Celebrity Degrees : Cap, Gown, Autograph Book . . .

In a recent episode of the cartoon strip “Doonesbury,” a wealthy businessman delivers a brief commencement address to the graduating class of a mythical university. “I’d go mostly into mutuals, maybe a few T-Bills. . . . Also buy Amstar before Tuesday, though you didn’t hear that from me, OK?” he tells a wildly enthusiastic crowd.

“Doonesbury” creator Garry Trudeau has been skewering the tradition of commencement speeches for years. And along the way, Trudeau has offered his view of different college generations ready to greet the world in a haze of marijuana smoke or in the cozy interior of a BMW.

Real life will come close to copying cartoons on June 18 when Trudeau, a Yalie, is to be the commencement speaker at Stanford University.

Fills the Bill

“We were looking for someone who was known to be an excellent speaker, who was not a politician, and someone with a sense of humor to let the graduates go off with a smile,” said Preston Hammer, a Stanford senior class president who served on the committee of faculty and students that nominated six possible speakers. Stanford President Donald Kennedy made the final choice.

Stanford, of course, is not alone in having a celebrity with little previous connection to the campus as its honored guest at graduation. The selection of commencement speakers and honorary degree candidates can be a competitive and controversial business. Schools throughout the country scurry for big names in hope of adding a touch of glamour, solemnity, humor, inspiration or just plain publicity to the day.

But critics caution that the honors are sometimes used to curry favor from politicians and to garner donations from other powerful recipients.

The person is supposed to be a role model for graduates--in some cases at many colleges.

The Record-Holder

Father Theodore M. Hesburgh, former president of the University of Notre Dame, holds the record, with more than 100 honorary degrees. In recent years, other popular names on the graduation circuit have included Presidents Reagan and Bush, U.S. Secretary of Education Lauro Cavazos, Chrysler Corp. Chairman Lee Iacocca, former baseball commissioner and Olympic czar Peter Ueberroth and comedian Bill Cosby.

Some schools give honorary degrees to outsiders but have a student deliver the commencement address. Some, like Stanford, forbid honorary degrees, saying that all degrees must be earned, but still make a big fuss over the speaker. Some give the degrees and let the recipient talk. No matter, the general idea is the same.

“It is both an opportunity to honor an individual and for the institution to receive some recognition,” said John B. Slaughter, president of Occidental College in Los Angeles which is to give honorary degrees this Sunday to Mayor Tom Bradley and Robert Skotheim, director of the Huntington Library.

Slaughter, who is finishing his first year at Occidental and is that 101-year-old school’s first black president, is himself a hot commodity for California graduations this season. He has received honorary degrees from Pomona College and the University of the Pacific and is to collect a medal from UCLA. At Pomona, the other honorary degree recipient was Raymond Barre, former premier of France, chosen because this year is the bicentennial of the French Revolution.

“I think we want to lend dignity to a ceremony that has lost some of its solemnity over the years,” explained Alan Charles, UCLA’s vice chancellor for public affairs. “The students may be popping champagne and tossing beach balls for most of the ceremony, but they do pay rapt attention to those speakers.”

Medals Replace Degrees

The UC Regents banned honorary degrees in 1972 because of their proliferation and a dispute over giving them to liberals during the Vietnam War. Some UC campuses get around that rule by giving medals. Recipients this year at UCLA’s various divisions include U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun, movie producer Walter Mirisch, Smithsonian Institution chief Robert McCormick Adams, former UCLA vice chancellor Rosemary Park and Slaughter.

Television news figures and actors are highly sought, according to Richard F. Rosser, president of the National Assn. of Independent Colleges and Universities. “There was a time when Alan Alda was one of the most popular speakers. Students want someone who can speak to their generation and they related to his character on ‘MASH,’ ” he said.

Among this season’s match-ups are: television anchorman Jim Lehrer at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, CBS commentator Charles Osgood at Stonehill College in Maine, actor Ed Asner at Northeastern University in Boston, and actress Glenn Close at her alma mater, the College of William and Mary in Virginia, as well as at Mt. Holyoke College in Massachusetts. CBS correspondent Harry Reasoner on Sunday will be the commencement speaker at the University of Minnesota’s College of Liberal Arts and will receive the journalism degree he finally earned by adding recent independent studies to credits from 40 years ago.

Sources of Honorees

The worlds of politics, business, academia, literature, sports and alumni are frequent sources of graduation honorees.

Benazir Bhutto, Class of ‘73, spoke this week at Harvard; she also happens to be prime minister of Pakistan. At Denison University in Ohio last month, the speaker was Michael Eisner, Class of 1964 and now chairman of Walt Disney Co.; students whipped off their mortar boards and donned silver Mickey Mouse ears to greet him.

