Arizona State University Refuses to Grant Obama Honorary Degree
President Barack Obama is delivering the commencement address at Arizona State University this spring, however he won't be taking home an honorary degree. It is common for univerities to give an honorary degree to commencement speakers, but at ASU the criteria is a bit tougher.
ASU Media Relations Director Sharon Keeler said that Arizona's honorary degrees are given "for an achievement of eminance", and that the president was not considered for one because his body of work, at this time, does not meet the criteria.
That statement could either mean he's too inexperienced, or his best days lie ahead. Considering all of the others that ASU has granted honorary degrees, many feel that the President has been slighted.
Phoenix's East Valley Tribune notes:
"Arizona State University has handed out honorary doctorate degrees to pioneering scientists and college presidents, titans of oil and computer microchips, newspaper publishers and generous donors, a foreign communist educator and a successful movie director.
But no president of the United States has been deemed worthy of ASU's recognition, not even the nation's first black president. It's an odd gap that besmirches the image of an excellent institution."
Despite no honorary degree, interest in the commencement speech is high. Quite a number of graduating ASU students, who are permitted to invite up to six guests, are scalping their commencement tickets on Craigslist for between $60 to $100 each.
Comments
If McCain had won the election, even having less than half the educational achievements of Obama, they would have given him one in a second. Pathetic. Whoever made that decision should be fired for being petty and holding a grudge.
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What a bunch of dorks. With all the important things this president is working on, why is he even wasting his time out there in the hot desert sun. I know Tucson and Arizona enough to know there was a reason it was among the last continental territories to become states. Harvard, Senate, President, respected leader around the world Obama has no need to ever go back to one of the worst places in this good ol US of A.
I am an Arizona native, live in Tucson and graduated from the University of Arizona. I take offense at your comment about the last state. Don't judge us because a University in a republican strong hold made a dumb decision. How dare you generalize everyone in this great state.
I generally agree with your comment that people should not generalize. Please also keep in mind that many people do not consider Arizona to be a "great state". So if you are coming from the perspective that Arizona is great, I believe that you are bound to be disappointed.
Everyone knows ASU is nothing but a diploma generator anyways. Its third rate school run by 60's hippies. Any degree by ASU is like an insult to the rest of us who had to actually work hard at "real" universities.
Party on ASU!
good one. im sure your insight into a university you dont attend is genuine and well founded. keep on stereotyping away! shows how well educated you really are.
If your (lack of) writing skills are any indication of the level of academic standards at ASU, well, then, that sums it up.
Whatever university it is that you attend, attended, or are planning to attend, should put more focus on simple grammar and syntax, or at a bare minimum instill the need to proofread your own work.
Additionally, it's a pretty bold statement to claim A.S.U. is under the authority of 60's hippies, as you say. Any legitimate evidence of that claim? When it comes to critics, it's always easy for competent students attending the university to tell between those who actually have knowledge of the university and those who have just been watching Fox News.
For the record though, I think it's a shame A.S.U. isn't giving President Obama an honorary degree.
Racist!!!! You guys you need to shed your ego........
Obama's eminance is perhaps future. Perhaps Obama has already accomplished all he will be great for: Being a minority elected as president.
Kermit the Frog, 1996. Hmm, Obama- statesman, author, Ivy League school graduate... yeah. Sounds reasonable.
This makes me embarrassed to call myself an Arizonan. Who is the bonehead that made this call??
If the ASU denial makes you ashamed, what about the booing toward the President Elect, at the Arizona Biltmore during McCain's wonderful, honorable, concession speech. As a former resident of Arizona, I was equally embarrassed by the lack of patriotism exhibited by so-called patriotic Americans.
Kermit the Frog, 1996. Hmm, Obama- statesman, author, Ivy League school graduate... yeah. Sounds reasonable.
This makes me embarrassed to call myself an Arizonan. Who is the bonehead that made this call??
it's hard to add to your educational background if you are being held as a prisoner of war. I'm not arguing whether Obama should have recieved it or not, but have some respect for an American Hero. You're a joke...
