From College dropout to Doctorate recipient. Mama would be proud.
Kanye West received an honorary doctorate from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago during the graduation ceremony today, following an hour-long lecture he delivered at the school yesterday.
SAIC, one of the most prestigious art schools in the country, said in an email that the honorary doctorate is given to “influential individuals” who earned “this distinguished award through their work, which is always imaginative and aesthetically rich, and sometimes also provocative and controversial, shifting the cultural landscape in significant ways.” The recipients are also considered “remarkable examples of creative success and determination, who are often inspirations to our students, faculty, and entire SAIC community.”
Not to a Debbie downer, but there has been some backlash surrounding the school’s decision to give Kanye the award. Dean Lisa Wainwrigh told The Fader back in April that she thinks it’s a “high-low problem.”
“There’s still this sense that high art is what we do, is what we honor, is what we’re about. And that pop culture is not what we teach in art school,” she said. “Pop culture, mass culture—that’s a whole other thing, and we’re about high art. I think that’s a problem. We’re trying to collapse those boundaries a little bit. That’s what I like about Kanye.”
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