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The number of honorary degrees given out each year varies, as well as the timeline for the application process. The types of degrees given also vary, although most in the last 25 years were Doctors of Human Letters.

The nominees aren’t necessarily from the surrounding community, but many are, since most nominees have a connection to Hamline. Typically, applications are “asked for in the fall,” but because President Hanson has recently joined the Hamline family, the university is “re-looking at the whole process,” Goff said. Students can get involved in the honorary degree process by nominating people in the community.

August Wilson, the famous playwright, received an honorary degree from Hamline in 1990. To celebrate his life and memory, various members from Penumbra Theatre Company and eight Hamline students performed Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, The Piano Lesson, Seven Guitars,” “Fences and King Hedley II” last Thursday.

Wilson earned many awards for his plays, including two Pulitzer prizes for Fences and The Piano Lesson. He also earned a National Humanities Medal in 1999. Another honor, which Wilson didn’t even get to see, was the re-naming of the Virginia Theatre in New York the August Wilson Theatre. It was the first theatre in the broadway area to be named after an African American.

Other honorees include Frances Moore Lappe, Huston C. Smith, Alexander MacDonald Keith, and Isabel Wilkerson.
Lappe earned an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters in 1987 for her dedication to irradicating the problem of world hunger. Her book, “Diet for a Small Planet,” sold almost three million copies. Lappe also founded the Institute for Food and Development Policy, a non-profit organization for educating and documenting the political and economic causes of world hunger.

Smith received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters in 1988 for the education he received from around the United States, as well as in China, and for his book, “The Religious Man,” which has become a classic for the study of religious thought. Smith also taught at Hamline from 1983 to 1986.
Keith received an honorary degree from the School of Law in 1996. He began serving the Minnesota Supreme Court in 1990. He was legal counsel for Mayo Clinic for five years. He served as a state senator, as well as lieutenant governor, and was a founding partner in the Dunlap, Keith, Finseth, Berndt & Sandberg firm in 1973.

Wilkerson earned an honorary Doctor of Human Letters in 1998 and was the first African American woman to earn a Pulizer Prize for journalism and individual reporting. Wilkerson also earned the 1994 Journalist of the Year and has lectured on social policy at Harvard Law school, Princeton University and Northwestern University.