President Bush received invitations from many schools this year and spoke at four graduations, including the relatively obscure Alcorn State University in Mississippi.

Another popular speaker from Washington is Education Secretary Cavazos. According to a spokesman, “dozens and dozens” wanted Cavazos and about 20 got him this year, including Alaska Pacific University in Anchorage, Rhode Island College and the College of New Rochelle in New York. In addition, Cavazos spoke at a convocation earlier this spring celebrating the close of a big fund drive at UCLA and received a medal there.

Jaime Escalante, the calculus teacher at Garfield High School in Los Angeles, also has been in demand since his career was profiled in the movie “Stand and Deliver.” Among his recent honorary degrees is one from the University of South Carolina.

Writers Tom Wolfe, E. L. Doctorow, Maya Angelou and Edward Albee were part of graduation ceremonies at, respectively, Yale University, Brandeis University, USC and San Diego State this year. Reed College in Oregon had feminist lawyer and writer Catharine MacKinnon and Smith College in Massachusetts had economist John Kenneth Galbraith. Ueberroth was at Notre Dame and Iacocca at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey over the last few weeks.

Central State University in Ohio gave an honorary doctorate a few weeks ago to heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson, a high school dropout. The school said Tyson is a role model on how to overcome adversity.

Nixon Figures

The University of San Diego last month had a combination with resonances of Nixon-era conflict. Among its honorees were Herb Klein, executive of the Copley newspaper chain who was communications chief in the White House under President Richard M. Nixon, and former Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox, who was awarded a degree in absentia because he was ill.

Usually a committee of faculty, students and administrators makes recommendations to the school president or board of trustees.

“I think what a college president is trying to do is pick someone who is of general interest and prestige,” said the independent schools association’s Rosser, who used to be president of DePauw University in Indiana. “You want to make your students feel good, and you want to attract the media and have your commencement written up.”

Schools have been known to give honorary degrees to generous or potentially generous donors. But those degrees usually are not overtly used as a bait for money, although college administrators may have that in the back of their minds, Rosser said. After all, he added, wealthy people “know exactly what’s going on.”

Concern Over Motives

Carol Simpson Stern, president of the American Assn. of University Professors, said some faculties are concerned that honorary degrees are at times conferred for political reasons or hopes of getting a big donation from the recipient rather than for recognition of real achievements.

“I think most university presidents resist that,” Stern said, “but there is constant, unspoken pressure.” Some professors may be fearful to criticize the choices, particularly at public institutions, she added.

Stern said she is not as concerned about media personalities accepting awards because most have earned their honors. But, she added: “It’s worrisome when you feel you need to give it to every mayor or legislator.”

The planning for speakers and honorary degrees often begins a year in advance. “If you wait too long, practically all the big names are gobbled up,” explained Robert Daseler, spokesman for Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, where Gov. George Deukmejian was the commencement speaker last month and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist William Styron spoke last year.

And the greater the name, the more chance of a late cancellation, officials say. For example, baseball hero Joe DiMaggio, who has close family ties to San Francisco, was supposed to be the speaker last month at the University of San Francisco, a Jesuit-run institution. But DiMaggio dropped out because of a scheduling conflict and was replaced at the last minute by Father Milton Walsh, pastor of St. Mary’s Cathedral of San Francisco.

Stanford was embarrassed three years ago when it became known that ABC newsman Ted Koppel was asked to deliver the address after two other celebrities turned Stanford down. Koppel took it in good humor and came anyway. Now secrecy surrounds the Stanford choices and no one close to the process this year will reveal who the other candidates were or whether Trudeau was Kennedy’s first choice.

Officials involved in the selections say they try for different types of speakers from year to year and, if more than one is involved, a mixture of honorary degree candidates by career, race and sex.

Some Pitfalls

The recipients for honorary degrees tend to be non-controversial people because colleges fear offending students, parents and alumni. However, some choices have triggered disputes.

For example, some audience members at Adelphi University in New York rose and turned their backs two years ago when an honorary degree was given to physicist Edward Teller, an architect of the “Star Wars” Strategic Defense Initiative. In 1986, Harvard administrators debated over whether to give President Reagan a degree at the university’s 350th anniversary party and finally decided to give no honorary degrees at all. In the mid-1970s, USC was criticized for giving a degree to the shah of Iran in a private ceremony.

At Stanford, the choice of Trudeau proved popular, even if his liberal politics are distasteful to some on campus. Just what the cartoonist plans to tell the Class of ’89 is not known; numerous attempts to interview Trudeau were unsuccessful. But students looking for stock tips and other financial advice on commencement day are likely to be disappointed.