First of all, this headline is tripe.
Second of all, Tempe/Phoenix and the surrounding demographic territory is... Not the most cultured area of the country. There is this paradoxical theatre of useless hippies and staunch racists creating a proverbial amalgum of bad, bad, taste socially. My apologies to the respectable residents of the area.
Finally, Obama has a Harvard Law degree. Who cares if these crackerjacks at ASU don't want to honor him?
It is kind of an FU though, considering the credentials of past honorees.
No more Arizona golf vacations for me. Having chosen to diss the President, a man of enormous accomplishments, Arizona has seen the last of me and my money.
Sounds good. Tell your family and friends to do the same.
You don't have any money and even if you did, Arizonans wouldn't want you.
* Wu Qidi: the vice minister of education of the People’s Republic of China was given an honorary degree at ASU in May 2006
* Cesar Chavez: The Mexican-American labor and civil rights activist was bestowed an honorary degree in 1992.
* Lawrence Douglas Wilder: The nation’s first African-American governor in Virginia received an honorary degree and delivered the commencement address at ASU in 2004.
* Rita Colwell: A microbiologist who was the 11th director of the National Science Foundation, received an honorary degree in 2004.
* John Christian: A long-serving lawyer and community activist, received an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters in 2002.
* Jane Dee Hull: Arizona’s first elected female governor received an honorary degree.
* Alfredo Gutierrez: A long time Arizona legislator, was given an honorary doctorate in 2000.
* Kim Campbell: Canada’s 19th prime minister, received an honorary degree in 2005.
* Lord John Browne of Madingley: The President of the Royal Academy of Engineering and Chief Executive of BP, received an honorary degree in 2005.
* Peterson Zah: The one time president of the Navajo Nation was honored in 2005.
* Rex G. Maughan: The founder, president, and CEO of Forever Living Products and Terry Labs, was honored in 2002.
I'm curious as to when was the last time the ASU commencement speaker was denied the "honorary" degree...
I find it ironic that in denying our president of an “honorary” degree, ASU has divested itself of any honor.
Who cares? about Arizona University? Obama, have a better degree than that!!! Bushys have never a honorary degrees, and if he get them, were he nearly was worthy of one of them???? He was a nerd!!!
Is Arizona in a time warp,I read these posts talking about hippies and that sounds like someone has been in a coma for 40 years,but talking about RACIST HIPPIES...thats just nuts!Isn't this the place that thought Martin Luther King Jr. was a terrorist,McCain country is just RIGHTWING HELL,roast in your own disgusting juices racists!
Arizonans never considered MLK a terrorist. Are you high? asu decides not to give POTUS an honorary degree, and now all Arizonans are the scum of the Earth? Have you even BEEN to Arizona?
What makes Arizona State so swell?
It is not true that there is no such thing as bad publicity.
Whoever made this decision should be fired.
Now remember everyone there's a difference between arizona state scum devils and the University of Arizona wildcats. Tucson is a lot more selective over who they let in. Although kermit the frog is probably the smartest person to get a degree from ASU.
I think that ASU just renamed itself in its flip-flop on presenting an Honorary Degree to the President. Perhaps it has renamed itself A Studid School or A Silly School. Don't ask me how one might abbreviate that new name. Would that be profane or inane? Perhaps just mundane.
Upon reading all of the comments on this subject, I too agree that President Obama has accomplished far more and under more challenging circumstances than many of the ASU honorary recipients. I don’t think an honorary doctorate from ASU is that big a deal. However, this matter has placed ASU in a very bad light.
Interestingly enough, this president has recognized the importance of education from ‘the cradle through a career’ and proposed sizable funds for ‘higher education’ which will help young people like the students at Arizona State to be able to attend college. It is obvious in his own life and as President of the U.S. that he values education and wants to see others have the same opportunities.
