Cornell, according to the delicate geniuses over at Newsweek, is so hot right now. I can’t understand why; not when the University’s unsurpassed ability to choose staggeringly mediocre graduation speakers is a perennial embarrassment.
Of course, in the Annals of Completely Moronic Ideas (a leather-bound volume available in Olin and Uris libraries and by electronic reserve), Cornell’s entries are some of the most putrid stinkers of the lot. Like the Public Relations department’s decision to print up some totally spiffy “Hottest Ivy” celluloid buttons.
It’s this kind of narrow attitude and utter lack of foresight that leads to mistakes: mistakes like 12 shots of SoCo, the Iraq War and a convocation keynote by Soledad O’Brien.
While Cornell graduates putter around with passé C-listers like Soledad and Martin Luther King III, smaller, younger and less, ahem, well-endowed Brandeis University stands out in its consistent ability to attract top-flight graduation speakers.
This is a place that had the Massachusetts state supreme court judge who legalized gay marriage deliver a 2005 commencement keynote while NBC Nightly News Anchor Tom Brokaw cooled his heels on the bench; in 2006, a Jordanian prince addressed graduates while Angels in America playwright Tony Kushner manned the sidelines; in 2007, writer Joyce Carol Oates, architect Daniel Liebskind and two other honorees also spoke — but New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman was the main attraction.
Brandeis’ success at attracting high-profile speakers to graduation is in part attributable to its tradition of granting honorary degrees.
Unlike many universities, Cornell refuses to grant honorary degrees. But let’s be real here: This fall, Cornell will see speakers including Salman Rushdie and Steven Colbert, and pay tens of thousands of dollars for the pleasure. At Brandeis graduations, the only payment speakers receive is a cute and completely meaningless piece of paper. With honorary degrees, Cornell could attract better graduation speakers, and could even get out of paying exorbitant amounts for other appearances during the year.
Cornell, according to our Newsweek friends, is known for its practical, land-grant mentality. But there’s nothing practical about a system that attempts to increase Cornell’s prestige by denying it a major prestige item: high-profile speakers.
Any attempt to revise honorary degree policy would require a faculty-wide referendum. And the prevailing outlook among the elbow-patched tweed blazer classes, Dean of Faculty Charlie Walcott told me, isn’t exactly open to the idea.
“You say you have a degree from Cornell, it means you earned a degree from Cornell. You can’t just get one in an awards ceremony.”
Charlie said a lot of profs think we need to “protect the value” of the Cornell degree.
Really? People are going to confuse a Fake Degree for a Real Degree? At age 10, for example, I was made a Junior Ranger at Yellowstone National Park. Do you think I’ve ever been confused for a Real Live Park Ranger? I’m sure that anyone who’s ever seen me near any kind of wildlife — The Sun’s mascot dog, Bear, is included in this category — would testify to my cool, intrepid attitude of terrified panic in the face of Mother Nature.
An honorary Doctor of Letters or Doctor of Science is in no way equal to a Ph.D. or an M.D., and everyone knows it.
Which is why the Medical College’s embryonic plan to revise their honorary degree policy makes so much sense, and ought to be adopted by Cornell as a whole.
In a two-page internal memo, David Hajjar — an academic boy wonder who was granted tenure at 33 and is med school Dean Tony Gotto’s right hand man — outlined a Medical College proposal to begin awarding honorary degrees.
According to Hajjar, the degrees would honor both scientists and their medically-minded benefactors. He named Brooke Astor and Bill Gates as examples — could a $100 million Sandy Weill doctorate be in the works?
The idea of pay-for-play degrees makes me cringe; but you can’t help but support the notion that Cornell ought to be able to honor important people it likes and bring them to campus to speak to students.
Unfortunately, to hear Hajjar tell it, the initiative barely stands a chance.
“I think it’s gonna be an issue because they’re very deeply baked in tradition on the Ithaca campus,” he told me.
The faculty’s certainly baked in something. Cornell isn’t about stifling ideas; it’s about a culture of inquiry. If honorary degrees are what it takes to bring A-listers to campus, so be it: Knowledge, practicality and an engagement in the wider world are Cornellian qualities. Self-righteousness, last time I checked, is not.
David Wittenberg is a Senior Editor at The Sun. He can be contacted at dwittenberg@cornellsun.com. The Scoop appears Thursdays.