Honorary degree
An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases honoris causa or ad honorem. The degree is typically a doctorate or, less commonly, a master's degree, and may be awarded to someone who has no prior connection with the academic institution or no previous postsecondary education. An example of identifying a recipient of this award is as follows: Doctorate in Business Administration.
The degree is often conferred as a way of honouring a distinguished visitor's contributions to a specific field or to society in general.
Honorary doctorates are purely titular degrees in that they confer no rights on the recipient and carry with them no formal academic qualification. As such, it is always expected that such degrees be listed in one's curriculum vitae as an award, and not in the education section. With regard to the use of this honorific, the policies of institutions of higher education generally ask that recipients "refrain from adopting the misleading title" and that a recipient of an honorary doctorate should restrict the use of the title "Dr" before their name to any engagement with the institution of higher education in question and not within the broader community.
Historical origins
The practice dates back to the Middle Ages, when for various reasons a university might be persuaded, or otherwise see fit, to grant exemption from some or all of the usual statutory requirements for the award of a degree. The earliest honorary degree on record was awarded to Lionel Woodville in the late 1470s by the University of Oxford. He later became Bishop of Salisbury.In the late 16th century, the granting of honorary degrees became quite common, especially on the occasion of royal visits to Oxford or Cambridge. On the visit of James I to Oxford in 1605, for example, forty-three members of his retinue received the degree of Master of Arts, and the Register of Convocation explicitly states that these were full degrees, carrying the usual privileges, such as voting rights in Convocation and Congregation.
There were also some special cases: for example the critic John Ruskin suffered a physical or mental breakdown in 1840 and dropped out of the University of Oxford. He returned to Oxford in 1842, and sat a single exam, and was awarded an honorary fourth-class degree.
In the United States, the Doctor of Philosophy degree was first conferred as an honorary degree at Bucknell University in 1852 and in 1861 Yale University awarded the first earned Ph.D., becoming the first American university to do so. Over one hundred institutions in the United States conferred honorary Ph.D. degrees in the 19th century, to more than seven hundred recipients. However, the practice of awarding the Ph.D. as an honorary degree drew condemnation from organizations such as the American Philological Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the board of regents of the University of the State of New York prohibited any university in the state from conferring an honorary Ph.D. effective in 1897. The number of honorary Ph.D. degrees awarded in the U.S. declined in the 20th century, and surveys by the United States Office of Education found none conferred in 1940 or later years. One of the last known recipients of an honorary Ph.D. was singer Bing Crosby, from Gonzaga University in 1937.
By 2001, about 21 U.S. states had begun allowing public schools to grant honorary high school diplomas to military veterans under a program called "Operation Recognition". In Ohio, it was unclear whether public schools had the legal authority to grant them until 12 July 2001, when Governor Bob Taft signed a bill allowing public school districts to grant them to honorably discharged veterans of World War II. Lakota East High School is believed to have awarded the first such diplomas to a group of 20 veterans in May of that year.
Modern practice
Honorary degrees are usually awarded at regular graduation ceremonies, at which the recipients are often invited to make a speech of acceptance before the assembled faculty and graduates—an event which often forms the highlight of the ceremony. Generally, universities nominate several persons each year for honorary degrees; these nominations usually go through several committees before receiving approval. Nominees are generally not told until a formal approval and invitation are made; often it is perceived that the system is shrouded in secrecy, and occasionally seen as political and controversial. On occasion, organisations have been awarded honorary doctorates.Honoris causa degrees are not considered of the same standing as substantive degrees earned by the standard academic processes of courses and original research, except perhaps where the recipient has demonstrated an appropriate level of academic scholarship that would ordinarily qualify them for the award of a substantive degree. Recipients of honorary degrees typically wear the same academic dress as recipients of substantive degrees, although there are a few exceptions: honorary graduates at the University of Cambridge wear the appropriate full-dress gown but not the hood, and those at the University of St Andrews wear a black cassock instead of the usual full-dress gown.
Although higher doctorates such as Doctor of Science, Doctor of Letters, etc. are often awarded honoris causa, in some countries it is formally possible to earn such a degree as a substantive one. This typically involves the submission of a portfolio of peer-refereed research, usually undertaken over a number of years, which has made a substantial contribution to the academic field in question. The university will appoint a panel of examiners who will consider the case and prepare a report recommending whether or not the degree be awarded. Usually, the applicant must have some strong formal connection with the university in question, for example full-time academic staff, or graduates of several years' standing.
Some universities, seeking to differentiate between substantive and honorary doctorates, have a degree which is used for these purposes, with the other higher doctorates reserved for formally examined academic scholarship.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has the authority to award degrees. These "Lambeth degrees" are sometimes, erroneously, thought to be honorary; however the archbishops have for many centuries had the legal authority, to award degrees and regularly do so to people who have either passed an examination or are deemed to have satisfied the appropriate requirements.
Between the two extremes of honouring celebrities and formally assessing a portfolio of research, some universities use honorary degrees to recognise achievements of intellectual rigour. Some institutes of higher education do not confer honorary degrees as a matter of policy—see [|below]. Some learned societies award honorary fellowships in the same way as honorary degrees are awarded by universities, for similar reasons.
Practical use
A typical example of university regulations is, "Honorary graduates may use the approved post-nominal letters. It is not customary, however, for recipients of an honorary doctorate to adopt the prefix 'Dr. It is generally considered improper practice for an honorary doctor to use the formal title of "Doctor," regardless of the background circumstances for the award. Written communications where an honorary doctorate has been awarded may include the letters "h.c." after the award to indicate that status.The recipient of an honorary degree may add the degree title postnominally, but it should always be made clear that the degree is honorary by adding "honorary" or "honoris causa" or "h.c." in parentheses after the degree title. In some countries, a person who holds an honorary doctorate may use the title "Doctor" prenominally, abbreviated "Dr.h.c." or "Dr.". Sometimes, they use "Hon" before the degree letters, for example, "Hon DMus".
In recent years, some universities have adopted entirely separate postnominal titles for honorary degrees. This is in part due to the confusion that honorary degrees have caused. For example, an honorary doctorate from the Auckland University of Technology takes the special title HonD since it is now common in certain countries to use certain degrees, such as LLD or HonD, as purely honorary. Some universities, including the Open University, grant Doctor of the University degrees to selected nominees, while awarding PhD or EdD degrees to those who have fulfilled the academic requirements.
Most American universities award the degrees of LLD, LittD, LHD, ScD, PedD and DD only as honorary degrees. American universities do not have the system of "higher doctorates" used in the UK and some other universities around the world.
Customary degrees (''ad eundem'' or ''jure officii'' degrees)
An ad eundem or jure officii degree is sometimes considered honorary, although these are only conferred on an individual who has already achieved a comparable qualification at another university or attained an office requiring the appropriate level of scholarship.Some universities and colleges have the custom of awarding a master's degree to every scholar appointed as a full professor, who had never earned a degree there. At the universities of Oxford, Dublin and Cambridge, many senior staff are granted the degree of Master of Arts after three years of service.
In the United States, at Amherst, Wesleyan, and Yale, the AM ad eundem degree is conferred upon those who rise to the rank of full professor. At Brown and Harvard the degrees are awarded to those faculty who are granted tenure and the rank of associate professor, usually after approximately eight years of service to the university as an assistant professor or for a shorter amount of time for a professor with prior service at another university.
Similarly, a jure dignitatis degree is awarded to someone who has demonstrated eminence and scholarship by being appointed to a particular office. Thus, for example, a DD might be conferred upon a bishop on the occasion of his consecration, or a judge created LLD or DCL upon their appointment to the judicial bench.