Finally, I commend the students to be honored on graduation day because in the long run, it is about what YOU have accomplished!!! Your commencement speaker, President Obama, will both HONOR and CHALLENGE you to reach YOUR dreams and contribute to make the world A BETTER PLACE. You may not ever receive an honorary doctorate from ASU, but don’t let that hinder your aspirations. The example your speaker has set should let you know that YES YOU CAN do whatever you have passion for and are willing to work hard enough to accomplish.
We should turn ASU into a laundry mat...
How does Obama deserve a degree? For making the foreclosure crisis worse than ever?? For deepening the national debt, by more than any other president in history in a matter of a few months? Or maybe its that wonderful "free healthcare" that everyone wants, and no one realizes IS NOT free!!! Trust me my wife is English, and we've seen socialized medicine first-hand, and it is the absolute worst. What makes him worthy of an honorary degree? Being a lawyer? Don't they already have degrees? The whole Mccain argument is moot, because the man was POW in Vietnam, he is a national hero whether you like him or not. He's served his country honorably, granted I would've preferred Bob Barr or Giuliani as candidate but you get what you get. All I know is we're being railroaded by our political system dem or rep doesn't matter, we're ALL getting SCREWED and we're ALL paying the bill!! Wake up America, we need to take back our country from politicians and lobbyists, a representative republic does not behave this way.
Amen to that! Obama is green, self-serving and is all about himself and his image. Quit apologizing to the world for American "mistakes"!
India is going the opposite direction, we should be taking notes from them.
Once again....President Obama has taken what is a negative and changed it into a positive....in his speech he spoke of the notion of not resting on one's laurels...but to continue to STRIVE TOWARDS EXCELLENCE....
once again our President proves that he is head and shoulders above those who who try to put him down..
As I sit here and thank ASU for not recognizing a fascist who believes in corportism, I only wish others had the frustration the 60% of us Americans who actually pay taxes do. ASU is a shining star amongst the dull marxist educators across America that have never worked a real job in their life. I guess they have not learned that once a government goes down the road we are going that many leaders like Mao, Stalin, Pot, etc.. first act was to eliminate the educators. I would rather go down fighting rather than have that suprised look on my face when they arrested me.
I am ashamed of being an Arizonan and if I had the opportunity I would leave this god-forsaken state that has been home to me for the last quarter of a century. This is the state that was forced to acknowledge the Martin Luther King holiday, kicking and wailing. That is where we got the racist governor Evan Mecham (RIP) who turned the tide on that holiday and set back the civil rights gains by a generation by rescinding the Martin Luther King holiday that had been signed
into law by his predecessor, Governor Bruce Babbitt, who went on to become interior Secretary under Clinton. Instead Arizona wallows in vain glory of a nineteenth century-frontier state. That explains why we have dregs like “toughest sheriff in America” Sheriff, Joe Arpaio who is more interested in arresting illegal aliens (overstepping his constitutional obligations) rather than solving abundant crime in Phoenix and Arizona in general. He is more interested in parading
prisoners in pink and in chains. Then you have that fascist state representative Russell Pierce who is more interested in enforcing so-called Employer sanctions laws than creating jobs.
Meanwhile, education is not given any priority. Arizona has the worst teen pregnancies in the country and its education is also at the bottom. This is a state that never built a new university in that long twentieth century we have just left behind and I looked with envy at Michelle Obama’s commencement speech at the newest twenty-first century University in California at Merced. In contrast all (only) the three universities Arizona has are nineteenth century relics. Yes, Arizona is
hell-on-earth in this land of the free and brave and if I get the chance, I will go back to Pennsylvania where I originally came from.
Arizona State ranks first in Partying, last in academics (or close to)...they can't give Obama an honorary degree, for what? Because he hasn't accomplished enough? Like being the first black president isn't enough already -- you give degrees to students who graduate in 6 years with major in recreation management for christ sake.
I agree that if McCain won the election, ASU wouldn't have so quick to jump on the wagon.
What is everyones take on the 75billion dollar Obama housing package. I don't get what he means by 'rescuing those who have played by the rules'? uhhhh.... what rules?