University of Kent

Honorary degrees

The Degrees of DArts, DCL, DD, DLitt, DMus, DSc, DUniv and LLD

Award of Honorary Degrees in 2012 and subsequent years

The next meeting of the University’s Honorary Degrees Committee, to be held on Monday 24 October 2011, is to consider suggestions for the award of honorary degrees at Congregations to be held in July 2012, November 2012 and subsequent years.

I am, therefore, pleased to invite you to submit suggestions for the award of honorary degrees to be considered by the Committee at its November meeting.  It would be helpful if suggestions could be sent to Jo Pearsall, Administrative Assistant, Central Secretariat, by Friday 14 October 2011.

The attached Paper gives details of the honorary degrees currently available and of the criteria to be used by the Honorary Degrees Committee in determining the recommendations for Senate and Council to approve.  I also enclose a nomination form for your suggestions(s).  [This may be photocopied or further copies may be obtained from my Office or from the Central Secretariat website at http://www.kent.ac.uk/censec/other/Honorary-degrees/nomination-form.pdf]  I would be very grateful if all suggestions could be made using the nomination form as this will ensure that we receive all the information necessary for suggestions to be properly considered at the forthcoming meeting of the Honorary Degrees Committee.

In recent years the overall number of suggestions has been low so I should like to encourage as many suggestions as possible of distinguished individuals to be brought forward for consideration for awards in 2012.  In order to ensure the award of Honorary Degrees across a broad range of academic disciplines and subject areas it would be helpful to receive at least one or two suggestions from each department within the three Faculties.

Finally please note that it is hoped to make recommendations for 2012 awards at the Honorary Degrees Committee’s meeting in October 2011 and that only if this is not possible will the March 2012 meeting be held.  So while we should be pleased to receive good suggestions for consideration at any time it would be best to arrange for submission sooner rather than later so that they can be considered for awards in 2012 this Autumn.  Please contact Jo Pearsall (J.L.Pearsall@kent.ac.uk or telephone ext. 4671) with any queries or requests for any additional information you might need.

Karen Goffin
Secretary of the Council (Secretary to the Honorary Degrees Committee)

6 September 2011