An honorary degree or degree ("for the sake of the honour") is an academic degree, typically a doctorate, conferred without examination to recognise the honoree's achievements and contributions to society. These are normally titular degrees, with fewer rights than substantive degrees. It may, more broadly, be any degree awarded without examination in order to recognise a person's achievements or their status in a university.
History
The forerunner of the modern honorary degree was the degree by creation, referring to a degree "conferred ... without passing through a University course (or after passing through only a partial course) and without performing the exercises". Two of the earliest on record, in the late 15th century, were awarded by the University of Oxford to Lionel Woodville (chancellor of the university 1479–1483 and Bishop of Salisbury 1482–1484) and Thomas Bourchier (Archbishop of Canterbury 1454–1486). The University of Cambridge similarly honoured John Skelton in 1493.
In the late 16th century, the granting of degrees by creation at Oxford became quite common, especially on the occasion of royal visits. On the visit of James I to Oxford in 1605, for example, forty-three members of his retinue (fifteen of whom were earls or barons) 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.
The modern titular honorary degree grew out of the degree by creation towards the end of the 17th century, with the first degree explicitly designated honoris causa at Oxford being the honorary MA awarded to Sir Henry Hoo Keate in 1717.
The DD conferred upon Increase Mather by Harvard University in 1692 is sometimes cited as the first honorary degree awarded in America. However, the citation for the degree shows that it was a substantive degree awarded on the basis of his published works. Benjamin Franklin's honorary MA in 1753 is considered Harvard's first true honorary degree. Before this, Yale University had conferred an honorary MD on Daniel Turner in 1723 in thanks for a donation of books to the college library; it was said by critics that the MD stood for ("he gave much").
While other European universities followed Oxford and Cambridge in granting substantive degrees as honours by offering dispensations from examination requirements, the modern titular honorary degree with limited rights was only adopted by most European universities from the early 19th century. In France, the Imperial University was barred from awarding honorary degrees and French universities were only granted this right in 1918.
In the 1870s and 1880s, the celebration of university jubilees became popular across Europe, with large numbers of honorary degrees being awarded at these festivals. These included 40 honorary degrees at the jubilee of Durham University in 1882, and 140 at the tercentenary of the University of Edinburgh in 1884. This spread to the US, with 42 honorary degrees at Harvard's sestercentennial in 1886, 61 at Columbia University's centennial of its refoundation in 1887, and 79 at Princeton University's sesquicentennial in 1896. The practice continued in the 20th century, with Yale awarding 60 honorary degrees at its bicentenary in 1901, Columbia giving 43 at the 150th anniversary of its original foundation in 1904 and 134 at the 175th anniversary in 1929, and Harvard awarding 86 at its tercentenary in 1936.
From the 16th century until 1882, degrees were only awarded without examination at Cambridge by royal mandate (referred to as mandate degrees), after which "full honorary degrees" (official degrees and dignity degrees) were awarded without examination to people appointed to university teaching posts and on Cambridge graduates that became bishops, and titular degrees on other honorees.
In the United States, the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree was first conferred as an honorary degree at Bucknell University in 1852, almost a decade before the first earned PhD in the US was awarded by Yale in 1861. Over one hundred institutions in the United States conferred honorary PhD degrees in the 19th century, to more than seven hundred recipients. However, the practice of awarding the PhD 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 PhD effective in 1897. The number of honorary PhD degrees awarded in the US 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 PhD was singer Bing Crosby, from Gonzaga University in 1937.
In the run up to and during World War Two, Oxford honorary degrees were used as diplomatic weapons. Lord Halifax, Oxford's chancellor from 1933, also served as minister of war from 1935 to 1938, as foreign secretary from 1938 to 1940, and as British ambassador to the US from 1940 to 1946. Delegations of senior academics travelled from Britain to ceremonies held overseas, or the university was represented by British diplomats. The award of an honorary degree to Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, the Portuguese prime minister, was described by a Foreign Office official as "first-class propaganda for our cause". Following Oxford's award of an honorary degree to Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941, Harvard awarded an honorary LLD to Winston Churchill in 1943 at a specially arranged September ceremony while Churchill was in North America for the First Quebec Conference.
By 2001, about 21 US 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 The modern honorary degree has been defined as "an academic degree conferred by a university institution, at its own initiative, without cost to the recipient, to honour someone renowned for his or her merits in the field of science, culture, politics, economics, religion or defence, without examinations or dissertations, but also without any rights connected to the degree".
Honorary degrees are usually awarded at regular graduation ceremonies, although some universities, such as Oxford and Cambridge, award honorary degrees at separate ceremonies. Recipients may be invited to give an address – which can vary from a short acceptance speech to a full commencement address. Many US institutions will also pay commencement speakers, particularly celebrities, in addition to granting them an honorary degree. 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.
Some universities and learned societies award honorary fellowships in a similar manner to honorary degrees.
Degrees awarded Although higher doctorates such as Doctor of Science, Doctor of Letters, etc. are often awarded honoris causa, in some countries (such as the UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand) it is also possible to earn these as a substantive degrees. This typically involves the submission of a portfolio of peer-reviewed 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 (often DUniv, or Doctor of the University) which is used for these purposes, with the other higher doctorates reserved for formally examined academic scholarship.
Posthumous awards In April 2023, the President of Yale, Peter Salovey, awarded MA Privatim degrees posthumously to Reverend James W. C. Pennington and Reverend Alexander Crummell, the first two black students at Yale, both of whom faced numerous incidents of discrimination and left Yale without earning degrees.
Institutions that do not award honorary degrees Some US universities, such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT),:"MIT's founder, William Barton Rogers, regarded the practice of giving honorary degrees as 'literary almsgiving ... of spurious merit and noisy popularity...' Rogers was a geologist from the University of Virginia who believed in Thomas Jefferson's policy barring honorary degrees at the university, which was founded in 1819." Cornell University, Stanford University and Rice University, do not award honorary degrees as a matter of policy. The University of Virginia (founded in 1819) was probably the first US university to have an explicit policy of not awarding honorary degrees, at the request of its founder, Thomas Jefferson. "The University of Virginia does not award honorary degrees. In conjunction with the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, the University presents the Thomas Jefferson Medal in Architecture and the Thomas Jefferson Award in Law each spring. The awards, recognizing excellence in two fields of interest to Jefferson, constitute the University's highest recognition of scholars outside the University." In 1845, William Barton Rogers, then chairman of the faculty, vigorously defended this policy; in 1861, he founded MIT in Boston and continued this practice. The University of Virginia does annually award Thomas Jefferson Medals in architecture and in law, as the highest honours accorded by that institution. Cornell did not award honorary degrees under founding president Andrew Dickson White, who thought them "pretended honors" that "tend[ed] to lower respect for many American colleges and universities". However, honorary degrees were briefly awarded under his successor, Charles Kendall Adams in 1886, with White and Cornell alum David Starr Jordan, the president of Indiana University and later the founding president of Stanford, receiving honorary LLDs. Alumni and faculty petitions against honorary degrees led to the ban on honorary degrees being reinstated later that year.
Controversial use
Some universities and colleges have been accused of granting honorary degrees in exchange for large donations.