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(UPI) — Arizona State University will name a scholarship program for President Obama, who will address graduating seniors next month.
The school’s president, Michael M. Crow, sought to defuse the controversy that enveloped the campus over whether the U.S. president would be given an honorary degree during his scheduled commencement speech next month.
“I apologize for the confusion surrounding our invitation to President Obama to address ASU students at commencement,” said ASU President Michael M. Crow. “The entire ASU community has been electrified with excitement since we learned of his participation in our commencement ceremony. We hope that the recent discussion of honorary degrees will not detract from the honor and thrill that ASU – and indeed all of Arizona – is experiencing in anticipation of his visit. I am honored, as are our faculty, staff and students, that President Obama will give his first commencement speech as president of the United States at ASU.”
Crow said that in recognition of Obama’s commitment to educational access and his career in public service, it would name its most important scholarship program in his honor: the President Barack Obama Scholars.
Arizona State was in turmoil the past days …
(Huffington Post) – Erma Bombeck Hugh Downs, Howard Pyle, Jerry Colangelo, Art Buchwald, and Steve Allen to name a few from the check list of entertainers, sports owners, gossip columnists, and satirists that Arizona State University claims had lofty enough credentials to merit an honorary degree. In fact, since ASU ladled out its first honorary degree to Federick M. Irish and John Matthews on May 28, 1940 the cast of second tier politicians, writers, entertainers, artists, business tycoons, oil and gas magnets, and sports notables the school has dished out the award to flows off the pages.
Some years ASU just couldn’t seem to shelve out enough of the paper symbols. In 1987 it gave out seven honorary degrees. In 1994 it gave out seven more. And in five other years the school handed out three or more honorary degrees. The recipients were the usual suspects and they were spread all over the map, artists, writers, entertainers, politicians, and business moguls. The only thing consistent about who ASU officials chooses to toss the paper too is there is no consistency.
The ASU honors committee mission statement is a study in brevity. It simply reads that faculty, the six person honors committee, and the president will “single out people who have made contributions to society.” This purposely vague criteria for an honorary degree says everything and nothing. It pretty much makes the degree a subjective judgment call which comes down to money, politics, celebrity, or merely the like or dislike of a person.
Arizona State University President Michael Crow suggested Saturday in an email to faculty and students that he was hesitant to award President Obama an honorary degree because of potential political consequences to the state-supported school.
“Since my appointment we have not awarded honorary degrees to sitting politicians, a practice based on the very practical realities of operating a public university in our political environment,” Crow wrote in the message, obtained by POLITICO.
He added: “We are a young and emerging university in a new and politically complex state.”
Arizona is home to Obama’s 2008 opponent, Sen. John McCain, and also has a Republican governor and GOP-controlled legislature.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
