In the wake of the announcement that Arizona State University would not give President Obama an honorary degree because he lacks experience, the AUP (Arizona United Press) released a list of previous ASU honorary degree recipients.
Chief on the list is Chief Slinging Bull, honorary chief of the ARU (Arizona Reservation Union), who has made headlines for living in a cliff dwelling near the south rim of the Grand Canyon and posing for tourist photos. See www.slingingbull@compost.com.
Another recipient is Alan R. McCain, a cousin of the Arizona Senator who ran for President in 2008. Alan R. McCain, a Flagstaff attorney, has self-published six poetry chapbooks and is seeking a publisher for his first full-length collection.
Also on the list is the doyenne of Arizona folk singers, Sedona Mary Nightingale, whose platinum (in AZ) single “Scottsdale Blues” has become a state anthem.
Honored in 2008, Dolores Juárez-Sandusky managed the Phoenix branch of Goldman Sachs, where she set the record for sales of derivatives in the company’s Southwest district. Unhappily, the branch closed late in 2008 after setting a record for mortgage defaults.
A controversial honoree is Wrangler Lou Serpentine, ten-time winner of the annual Diamondback Rattler Roundup, in which the meanest dudes in the West compete to capture the most rattlers in the week they break hibernation. Wrangler Lou has come under suspicion for spraying snake dens with chloroform and then using a rake to pull unconscious rattlers out and into his catch bag.
The most experienced honoree is Missy Tarbuck, the oldest madame in Tempe, seat of the university, who admirers say has contributed mightily to the education of every administrator at ASU and continues her ministry with students to the present day.
All of these honorable degree recipients will be at the commencement this May, when President Obama delivers his address. Those on the list of honorees who were questioned allowed that giving this speech would give the President a leg up on the experience needed to receive an ASU honorary degree sometime in the next decade.
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You know, it makes me ashamed to live in Arizona (I’ll bet you can think of other reasons for shame here
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ASU really is asking for some comeuppance; while I have no prejudices in education, as soon as I heard about this my reaction was, “It’s a state college, not even an expensive private university!”. I’ll bet Harvard wouldn’t deny him a degree…
…oh, right–they didn’t!
Why does it work you up when honorary degrees shouldn’t even exist in the first place? I don’t know if it makes you feel any better but the vast majority of them go to large donors or are used as a bargaining chip to get somebody to speak at an engagement when the cash isn’t available. The rest are basically given out as advertisements for that school. I think ASU decided that they were from the same state as McCain and knew the fallout of giving him an honorary degree was worse in the long term than trying to advertise by giving it to him. Its actually pretty rare for a university to give them out for actual experience in the field of study. That is why a lot of “good” universities like MIT, Standford, Cornell, etc don’t believe in giving out honorary degrees. You should learn about them before you decide who should and should not get one.
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