The Committee on Honorary Degrees is currently piloting changes designed to provide additional structural guidance for the honorary degree selection process. Policies and procedures may be further refined in the fall of 2024.
Policies
Procedure & Timeline
The following are the general procedures and timeline for the honorary degree process.
- Ongoing: Campus and community partners submit candidate ideas for honorary degrees. Candidate ideas received by December 15 are included in the pool of candidates to be considered for an honorary degree starting in the next academic year. Ideas are accepted on a rolling basis, review is ongoing, and candidates may ultimately be selected several years after submission.
- January-March: The Committee on Honorary Degrees considers candidate ideas and sends preliminary nominations to the chancellor.
- April-September: The Committee on Honorary Degrees prepares full nominations and gathers letters of recommendation.
- September/October: The Committee on Honorary Degrees sends full nominations to the chancellor.
- September/October: The chancellor sends recommendations to the Board of Regents for their October or November meeting.
- December: Nominations left standing are presented to the Faculty Senate for a vote. Only senators may vote; ¾ affirmative votes of those present are required for confirmation.
- December: Invitations are sent to approved nominees to attend spring commencement; recipients must be present to accept.
- May: Commencement and honorary degrees are bestowed.