The University of Arizona has stripped the Faculty Senate of its role in approving honorary degrees, a shift faculty leaders say undercuts shared governance and signals growing friction with university leadership.
Previously, the faculty senate — a representative governing body of faculty that includes elected positions — was required to formally approve honorary degree nominations. But a communication from President Suresh Garimella’s office released in November showed that he changed that policy.
“That does not bode well for shared governance,” said Leila Hudson, Faculty Senate chair and associate professor in the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies.
Honorary degrees are symbolic honors awarded to people for notable achievements without requiring classes or a diploma program.
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“We thought that it was probably a simple misunderstanding on his part and that we could persuade him by logic and reason,” Hudson said.
Now, a president-appointed committee, that includes regent professors and the faculty secretary, is charged with the approval. Hudson said Faculty Senate involvement served as a fail-safe and that disagreements over nominations were rare.
“This confidential review and approval is basically risk management. You’re protecting everyone’s reputation by doing serious confidential due diligence,” she said. “There’s only one case in the last decade where there was any disagreement.”
Hudson said those disagreements occur behind closed doors, by design.
“It’s designed to prevent the embarrassment that would come from a poorly thought out candidature. And hopefully the public will never know about that case or any other case in which it was the faculty who pointed out the inappropriateness,” Hudson said.
In 2015, university president, Ann Weaver Hart, planned to convey an honorary degree to Bill Cosby. The nomination was dropped amid rape allegations and an eventual conviction involving former UA basketball player, Andrea Constand. The conviction was overturned in 2021.
The Faculty Senate put forth a motion in January urging President Garimella and his delegates to continue using the established 2006 procedures for granting honorary degrees, which involve confidential review and approval by the Faculty Senate. The motion passed in February with 42 in favor, four opposed, and two abstentions.
Hudson said the president’s technical explanation for the change was that he did not make a new policy but rather repealed an existing one that had been in place for 20 years.
University spokesperson Mitch Zak, told Arizona Luminaria in a statement that the change “is consistent with its peer institutions” and that “faculty are formally included in the process, nominee vetting is strengthened through a structured review, and final responsibility rests with the president.”
Hudson said that other universities’ procedures on honorary degree conveyance should have no bearing on UA’s operations.
“We replied that it has nothing to do with us. We have well-established rules, policies, and procedures, not to mention academic tradition,” she said.
In protest of the rule change, Hudson is refusing to lead the procession of the faculty or carrying the mace during commencement. In a letter to Garimella dated April 6, she said this was due to “due to your egregious violation of academic practice and Arizona statute.”
Additionally, Hudson said she discourages other faculty members from standing in her place and will notify future honorary degree recipients “formally of your breach of protocol and law through legalistic machinations which some speculate may have been engineered to secure for you an ‘at-risk’ salary increment from the Arizona Board of Regents.”
Hudson ended the letter, “May I suggest that you carry the University mace yourself in the procession, or have one of your appointed friends or political or financial advisors do so?”
For faculty leaders, the policy change is just one example of a wider erosion of shared governance.
Former UA President Robert Robbins signed and agreed to a memorandum of understanding in 2022, almost five years into his position as president, detailing the framework and principles of shared governance at the university. Garimella, going into his second year as president, has refused to sign.
“We’ve now had the opportunity to get to know each other a little better and his refusal to either endorse or participate in the creation of a new memorandum of understanding with the faculty as even his predecessor Bobby Robbins did makes it seem as if this is a deliberate strategy to try and sideline the faculty and put the faculty in their place,” Hudson said.
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