The Honorary Degree, a Template For Patronage
If you’ve been good to Harvard or Yale or Podunk U by contributing to the Building Fund, you too may be deserving of an honorary degree. A speech can sometimes do it, but you have to be pretty far up the food chain. Paying for a building almost always works.
Doctor of Literature sound good to you? No problem, that particular title can be found on a sliding-scale representing the cost-benefit ratio. No one is likely to start addressing you by the title “Dr.,” but the honor is framed to hang ostentatiously on your library wall and makes a dandy reference in “Who’s Who.” Inescapably, it will appear in that ultimate tribute, your obituary.
I think we ought to celebrate that back-scratching relationship, time-tested and proven of mutual value in the hallowed halls of academia. We learn, once again, from the teachers. The honorary title, a template for patronage in modern government.
As every incoming administration knows, there are ambassadorships to be filled, delegations to be headed, …