In honoris causa – ‘for the sake of the honor or the granter’

The idea of the attribution of an honorary degree – honoris causa – seems to have started during the 1470s at Oxford University in the UK.
Records of the time say that the University approached a young bishop named Lionel Woodville (head of the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter) and King Edward IV’s brother-in-law.
It is said that the good connections, wealth, and noble standing of Woodville, contributed to the institution’s decision to create such a distinction that created bonds with religion institutions.

After that, many universities, especially in Europe, emulated the idea, expanding the practice across the globe.

Locally, the first university institution to grant this kind of honors was the University of East Asia, the predecessor of the University of Macau (UM) in 1984.

UM has attributed 97 HC degrees since 1984

At that time  five people were given the recognition: Ho Yin (businessman, politician and senior leader of the Chinese community in Macau), Vasco de Almeida e Costa (at the time, Governor of Macau), José Manuel Toscano Rico (Physician and University Professor), business and gaming tycoon Stanley Ho, and Jorge Rangel (at the time, Secretary for Public Administration, Education and Youth of Macau government).

According to the records of UM, since 1984 the institution has attributed a total of 97 honorary degrees to people the university considered to have given a valuable contribution to society, justifying such an endowment.

Such titles were granted in varied fields from Literature to Public and Private Administration, to Philosophy, Social Sciences and Law.
The list of highlighted people honored by the institution during the first years continues with the attribution of honoris causa degrees to Ma Man-Kei (Businessman, Tycoon, Entrepreneur and Politician), Sir Run Run Shaw (Hong Kong’s entertainment mogul and philanthropist), Monsenhor Manuel Teixeira (priest, historian, and the leading expert in the Kristang language), Cheng Yu-Tung (Hong Kong billionaire with an extensive property investment, development and service businesses, hotels, infrastructure, jewelry retailing and transportation), D Arquimínio Rodrigues da Costa (Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Macau from 1976 to 1988), Eduardo de Arantes e Oliveira (Portuguese civil engineer, educator), Chou Wen-Hsien (Entrepreneur and a co-founder of Windsor Industrial Corporation dedicated to the promotion of Chinese traditional medicine) and Chui Tak-Kei (Chinese community leader, former Vice President of the Legislative Assembly and late uncle of the Current Chief Executive Chui Sai On).

With approximately three honorary degrees attributed per year (between 1984 and 2016), the UM seems to follow a common trend among universities in the region. During the first centenary of its existence (1916-2016) the University of Hong Kong (HKU) has attributed a total of 324 of these honorary degrees, also averaging about three per year, the exact number of those announced to be given in 2017.
The youngest of Macau’s tertiary institutions, University of Science and Technology (MUST), according to the institution’s official figures, have awarded 39 of these honorary degrees between 2010 and 2017, despite not awarding any of these degrees between 2011 and 2013, averaging about six honoris causa per year.

In the first year of MUST’s existence (2010), a total of 15 honorary degrees were granted, the first going to the Founding President of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Woo Chia-Wei. On this list was also the Portuguese politician, Minister for Social Equipment and current non-executive president of the board of Galp Energia (Portuguese oil products and natural gas), Francisco Luís Murteira Nabo.

Among the latest recipients from MUST is the prominent Chinese economist, leading voice for the privatization of state-owned companies, and the man who contributed to the establishment of China’s stock markets in 1990, Li Yi Ning.

According to research conducted by the Times,  the University of Saint Joseph (USJ), formerly known as the Macau Inter-University Institute (IIUM), has given at least seven honoris causa titles since its inception in 1996 and 2011, the first conferred to the late American researcher Reverend Carl Smith, renowned  Macanese lawyer and writer, Henrique de Senna Fernandes, and also Comendador Arnaldo de Oliveira Sales, a prominent figure of Hong Kong and the Portuguese communities in the Far East.
On the list of MUST awardees is also Professor Wang Bin, Dean of the School of Foreign Languages and the School of Translation and Interpretation of the Sun Yat-sen University (Zhongshan), and a member of the scientific committee of the Transcultural Studies Centre at Beijing University.

Most recently, the university conferred the recognition on the Architect Gustavo da Roza, the Portuguese Writer and Poet Vasco Pereira da Costa, and Fr Luis Sequeira, founder and Vice-Director of the Macau Ricci Institute, Principal of Mateus Ricci College and a collaborator of the University.

According to figures provided by the Tertiary Education Service Office (GAES), during the same period and until the academic year 2016/2017, there was a total of 648 Doctoral Degrees concluded in the four tertiary education institutions, a figure that has been growing year-on-year until the last four years when it apparently reached a plateau of around 57 per year.

The UM is the university that contributes the most to this figure with a total of 363 Doctoral Degrees conferred (a ratio between Doctoral degrees and honoris causa conferred of 3.7).

The second position is occupied by the MUST with a total of 113 Doctoral degrees conferred (ratio 2.9).

USJ was accountable for 95 Doctoral degrees (ratio of 13.6 Doctoral degrees per honorary title).

As for other institutions granting such titles in Macau, the City University of Macau gave no reply regarding its conferral of honorary degrees to the Times as at the time of this edition going to press. Nevertheless, and according to GAES, the institution conferred 57 Doctoral degrees.

The GAES said to the Times that the office does not keep records of honorary degree attributions as “they are awards and do not represent any academic qualifications.”

According to what the Times could ascertain, the same practice occurs in other jurisdictions, in which the conferral of honorary degrees is regarded as a private matter of each institution as they are not subjected to any control or specific regulation. RM