Edinburgh University to Cut Back on Honorary Degrees

Edinburgh University, founded in 1582, 54 years before Harvard College, has decided to reign in the use of honorary degrees. According to the university, in papers secured under Scotland’s freedom of information legislation, “the question of removing honorary degrees from individuals would be considered as soon as possible,” by the Honorary Degrees Committee. Of course, if one had given Robert Mugabe, the tyrant of Zimbabwe such a degree in 1984 as Edinburgh had, one might be of a similar persuasion.

In a few instances, honorary degrees serve a noble purpose. When Paine College in Augusta, Georgia, awarded James Brown an honorary doctorate in music, the college merely recognized that the man had changed modern music forever. Mr. Brown, having sorely felt the lack of an education all his life, received the acknowledgement from the college that his work was certainly worth a dissertation or two.

More often than not, they are a publicity exercise. Why else would Bob Hope have received 58 of them? King Bhumiphol of Thailand has 136, and one is not entirely sure what he has done to merit even one. In 1996, Southampton College awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Amphibious Letters to Kermit the Frog (to be fair, however, Mr. Frog did give the commencement address).

For its part, Edinburgh awarded Mr. Mugabe a degree largely out of, in retrospect misplaced, delight at seeing Southern Rhodesia become Zimbabwe. Independence is a heady brew, and the fact that it allowed the best and brightest of Scotland’s capital to cock a snook at the English parliament (Scotland hadn’t retrieved its own at that point) and annoy Margaret Thatcher (the anti-Christ to many Scots to this day) added fuel to the fire. However, Mr. Mugabe has proved that he is the worst ruler currently working in Africa, a title for which there is substantial competition.

As a result, the Scotsman reports, the university may well opt for: “stopping the award of degrees to people who have already collected large numbers of awards. Banning serving politicians from receiving awards. Chancellor Gordon Brown received a degree from Edinburgh in 2004. Giving serious consideration to whether degrees should be awarded to nominees from countries with poor human rights records. Greater scrutiny at the nomination stage between the degree committee and the university senate which rubber stamps awards. The papers reveal that two nominations were recently withdrawn amid 'unwelcome publicity’.” In other words, it would begin to treat the honorary degree like a regular degree – one would have to actually earn it.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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