Last year – in 2008 – Dublin City University (DCU) awarded two honorary doctorates, both at the same ceremony. On this occasion the awards were given to Mrs Mary McAleese, President of Ireland, and to Dr Martin McAleese; they were intended to mark the contribution of both to Ireland’s culture and education, and more particularly also to their vital role in promoting and supporting peace in Northern Ireland. They both spoke movingly at the ceremony about the ideals of scholarship, and of tolerance and peace. And I believe we were able to present this as a very special occasion, not least because theirs were the first honorary degrees DCU had awarded for a while, and because no others were awarded that year. During the same year, perhaps some 45 or so honorary doctorates were awarded in other universities in the state. Actually I am guessing, it may have been more.
In fact it has been DCU’s policy since I became President in 2000 to award honorary doctorates sparingly, and to avoid awarding them to individuals whose main claim was their celebrity status. Over these eight years we have awarded a total of eight honorary degrees (including President and Dr McAleese); during four of those years we awarded none at all. This is in large part due to my belief that these distinctions lose their meaning if too many are handed out, and in particular if it becomes hard to see on what basis the awards are made. In DCU we have tried to ensure hat the recipients have made important contributions to education or scholarship, or given strong support to education and its values, or have made important community contributions. The first (and in that year only) award made in my time as President was in 2002 when we awarded an honorary doctorate to Father Peter McVerry, for his work with homeless and disadvantaged people in Ballymun.
Ireland does not have an honours system. Whether such a system might be a good or a bad thing can be debated, but what seems to me to be wrong is to expect universities to perform that role. Those who do research for a PhD are expected to put in years of hard work in a very demanding setting to get their doctorates, and to produce original work that will make a difference to the advancement of knowledge. We should expect honorary doctorates to mark similar long term efforts and dedication.
We are extremely proud of all our honorary graduates, and I feel we can say that in each case we were marking something very special, and we did so in a way that made the awards stand out. I am not suggesting that any other university has done anything improper, but maybe the time has come to look again at what message higher education institutions expect to transmit with these degrees. And maybe it would be better if, across the whole system, fewer were handed out.
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