An Honorary Degree for Kermit The Frog But Not President Obama
It's not clear whether Arizona State University President Michael Crow had any say in the decision not to grant President Obama, the school's commencement speaker, an honorary degree. But one thing's for sure: the dumbest thing that school officials said in telling why they won't grant an honorary degree to President Obama was not that he didn't have a credible body of work and thus supposedly was unfit for the honorary degree. It was that the commencement committee may not have even considered him for the degree in the first place. Here are the names of the wise ones on ASU's Honorary Degrees Committee who snubbed President Obama for the honorary degreee:
Laurie Chassin, Psychology, 2010 (Chair) Christine Wilkinson, Senior Vice President and Secretary of the University, 2010 (Co-Chair) Roger Adelson, History, 2009 Bill Miller, Applied Biological Sciences, 2009 Joan Brett, Graduate College, 2010 Claudia Brown, Art, 2010 Chris Callahan, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, 2010 Philip Christensen, Earth and Space Exploration, 2010 Luis Gomez-Mejia, Management, 2010 Jewell Parker Rhodes, Virginia C. Piper Center for Creative Writing, 2010 Paul Patterson, Morrison School of Management and Agribusiness, 2010 Sander van der Leeuw, Human Evolution and Social Change, 2010 Linda Vaughan, Nutrition, 2010 Gary Waissi, ASU Global Engagement, 2010, the university vice provost and dean of the Graduate College, and the president of the ASU Foundation also are ex-officio members of the committee.
The committee members hail from all over the university map and they made no mention in the flurry of press announcements they put out variously explaining and defending the snub the exact criteria they used to determine why Obama didn't cut the academic muster. That would be tough anyway. The whole thing is either ludicrous or farcical depending on how charitable one wants to be. By any measure -- organization, political mastery, historic trend setting, his education and legal writings, research and instruction, and intellect -- President Obama's merits speak for themselves. And ASU officials pretty much acknowledged that by inviting him to give the commencement address in the first place.
The reason for the degree snub then can't be lack of merit or a lack of a body of work. It's something else and that something else speaks to the politics and money behind who gets an honorary degree and why they get it. In years past ASU has ladled them out to a laundry list of such academic wizards as a movie director, oil computer and microchip executives, and newspaper publishers. Universities, and that includes ASU, routinely hand out honorary degrees to a check list of fat cat contributors and donors. Universities have even been known to award them to politicians who have never taken pen to paper. This was the case in 2001 when Yale University awarded an honorary degree to George W. Bush. He was barely one year into his presidency. The sum of Bush's academic accomplishment from Yale was a degree in history in 1968.
ASU also honored its favored political son, Barry M. Goldwater, with an honorary degree in 1961. It didn't hurt that Goldwater was the state's most influential US senator and could steer a lot of federal cash to the university. But a Goldwater honorary degree at least in that respect made some sense. Not sure if the same could be said for the recipient of the honorary degree from Long Island's Southampton College in 1996. The academic marvel that year was a Sesame Street Muppet Kermit the Frog.
Then again maybe Kermit was more deserving than Bush since Kermit had used his celebrity to spread positive messages about environmental protection in public service announcements for the National Wildlife Federation, National Parks Service, the Better World Society, and other groups.
At least that's what University officials said in defending Kermit's honorary degree.
Then there are the universities such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cornell University Stanford University, the London School of Economics and Political Science and the University of Virginia. They play it close to the vest, maintain their level of real academic integrity and cut out the honorary degree sham.
ASU obviously isn't on that elite list of academic non-honorary degree game players. And President Obama is not Bush or Kermit the Frog. So here's how ASU President Crow can erase an embarrassment. Ignore the Honor's Committee's blind spot toward or deliberate egg of the president, and bestow on him the award that he richly deserves, an honorary degree.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His weekly radio show, "The Hutchinson Report" can be heard on weekly in Los Angeles on KTYM Radio 1460 AM and nationally on blogtalkradio.com
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Intelligent people should have a mass-exodus from ASU, and any proefssor worth anything should resign in protest and let ASU become past history. ASU is a disgrace because of its silence about the arrogance of Crow and his minions.
