Honorary doctorate

An honorary doctorate is usually awarded at five-year anniversary events or on special occasions. It earns the laureate an elaborate bit of paper drafted in Latin and the title doctor honoris causa. The honorary doctorate is different than a doctoral degree and is abbreviated as “dr.h.c.” Since 1947, Tilburg University has awarded 49 honorary doctorates to the likes of former UN Secretary Kofi Annan, Al Gore (“I used to be the next president of the United States”), Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, former Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers, alumnus Herman Wijffels and 0n in 1952 (photo left)the French Prime Minister Robert Schuman, spiritual father of the EU. An honorary doctorate is awarded in recognition of exceptional scientific of social merit.

The procedure is quite elaborate. The Faculty concerned ‒ in its turn or by virtue of a special occasion ‒ is requested to present a recommendation. The Dean then performs an in-house search for names of eligible candidates that the faculty means to submit to the Doctorate Board, consisting of five Deans and the Rector Magnificus. This Board then decides who will be invited to receive the honorary doctorate. This enterprise sometimes fails: at the beginning of this century, when Turkish author Orhan Pamuk was to be the prospective honorary doctor, his problems with his government meant he proved to be untraceable. The very first honorary doctorate was awarded in 1947 by the then College to a bishop, Monsignor Poels. The last honorary doctorate to date went to the US economic psychologist George Loewenstein, his fifth. This pales into insignificance when compared to Japanese author and philosopher Daisaku Ikeda, who received his 338th honorary doctorate from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in 2013.