The IHE Hall of Shame

This is quite wonderful.

I think IHE should start a Hall of Shame for known honors and honorary degrees that have been awarded by colleges and universities, would definitely give one pause, and have not been rescinded. Everyone can make a mistake – that’s no big deal – but refusing to acknowledge a bad decision by failing to revoke the honor is what I find interesting ... perhaps even reprehensible.

I’ll start it off with the Harry F. Byrd, Jr. School of Business – no that’s not it – at tiny Shenandoah University.

In 1991 they honored Adelphia’s John Rigas with their “Entrepreneur of the Year,” award, probably expecting a little largess in the process. The plaque is still on display.

In 2005, the 81 year old Rigas — not to mention his 49 year old son Tim — were sentenced to 15 years in prison for looting the company of $600 million, conspiring to hide $2.3 billion in Adelphia debt, and lying to investors about the company’s financial condition.

Rigas’ younger son, Michael, the former chief operating officer of Adelphia, was sentenced to 10 months of home confinement and two years of probation.

Of course Adelphia went bankrupt, deprived thousands of investors of their nest eggs – a la Enron – and was purchased by Comcast. All of which causes me to wonder how many colleges and universities have given awards to Kenneth Lay ... and have never rescinded them?

Frizbane Manley, at 7:45 am EDT on March 29, 2007

Let me play devil’s advocate here.

At the time Mugabe was widely regarded as a good person. I don’t think there was much dispute about that. If a degree supposedly awards past performance, why should a school consistently monitory his future performance?

If we are going to go down this road, schools would be able to revoke earned degrees from people based on their future political positions. A few short months ago, in the US, it was considered a dangerous minority view to espouse the withdrawal from Iraq. I could see schools trying to “revoke” the degrees of students that supported this view. Now, the tables are turned. Would schools “revoke” the degrees of other people?

What about degrees in the sciences? The forefront of science changes. Should, for example, all doctoral degrees in biology that predate DNA be revoked, because these people misunderstood a lot about the nature of “life.”

Larry, at 9:16 am EDT on March 29, 2007

Bennies and Burdens with an honorary degree

Gary,I think he has a priority in the Michigan State football ticket lottery. However, he probably gets hit on the fund raising so he may net out to where he is eager to turn that honorary degree in.

MSBOB, at 12:26 pm EDT on March 29, 2007

Dum Ditty De Dum De Dem ... De Dum De Dum De Dum ...

Sorry to weigh in twice ... especially since awarding honors and honorary degrees is not really that important in the scheme of things (I am reminded of our beloved president’s first round of awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to his pals who botched up the “post-war” occupation of Iraq. Now that was an act of truly Orwellian proportions).

First, Rob, I don’t think it’s necessary to wait for the death of the great person to award the honor. As I said earlier, the majority of this stuff is for the honor-er, not the honoree, so having the big hoopla while everyone still is around and smiling seems pretty harmless to me.

Larry, my only disagreement with your post is that awarding honorary degrees is remarkably different from giving earned degrees. As an undergraduate (fifty years ago), I took a course in Modern Physics ... and I kept the book. It is really quite wonderful, but I’d guess it is 95% wrong. As you know, knowledge – and especially scientific knowledge – is cumulative, and the contributions of Niels Bohr, et. al. were really quite remarkable at the time and are certainly worthy of all the accolades we did and continue to cast in their direction.

Gary, while I agree that academic honors and certainly honorary degrees are essentially meaningless, in some sense revoking such honors says even more about the honor-er than the original award. If we take Manley’s example, had the Byrd School of Business, said “Look, we thought there was reason to give John Rigas this award, but it turned out that he was neither the man nor the entrepreneur we thought he was, so we would like to acknowledge that we were wrong and rescind the award,” then you’d have to say, “right on BSB! You’re acting on the basis of principle.” As it is, they have chosen to say nothing and apparently hope no one notices.

What? ... you think Rigas has that award hanging on the wall of his jail cell and would go down fighting if someone tried to take it back?