Most honorary degrees are given so that the institution can borrow from the person they are given to, not so that the recipient can get something from the institution. ASU gains more from Obama speaking at their Commencement than he gets in honor from them. Who knows, the Graduates may even sho up!
I think President Obama is more honored to be able to talk to the students than hoping for an honorary degree from a group of political activist professors who only care about their politics than what is best for their students.......anyway the shame is on ASU not the President.
Pres. Obama does not crave for the need of a honorary degree from ASU Committee........I know many fabulous graduates from ASU who think the committee made a huge miscalculation...and tries to purposely embarrass him....... but they are delighted and ecstatic that he will be gracing ASU ......
cheers for students and alumni of ASU!
It's difficult to understand why ASU would not grant an honorary degree. I don't know whether it is their custom to award one to all commencement speakers, oir what their criteria are.
For Notre Dame, it was a bit different. Their criteria should be something exemplary of catholic values, which Mr. Obama is decidedly at odds with. Speaking at their commencement is one thing, but awarding him another.
Yeah right, Notre Dame gave one to Bush! The Catholic Church is against the "death penalty", but still gave Bush an honorary degree. Get a life - stop cherry picking. If the Catholic Schools only want people speaking who are in total agreement with their doctrines, they will be left with only priests (and a good portion of them are hypocrite, perverts). The honorary degree isn't for "being a good Catholic", it's for education & achievement, duh. If only the regligious right could understand the difference. The students are NOT ALL CATHOLIC!
ASU President Michael Crow will be remembered for this and this alone, what a shame that this Academic Right Winger is so stupid.
Honestly, If I were President Obama, I wouldn't even want an honorary degree from ASU. I mean, how silly would it look next to his Columbia and Harvard degrees that he actually earned? An ASU honorary degree isn't even fit for toilet paper.
I'm sure in the 3.5 years until his re-election, there will be more credible schools that will want to bestow honorary degrees upon Obama. Heck, I can think of at least 2 dozen other schools whose degrees would nicely complement his Ivys. There's no love lost here.
In response to this diss, one might be tempted to disinvite oneself. Obama has the grace to show up, make a great speech and probably make the University look very small.
Hey, Obama doesn't need honourary degrees - he got all his degrees on his own. Obama's real degrees aren't "pretend" degrees.
Earl, as I hope you know, the liberals control the education system in our country as they do the media (including I suspect even HuffPo).
If you ever watched Sesame Street you know that it is a political gateway "drug" to hard core socialism
All this talk of sharing. All this acceptance of muppets of different colors. And a profoundly unAmerican focus on education. Need I say more to make my point?
The degree to Kermit was another facilitating step on the Road to Serfdom.
Hey "Rog49Thomas:
Keep looking under those beds...You're bound to find at least one Communist, Kermit the Frog under one of them one of these days.
HINT: Try looking first in the dormitory rooms of A.S.U.!
LMAO.
As a good American, I have many imagined enemies of the USA under my bed. Enemies both foreign and domestic.
In fact during the past eight years I had to buy a king size bed just to accommodate all of them.
Now I've got a king size bunk bed and I'm sleeping on the top.
And at times these groups at are one another's throats - IslamoObjectivists arguing with the Grenadians. Liberals arguing with the communists. I swear I heard Hugo Chavez the other night arguing with Osama.
I'm hardly getting any sleep at all.
But one thing for sure. As a good American, I haven't lost my fear. They will have to pry that from my cold dead hands.
