with doling out honorary degrees to well-known faces and turning the commencement ceremonies into star-studded affairs. Indeed, with graduation season only two weeks away, college officials are facing accusations that their overuse of honorary degrees is turning them into little more than carefully choreographed marketing exercises for a publicity boost.
Between two extremes, honoring celebrities and officially adjudicating research portfolios, some universities use honorary degrees to acknowledge achievements in intellectual rigor. In addition to patting wealthy donors on the intellectual ego, many universities view the honorary-degree process as an opportunity to get a little free publicity.
The University of Oxford is also planning a stricter screening process for prospective honorary degree recipients, seeking to correct a trend that has seen degrees awarded to celebrities. Cornell University had not granted any since the time of the Second Graduation Ceremony when president Andrew Dickinson White stated honorary degrees diminish the value of actual degrees earned by students. Six years ago, Edinburgh University decided to withdraw a degree Edinburgh awarded Zimbabwean president and international pariah Robert Mugabe for services to education in Africa in 1984.
The Origins of Honorary Degrees
Universities in England began to grant “honors causa” degrees for honor, the first awarded to a future bishop of Salisbury, in Oxford, in 1470. Harvard claims it awarded the first honorary degree to Benjamin Franklin in 1753, while neighboring Brandeis University–which naturally must be more aware of Harvard’s history than Harvard–says that the first such degree was granted to Increase Mater in 1692.
While Harvard traditionally awarded two or three honorary degrees annually, it now regularly awards nine or 10. Honorary degrees are the highest-ranking honors the university can bestow, and the celebrities who present them are alumni of the universities cohort at the time. Honorary degrees are academic awards universities give individuals for outstanding contributions to society or lifelong achievements in their fields.
Some universities, seeking to distinguish substantive degrees from honorary ones, have one type of degree (often DUniv or Doctor of University) used for such purposes. In contrast, the other higher degrees are reserved for formal examinations of literary scholarship.
At the universities of Oxford, Dublin, and Cambridge, many senior faculty members are awarded a master of arts after three years of service. At Amherst College, all full-time faculty members are awarded a master’s degree during the fall academic convocation. However, the school offers only an earned bachelor’s degree (Amherst awards honorary doctorates during commencement in spring to distinguished scholars and other unique invitations). Becoming a Doctor of Philosophy is the highest honor universities may bestow on their students.
