Stuff You Should Know - Short Stuff: Honorary Degrees

Episode Date: May 15, 2019

Honorary degrees are not real degrees. They are marketing opportunities for universities. They make us mad, but we want one. Learn all about them in the next 12-15 minutes.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, and welcome to Short Stuff. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles Levy, Chuck Bryan, and there's Jerry over there.

And we are right smack dab in the middle of entering graduation season. And we're three doctors. We are. Self-proclaimed, really. We didn't even have three on a rare degree. Right, exactly. Ours are written in crayon in our own handwriting.

Yeah, so this, you know, we talked about this in a recent episode about honorary degrees, and this ended up being kind of encapsulating what's perfect about short stuff, is we can explain everything you need to know about honorary degrees in like 12 minutes. We can explain it in one second. Marketing.

Yeah, that's kind of true. But it is a little more interesting than that. Let's talk about the history, because not all universities give honorary degrees. Yeah. Very famously, University of Virginia, UVA, MIT, Stanford, and Cornell do not give honorary degrees. William Barton Rogers, founder of MIT,

said they are unfriendly to true literary advancement and of spurious merit and noisy popularity. And William Barton Rogers had graduated UVA, so that's where he was kind of inculcated with the idea that you shouldn't give away doctorates. And UVA was founded by Thomas Jefferson, who was the one who put that ban on him, right? But he accepted an honorary doctorate from Harvard.

It's a bit of a double standard. Probably not the only double standard Thomas Jefferson's ever been involved with. Yeah, but here's the secret. Well, it's not a secret at all. Here's the very plain truth that everyone knows about honorary degrees. Since the beginning of time, they

have been used to, they say, to reward donors who have given money, sometimes to bring in celebrities for appeal, for media appeal for graduation ceremonies and such like that. But it's really just, for whatever reason, it's a way to get some press by acknowledging someone that you think as a university somewhat aligns with your values as a university.

Right, yeah, ultimately, that's the goal is to, it's not just somebody, but somebody who is doing something that your university values or everybody can get behind, right? Yeah, and it started in Europe, not even here in the US. No, no, over at Oxford, I believe the first one was handed out to a guy named Lionel. Woodville.

That's a pretty good 15th century name. It was given out to him, he was an influential bishop. And he got his honorary doctorate unbidden. It was a bit of a surprise from what I understand. It just kind of showed up at his house and they said, so congratulations, also totally unrelated. We were thinking that you might come be chancellor of the university now.

Since you're a doctor and all. All right, I can do that. I can bring some of my wealthy connections with me to Oxford, which by the way, was about 400 years old by this time in 1478. So they were the first one to confer an honorary degree and they kicked off a grand tradition that is basically just kind of waxed and waned

throughout the years, but mostly waxed in enthusiasm and abuse, I guess, is the word I'm looking for. Yeah, King Charles I, speaking of abuse, he really got honorary degree happy. He handed out 350 Oxford doctorates to people that of course supported his court all within one single year.

That's a lot. That's a lot. It's almost one a day by my calculation. He took off Christmas in Thanksgiving. Right. Oh wait, Thanksgiving? Nothing. Yeah, sure.

No, maybe all Saints Day. So King Charles I was the first to abuse it. He was far from the last. By the 19th century, there were so many degrees being handed out, left and right, honorary degrees, that they actually had a depressing effect on the importance of actual doctorates

that were being earned, which is a big problem, right? And the president of the North Eastern Dental Association, who's typically a mouthpiece for morality and direction in academia, famously warned in 1910 that the most dangerous, delusive, debauching and degrading the 4Ds thing in American educational life is the practice of granting unearned degrees. That's pretty harsh.

It was very harsh, but you know, and the guy was obviously hysterical, but it does get across this point that it was getting a little much, I guess, was the point by the 19th century. And it's calmed down tremendously, especially here in the States, but it's still going on.

It just seems to be a little less problematic than I think it was before, because at some point somebody said, okay, all right, let's just, yes, you can keep giving out degrees, but people who are getting these honorary degrees do not attempt to use them like they're legitimate, and that seems to have changed the course of things.

Yeah, all right, so let's take a break. We'll talk a little bit about how this happens, who picks these people and some regrettable choices right after this. ["Stuff In Show"] On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lashor and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude,

bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews,

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Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s, called on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart Podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road.

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Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. ["Self Is True"] All right, so it is a big deal to do this. A lot of times, it is to get someone like a Jerry Seinfeld at your graduation ceremony. What are these doctorates?

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, everybody. No, that was pretty good. I'm trying to sound who you sounded like. Not Jerry Seinfeld. David Brenner, probably. OK, sure, why not? And they do say honorary degrees serve as a way to inspire the students graduating that day.