I've never been a good mind reader, really, so for simple guys like me, I like it when anyone, an organization, private citizen, governement, whatever, puts forth a position and stands by it. It doesn't really matter if I agree with the position; just let me know where I stand. I think that is the case here - ASU is making it clear that they don't, at this time, feel that Obama is worthy of an honorary degree. You may not agree with that; maybe you do, but isn't it time that we get away from "go along to get along", doing what is always expected of us, and show our true colors, good or bad? This goes for private citizens in every day life. I think conversation and interaction is stifled to the point of nonexistence in today's world. The original poster of this article feels that ASU should have given the degree to Obama basically because it is expected. How boring! Challenge conventional thinking, challenge acting as expected. Don't do it! Ask WHY you have to act that way. In ASU's case, ask them what about Obama's body of work does not qualify him, and do it in an intelligent, respectful way. They may have a good point - you may learn something, a new way of looking at an issue. Or you may find that they really are foolish, or inept, but in the end, isn't that better than everyone rubber-stamping their way through life?
D-Driller, you’re wrong. Hitler took a stand; Stalin took a stand; the Ku Klux Klan took a stand; and Satan took a stand against God. No, it was ASU's responsibility to explain and defend in an intelligent fashion their position on day one. We are talking about the president of the United States and the leader of the free world! They should have understood from the get-go the furor their decision would cause.
The disrespect towards Obama really astounds me. Some of the posts here are ludicrous.
Let's put the shoe on the other foot (before we throw it.....!!) - if Bush had had degrees from Harvard and Columbia, written 2 best sellers as well as a distinguished career as an educator and US senator - the SAME people scoffing here at Obama would be falling all over themselves to praise him.
How do I know this? Because Bush was arguably the least competent president in the history of the US yet his supporters swear with their last breath that he kept us safe, the tanking of the economy was not his fault, his foreign policy that has made the US the pariah of the world was perfectly ok and the practice of torture under the Bush administration didn't diminish the country.
When did it become ok to celebrate mediocrity and cut down obvious achievement with lies and double speak?
ASU is a state funded business in a very Republican state. AZ is the platform of McCain's political career. McCain lost. In AZ the rulers do not forgive than kind of thing. The President seems to be concentrating on important issues. I doubt he worries about small nervous dogs nipping as his shoes.
What would happen if all institutions of higher(?) learning from Stanford, U of Ca-Berkley, Duke, the Ivy League to 4th tier places such as Acrid Hills Polytech & Dismal Swamp U (formerly Knott, Neer Normal) ended the practice of awarding honarary degrees to everyone-famous, infamous, monied nonentity, well meaning but incompetent & others a university wants to butter up. If they appear &/or speak at a graduation or fish fry give them a parchment scroll, a glad hand & sincere smiles but no honarary degree. There are altogether too many flatulent orations by big name speakers at graduations.
It's a good thing that many graduates don't go for the rented cap & gown routine & limp dish rag hand shake routine from somebody they never saw to pick up a diploma on a stage to wow their parents & relatives & the ones who do the robe, mitt flop paper passing in public are too stoned or drunk to hear the flatulent & useless words of graduation speakers.
If the graduates & guests really heard these tedious orations-they would boo the speakers after 5 minutes & leave their seats in disgust. The administrators would, gulp, sweat & fidget in embarrasment & hope their speaker was too much into a power trip to notice the boos, the audience walking out & the empty chairs. Just do away with honorary degrees & end the farce. Use the money saved to send the diplomas to graduates by Fed-Ex.
Thank you Mr. Hutchinson. The title of your post says it all.
ASU treats minorities in a shameful and degrading manner. Crow fired 1/3 of the minority faculty at ASU west without justifiable cause. He fired a tenured African American prof. despite the unanimous ruling of a committee he appointed that the prof. be reinstated. ASU will not confirm or deny that he has not granted tenure to any African Americans. Crow has not hired an African American to serve as dean or vp. No AZ Governor even Janet Napolitano ever appointed an African American to the board of regents.
Crow carries his animosity towards minorities from Columbia where he served as vice provost. See the case of Chichilnisky vs Columbia. Crow orchestrated that longstanding discrimination and retaliation case that cost Columbia milliions.
Crow yaps that the legislature doesnt give him enough money but he spends millions a year on outside litigation because he is an unapologetic bigot.
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