President Barack Obama was invited to deliver a commencement address at the Arizona State University (ASU) the other day. His hosts at ASU -- Smell a rat? Isn't that in John McCain's home-state!?! -- had seen it fit to warn him in advance that he would not be getting any honorary degree from them, much as they desired that he grace the occasion. Their reasoning: His "body of work is yet to come."
Obama went anyway: Click here
Moral of the story: Honorary degrees are not rewards for political success -- or office.
Obama of course joked that those who chose to not award him a degree would have their financial records subjected to IRS scrutiny. He joked, but University Vice-Chancellors in Africa would not find such a joke a joke, but rather something real -- a sort of life-changing rebuke and promise. So our VCs continue to dish out honorary degrees (DOCTORATES) to all and sundry -- even people who will never earn a doctorate. Before you know it, these people are Dr. This and That, all over the place. There is, in all this, palpable devaluation of a good and inspiring thing -- so that those who aspire to earn it wonder if the effort is worth the effort; as they note with growing alarm -- the obscenity of it all -- that there is no place in which those who have it on a silver platter allow their last names to be mentioned at all without the prefix Dr.
Yet what is a mere Vice-Chancellor to do when pressed by those -- either the Chancellor himself, who doubles up as head of state and for whom the Vice-Chancellor technically or in principle "deputizes" at univerity, or the Chancellor's cronies -- who hold his/her fate in their hands and, by virtue of that fact alone, subtly or crudely demand a name-changing ceremony? But even ordinary citizens, who can tell a real doctorate when they see one (that is, determine that it was earned, not "taken" = nyakuad) are getting worked up by this rule of the jungle -- with none of the comic relief in PhDComics -- as was recently witnessed in Kenya. And they don't know how to stop it, or get relief.
With the mushrooming of universities around the world, including Kenya, nearly everyone with consequential muscles to flex is assured of his or her honorary doctorate. But standards are important: And a recognizable body of (scholarly) work seems to me a good, solid metric. Thank you, ASU!
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Ory Okolloh's Ingenuity
There is a write up on Ory Okolloh in Forbes.Com.
I posted this comment on May 13th:Proud of Ory's ingenuity -- her capacity to leverage her knowledge into a brand of expertise that makes a difference, in very practical ways, in ordinary people's lives. She's further proof that Kenya is becoming something of an idea factory -- in a growing number of ways: Harambee, M-Pesa, Land-Buying Companies, SACCOS, Chamas, Matatu, Michuki Rules, Equity Bank, Nyama Choma, Safari, Benga, Coalition Government (Kenya-style), Module II, and the like. Above all, she's proof that consequential ideas have never run out -- even for the so-called late-comer countries -- nor will they ever!Tags: Kenya, knowledge, Expertise, M-Pesa, Matatu, Harambee, Chamas, Michuki Rules, Module II
Remembering the Chinese Earthquake of May 2008
As we mark the first anniversary of the Great Sichuan Earthquake of May12, 2008, and as we remember rather more particularly what happened in and around the city of Chengdu (capital of Sichuan Province), there are images to look at (or look at again), and there are lessons to learn and re-learn:
1. Two Photo Specials:
a) Click Here for the first photo special
b) Click Here for the second photo special
2. A YouTube Footage, in which a most severe quake appears doubly so from its "shaking" effect on a CCTV (surveillance) camera whose routine and continuous gaze captures the quake's high moment -- as well as the real-time drama of (unscripted?) self-evacuation by apprehensive "office workers": Click Here
3. Click Here for lessons to learn and re-learn, and hazard/disaster classifications to ponder, as certain observers and I see them. Besides, of course, the great toll in human life and property, the phenomenon of quake lakes , and how it was responded to, as well as the ease with which apparently modern schoolhouses were, unlike older and more "traditional" ones, nearly everywhere flattened, were to me among the most attention-grabbing aspects of the Sichual Earthquake.
4. Click Here for a conversation about the environmental challenges that the Great Sichuan Earthquake wrought.
1. Two Photo Specials:
a) Click Here for the first photo special
b) Click Here for the second photo special
2. A YouTube Footage, in which a most severe quake appears doubly so from its "shaking" effect on a CCTV (surveillance) camera whose routine and continuous gaze captures the quake's high moment -- as well as the real-time drama of (unscripted?) self-evacuation by apprehensive "office workers": Click Here
3. Click Here for lessons to learn and re-learn, and hazard/disaster classifications to ponder, as certain observers and I see them. Besides, of course, the great toll in human life and property, the phenomenon of quake lakes , and how it was responded to, as well as the ease with which apparently modern schoolhouses were, unlike older and more "traditional" ones, nearly everywhere flattened, were to me among the most attention-grabbing aspects of the Sichual Earthquake.
4. Click Here for a conversation about the environmental challenges that the Great Sichuan Earthquake wrought.
Monday, May 11, 2009
A Longonot Stop [Haiku]
A chance reunion,
At the valley's edge. Kisses!
On a Ndon! A Ndon!
[Haiku. Poetry]
At the valley's edge. Kisses!
On a Ndon! A Ndon!
[Haiku. Poetry]
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