So that is the reason most people do that. Get Conan, get Jerry Seinfeld in there. And most schools will have a board that decides this kind of thing, and they need to start well in advance. So typically, you'll start like a year out just seeing if the person is interested and if the schedule might align.

And I don't know if it's, it probably works differently at every school. I don't know if it's in writing as a requirement to come to graduation or more like, and we'd like to give it to you in person on this date at our football stadium. They're like, come on. That's kind of the deal, is you're supposed to show up,

and that's really, I think, sort of the unwritten rule. Yeah, because if you go to a college graduation, that's like, I mean, that's the showstopper. That's the reason people sit there is because usually, there's somebody very bright. Yeah, it is, very, very boring. It's just like, can't you just email this to these people? There should be a very recognizable and or inspirational

and or funny person speaking at a decent graduation ceremony. And it doesn't necessarily have to be a celebrity. They do still give these to like big donors, but I think that that means that you have more of a mountain to climb to impress people because you're still expected to give like amazing caliber remarks at the commencement exercises. Yeah, and when you teased before the break about, hey,

everyone, like you understand that you're not a real PhD or, God forbid, a medical doctor, that's the thing, is like, they know they're not, but there have been some notable people that have called themselves doctor whatever after they got this. Florida Atlantic University takes it very seriously in their rules. They say, in no instance will the recipient of an honorary

doctorate from FAU represent the award as being an earned doctorate or of earned academic credential of any kind. This award does not entitle the recipient to use the title of doctor or a Penn PhD or any other earned degree designation after his or her name. And basically, they say at the end,

like, if we get you doing this too, we could take it away. We're going to take it away. We're going to take this meaningless piece of paper right away from you. Don't even register at your hotel under Dr. Bryant, which I haven't been known to do. Don't even have your wife call you doctor, because we'll find out.

Yeah, because we're listening. So it's not just Florida Atlantic University that takes it seriously. There is a Grove City College psychology professor, Warren Throckmorton, who apparently one day realized that some general funding was about to run out. And he did a survey of university policy statements about the use of honorary doctorates.

And basically, to a university, it's like, let's just be clear here. This actually doesn't mean that you are a doctor of anything or that you have a PhD. Do not let us catch you using this. This is a big deal. Because, again, back in the 19th century, they were handing out MDs, basically everything.

And people were like, yeah, call me Dr. Dangerfield, you know, and it was a big problem. So now they seem to have it under control. Although there have been some people in recent years that still said, now whatever you gave me a doctorate, I'm going to use doctor. I don't care what you think of me, because I'm Maya Angelou. And I'm a gift to the world.

Ben Franklin did that after getting degrees from Oxford and University of St. Andrews. And like you said, with Maya Angelou, it's like one of those things where, you know, it's not super cool, but who's going to go tell Maya Angelou what to do? Nobody. Nobody.

They'll get a palm in their face. Yeah, I mean, I can imagine her speaking in that great voice of hers, then like, I would just shrink. You know? I was about to try to do a Maya Angelou, but there's no way. You would not rise, you would shrink. You shrink. Oh, look at that.

You shrink. And then there have been some very regrettable and rescinded PhDs, honorary PhDs over the year. Of course, Bill Cosby has many, many of these, and they were, I think, probably all taken away. Yeah, I believe, including from his alma mater, Temple. But the first one was Yale. With Yale, he became the first in 300 years

to have his honorary degree taken away, at least by Yale University. But yeah, everybody started following suit after that. Yeah, there's a few more legendary late DJ from England, Jimmy Saville. Oh, he's a terrible, wow. He was a terrible human, because it was exposed later in his life that he was one of the most prolific pedophiles

in the history of Britain. They took away his honorary degree. Oscar Pistorius, his one away. Yeah. Who else? Donald Trump had one rescinded. Really, from who? Trump University?

You say that as if it's a real thing. No, I had it written down, but I can't find it now. But he got an honorary degree that was taken away while he was running for president because of anti-Muslim remarks. Oh, wow. And they were like, no, we're taking that back. It's cool.

Yeah. Who else? There's more and more. Oh, I could listen to these all day. Well, I think we should campaign to get them from our own alma mater. Well, you know, somebody wrote in from an unnamed, not by us, but they wouldn't name what college they work at.

But it's in Canada. And they said they do honorary degrees up there, too. And I believe it was as she said that she was working to get us honorary degrees. So fingers crossed. Yes. I will make fun of these up until and including when I have one. OK.

That's a deal. I'm going to hold you to that. Yeah. Well, I guess that's it for honorary degrees. We've got this article from HowStuffWorks. So you can go check it out if you like. And in the meantime, short stuff out. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio's

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