Talk:List of honorary degrees

Rationale and scope

It would probably be a good idea to clarify the scope of this page. Is it intended to be a list of degrees which are only ever awarded honoris causa, or those (such as the DSc and DLitt) which are sometimes awarded so but can (at least in some countries) be awarded as substantive degrees? And do ad eundem or jure dignitatis degrees count as honorary for these purposes? -- Nicholas Jackson (talk) 22:10, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your inquiry. My intention was to have a list for all honorary degrees; i.e., all degrees that are not self-earned but bestowed. If you would like to create further clarifying sections (e.g., ad eundem, jure dignitatis), I think that could be beneficial. However, if there are some degrees that are usually earned but sometimes bestowed honoris causa, then I think those should go in there own subsection. Furthermore, I think what will help keep this page organized and accurate is that every degree be supported by a sourced instance. Hope this helps. Thanks! --Eustress (talk) 22:12, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply - that makes things clearer. I guess there are a couple of potential problems that we should keep in mind. Firstly, that there are some degrees (especially doctorates) which are awarded in different circumstances in different countries - examples include the DSc/ScD (which is primarily a substantive (earned) higher doctorate in the UK but almost always an honorary degree in the USA) and the MD (which is either a PhD-level research doctorate or a higher doctorate in the UK, but a graduate-entry professional training degree in the USA). We should be careful to make this distinction where necessary.

Secondly, there are a number of degrees in the UK which are sometimes erroneously believed to be honorary, but are nevertheless substantive. These include the Oxbridge MA (where for historical reasons the degree of MA is awarded seven years after matriculation, but the interim degree of BA is conferred after about three or four years, upon successful completion of the study and residence requirements - this is widely misunderstood even amongst graduates of the universities in question), Lambeth degrees (which are conferred by the Archbishop of Canterbury by ancient privilege, and are only given to individuals who have demonstrated the relevant level of achievement), ad eundem degrees (usually called 'incorporation' in the UK, where a graduate of one university is formally admitted to to the same degree at another - typically this only applies to staff at Oxford, Cambridge or Dublin who are graduates of one of the others), and jure dignitatis degrees (whereby an appropriate degree is conferred, by their own university, when someone is appointed to a relevant office - such as a bishop being made a Doctor of Divinity or a senior judge being made a Doctor of Laws). The last three of these are comparatively rare.

To be honest, the whole concept of an honorary degree is extraordinarily badly-defined, and pretty much always has been throughout history and throughout the world. There's no particular agreement either amongst universities or the general public quite what it means. Some universities look upon them mainly as a way to garner a bit of extra publicity, by awarding a doctorate to someone famous (but in some cases highly inappropriate), while others (my own amongst them) have strict rules, enforced by a vetting committee, that they should only be conferred upon people who have demonstrated the required level of eminence or scholarship (such as Andrew Wiles, whose proof of Fermat's Last Theorem would have well exceeded the requirements for a substantive DSc had he formally submitted it). There are cases during 17th- and 18th-century royal visits to Oxford or Cambridge of members of the royal court being awarded the degree of MA honoris causa but it being explicitly stated that at least some of these were full degrees, conferring membership and voting rights in Convocation.

I'm starting to ramble now, so I'd probably better stop for the moment. -- Nicholas Jackson (talk) 00:24, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

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