The Office of Community Relations and University Events manages the campus honorary degree nominations process and works closely with the Chancellor’s Chief of Staff, who also serves as the Chair of the Honorary Degree Advisory Committee.
Each spring semester the Chair of the Honorary Degree Advisory Committee sends an email to all faculty, staff, and students inviting them to nominate candidates for honorary doctorates and establishing a deadline for submission.
Nominators must complete a nomination package, including an official nomination form that asks for biographical information and the reasons why the candidate deserves the degree. Nominees are not informed of the nomination.
After the deadline specified in the campus communication, the Honorary Degree Advisory Committee meets to consider the nominations received. This committee is purely advisory to the Chancellor who may (or may not) forward the committee’s recommended nominees to the President. Members are asked to do additional research on the nominees, and if they so choose, to make additional nominations. The Chancellor may also forward additional nominations for an Honorary Degree outside of the committee review.
All nomination material, committee deliberations, committee votes, and committee and chancellor recommendations are confidential.
Members of the Honorary Degree Advisory Committee include the following: two faculty or librarians, two deans, one representative of the UMass Amherst Alumni Association, one representative of the Student Government Association, one representative of Graduate Student Government, one staff member, and the Chancellor’s Chief of Staff. Members serve for one year, though may be reappointed.
After its deliberations and voting, the Chair of the Advisory Committee communicates with the Chancellor about recommendations of the committee.
The Chancellor reviews the list and may add to or subtract from it, then forwards a final list to the President requesting that it be submitted it to the Board of Trustees for review and approval.
Arrangements for the honorary degree candidate’s visit to campus are made by the Office of Community Relations and University Events.