Also Gary, your comment, “Surely the folks at these schools have better things to do than debate such nonsense” could not be further from the truth. I was once on a committee that “signed off” on behalf of faculty to whom honorary degrees would be proffered. We spent much more than an hour one day debating the pros and cons of giving an honorary degree to George Strait, the country music singer (it seems he was a casual friend and the favorite singer of someone on the university’s board of directors). Anyway, since in those days I had nothing but time, it was pretty funny. I conducted the research on him and discovered that on one occasion he gave one of his hats to a charitable organization to be auctioned off. That was about it.

Finally, once you get past giving awards to individuals of stature and individuals you are trying to hit up for a substantial donation for something or other, a huge number of such awards fall into the category of “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours,” with individuals who have fairly mediocre credentials – and especially deans, vice presidents, and presidents who haven’t even thought of scholarship in the past thirty years — awarding these prizes to each other.

I have always thought any act by someone wearing a cap and gown has got to rival in importance the act of a youngster dressed up for Halloween.

RWH, at 5:02 pm EDT on March 29, 2007

Devil’s Advocate....Well?

Well Larry, I also doubt that there’s much good in revoking an “honarary degree.” Schools should perhaps be more careful with the conferring of them. At any rate, they’re not real academic degrees. However, even if an honorary degree was revoked because the recipient betrayed the promise of excellence for which he received it, I doubt that this would lead to the revoking of EARNED degrees because the person who earned it disappointed us in later life. There are at least three reasons why I thinking that the revoking of honorary degrees is likely to lead to the revoking of earned degrees.

1. If you’ve earned a degree you supposedly met the academic requirements and standards of the university through your studies and performance. For example, to obtained my doctoral degree, I had to attend grad schools, take a certain number and range seminars (all requiring the writing of scholarly papers), pass qualifying examinations, and write a doctoral thesis which must then be defended in a two hour or more session of cross examination. The committee had to sign off on the thesis which is listed with the Library of Congress. No such academic criteria has to be met to get an honorary degree. But a rich philanthropist who has made generous contributions may well be conferred an honorary degree in “humane letters” even if he oouldn’t tell the difference between Shakespeare and Shake n’ Bake.

2. The revoking of an earned degree is probably illegal, or of very questionable legality. A school which revoked an earned degree, thereby destroying someone’s professional life simply because they didn’t like his current political opinions, would probably be more susceptible to a damaging legal suit than someone who had a professionally and academically meaningless honorary degree revoked.

3. A college or university which revoked an earned degree would be calling into question its own competence and integrity as an academic institution. Couldn’t they tell after years of a student’s matriculation that he or she was not academically competent? If they couldn’t discern something that basic, than perhaps the persons who confer degrees are not competent themselves. Or perhaps their academic integrity is questionable if they think they’re entitled to strip an academic degree from a competent (maybe in some cases “brilliant") former student who had EARNED it according to the school’s own standards. And imagine doing so because they no longer like his POLITICAL OPINIONSS!!!!!!! What would this do to the school’s reputation?

In short, I think what you’re suggesting is a classic slippery slope argument. But I doubt that the dangers you suggest are very likely.

Dr. Rob, at 9:55 am EDT on March 30, 2007

Comment on: ‘Dr. Dictator’

“New revelations and changing opinion can alter the context of accolades once deemed sensible".

For white folks in southern Africa it ain’t a “new revelation” that Mugabe, Nkomo and Mbeki are nothing but terrorist thugs, mere formal presentations of the criminals which have plundered the once prosperous white countries Rhodesia and the “old” South Africa. Ask any former member of the security forces in Rhodesia or South Africa who have faced these people without all the media spin and their fancy suites.

What’s also not a “new revelation” is the continued hypocrisy of the media and the western elites. Instead of admitting their folly and ideological bent intent on destroying the lives of thousands of white settlers, they act as if the data has mysteriously changed.

Rubbish, everyone with some common sense and background knowledge knew who Mugabe (and by extension Mbeki and Knomo) are.

The media and the elites have once again failed their No. 1 duty to protect the common good and the citizens under their trust.

langalibalele, at 6:15 am EDT on June 8, 2007