Honorary Degrees at the University of Northern Iowa

Universities sometimes choose to award honorary degrees to recognize special achievement, especially among their faculty and alumni.  These degrees are not earned in the everyday sense of accumulating appropriate, organized sequences of classroom credit.  Rather, honorary degrees are a means of citing particular achievement or service, sometimes to the university and sometimes on a broader scale.

The University of Northern Iowa was late in beginning to award honorary degrees.  Not until 1975, as the university approached its 100th anniversary, did James Schell Hearst receive the first UNI honorary degree.  Since that time the university has chosen to honor a number of people, most of whom have been faculty or alumni of UNI.

Listed below are the recipients of UNI honorary degrees, the degrees that they received, and the date on which they received them.  Follow the linked names to short biographical sketches of the degree recipients.