Honorary Degrees
University of Pennsylvania
Honorary degrees are important statements of Penn's values and aspirations and we strongly encourage your participation in this process.
Honorary Degree Process
The Office of the University Secretary manages the honorary degrees process at Penn.
All members of the University community are welcome to submit nominations. All nominations are confidential and potential nominees should not be contacted directly. Review is ongoing and candidates may ultimately be selected several years after their initial nomination.
The University Council Honorary Degrees Committee, with a membership of faculty, staff and graduate and undergraduate students, is charged with reviewing nominations from the fields of scholarship and academic achievement and advising the Trustee Committee on Honorary Degrees and Awards. The Trustee Committee considers recommendations from the Council Committee as well as other sources and makes final selections.
It is University policy not to consider Penn standing faculty, trustees, or school and center overseers for honorary degrees.
Penn emeritus faculty are eligible to receive honorary degrees through a special nomination process by University Deans.
List of previous University of Pennsylvania
Honorary Degree Recipients
Honorary Degree Qualifications
Candidates should exemplify the highest ideals of the University, which seek to educate those who will change the world through innovative scholarship, scientific discovery, artistic creativity and/or societal leadership. Please note that Penn does not offer Honorary Degrees posthumously or in absentia.
Nominations for Honorary Degrees
Nominations should explain how nominees meet the criteria for selection and outline the nominees’ achievements and contributions; Please include as much biographical and other supporting information as possible, but do not contact the nominees. The nomination process is confidential and nominees should not know that they are being considered. We particularly encourage nominations from fields which have not been recognized by the award of honorary degrees in recent years.
For general purposes, field of consideration for honorary degree nominations are as follows:
- Arts and Culture
- Business
- Education
- Entertainment and Media
- Humanities and Social Sciences
- Public Affairs (government, law)
- Scholarship/Academia
- Science, Technology and Medicine
- Other
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Author, educator, and international speaker
MacArthur Foundation Fellow
Commencement Speaker and Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters
Anthony M. Kennedy
Associate Justice, Retired Supreme Court of the United States
Honorary Doctor of Laws
Jhumpa Lahiri
Author and translator, Professor of Creative Writing and Director, Creative Writing Program, Princeton University, Recipient
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters
Jill Lepore
American historian and author, David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History, Harvard University, Staff writer, The New Yorker
Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters
Stanley A. Plotkin
Physician, educator, researcher, and developer of vaccines, Emeritus Professor of Pediatrics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Professor Emeritus of Virology, Wistar Institute, Philadelphia
Honorary Doctor of Sciences
Sister Mary Scullion
Advocate in service of the homeless and mentally ill, Co-founder, Project HOME, Philadelphia, Member of the Sisters of Mercy
Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters
Gregg L. Semenza, M’82, GR’84
C. Michael Armstrong Professor of Genetic Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Founding Director, Vascular Biology Program, Johns Hopkins Institute for Cell Engineering, Recipient of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Honorary Doctor of Sciences
Henry Threadgill
Jazz composer and multi-instrumentalist artist, Recipient, Pulitzer Prize for Music
Honorary Doctor of Music