Honorary Degrees, and the Obama ASU thing

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Trancendental

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Does anyone else feel that honorary degrees are not worth the paper they're printed on? Even the biggest university names award them with more thought to politics and economics rather then the actual merits of the honoree.

And now a refreshingly academic President has been denied an honorary degree by ASU, who instead have awarded hororary degrees to such luminaries as a movie director, oil executive, and Kermit the Frog.

Honorary degrees are just a chit that Universities use to cash in for big donations, celeb endorsements or government grants. I expect oil and wall street execs to act without regard for morality and ethics, but it would be nice if our institutions of higher education could manage to keep a facade of integrity.
 
Yeah, they're completely pointless, and as an academic I don't like them. Degrees should only go to people who completed the course work to earn them. It's not fair to students who slog through 4 years of school to ge their degree.
 
I'm not a fan of "stuff" of social value being handed out for free, period.

That being said, the little importance I hold to a degree in the first place makes me mostly not care about this.
 
Of course they're not really worth anything, but they're honorary and always called honorary, so it's not like anybody is fooled into thinking they're actually earned. I don't think it devalues the earned degrees in any way, and it's not like people who get honorary degrees are taking jobs away from people with legitimate degrees.
 
To clarify, I don't think they're a big deal. I just think they're pointless and I don't like them, but I'm not up in arms about them or speaking out against them or anything. Think something is stupid and pointless doesn't require thinking it's a big deal or major issue. :D
 
[quote name='SpazX']Of course they're not really worth anything, but they're honorary and always called honorary, so it's not like anybody is fooled into thinking they're actually earned. I don't think it devalues the earned degrees in any way, and it's not like people who get honorary degrees are taking jobs away from people with legitimate degrees.[/quote]

I suppose. For me honorary degrees are more of an annoyance, like those participation trophies they sometimes give to you when you're a kid.

I also think it's a really cheap shot at Obama, I'd have more respect if they'd speak their mind about what they don't like about him or his visit instead of hiding behind their little honorary degree decision board.
 
it's just a way to honor / award a person.. that's it.. i don't see what the big deal is.

universities give out a lot of awards that aren't honorary degrees, too. my school has a bunch of random named medals (e.g. John Smith's Medal of Excellence In The Field of Chemistry etc) that serve no purpose... an honorary degree is the same thing.

I don't get why that would annoy anyone.
 
[quote name='SpazX']Of course they're not really worth anything, but they're honorary and always called honorary, so it's not like anybody is fooled into thinking they're actually earned. I don't think it devalues the earned degrees in any way, and it's not like people who get honorary degrees are taking jobs away from people with legitimate degrees.[/QUOTE]

My job was stolen by Kermit the Frog.
 
[quote name='Magus8472']My job was stolen by Kermit the Frog.[/quote]

Sure man, blame the degree. You know Kermit was more qualified.
 
[quote name='Koggit']it's just a way to honor / award a person.. that's it.. i don't see what the big deal is.

universities give out a lot of awards that aren't honorary degrees, too. my school has a bunch of random named medals (e.g. John Smith's Medal of Excellence In The Field of Chemistry etc) that serve no purpose... an honorary degree is the same thing.

I don't get why that would annoy anyone.[/quote]

Was a time when an award meant something. It signified that you were the best, or that you overcame great odds to achieve something.

These days awards are given for political or monetary gain, or so some people won't feel left out. It's part of the dumbing down of America.
 
Of course honorary degrees are stupid and worthless. If any of you have heard a conversation where one is offered, you'd have a hard time believing otherwise.

The purpose of an honorary degree is to attach a university's name to someone who is already famous, to try to cash in on their fame.

So I kind of like honorary degrees, because they make it so obvious that colleges are like whores.
 
I remembered a particular story were being awarded an Honorary Degree was actually meaningful. In the story I heard, it was awarded to a real-life cardiovascular research assistant, which was denied the degree to begin with because of past racial prejudices, or something to that affect.

Anyways, awards and accolades only hold as much social wealth as we attribute to it. And really, nobody should really give a damn, unless the award had a valid merit to it. If a 7 year old medical prodigy was awarded an honorary degree for finding a cure for cancer, then mucho kudos to him/her, but if a university blindly gives one to a person of power/influence and nothing else, then I'll just think of it as a type of public blow-job.
 
[quote name='camoor']Was a time when an award meant something. It signified that you were the best, or that you overcame great odds to achieve something.

These days awards are given for political or monetary gain, or so some people won't feel left out. It's part of the dumbing down of America.[/QUOTE]
awards still mean something, just not all of them -- as has always been the case, globally
 
[quote name='rumarudrathas']If a 7 year old medical prodigy was awarded an honorary degree for finding a cure for cancer, then mucho kudos to him/her[/QUOTE]

I get what you're saying, but if a 7-year-old finds a cure for cancer, nobody should give a shit whether or not he/she has a degree of any kind.

If he/she were awarded an honorary degree, it would be an obvious case of what I posted - a college trying to cash in on the kid's fame. But if that did happen, of course the media and others would pretend getting a degree was some kind of accomplishment for the kid, as if curing cancer wasn't enough.
 
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