May is graduation season, and that means it’s time for a slew of honorary degrees to be bestowed upon a few good celebrities. Among those honorees this year is rap star Kanye West, who received an honorary degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago this past weekend. Honorary degrees are typically bestowed upon high achievers in their fields and/or celebrities as a way to elevate the status of the school and to recognize people who celebrate similar principles as the institution and its goals. So what can we learn from Kanye’s honorary doctorate from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago?
Here are five cool things Kanye West is helping us learn this graduation season:
#1: We’re reminded that Kanye started off pursuing a career in the arts. Before he hit it big in the music industry, Kanye was a student at both the Academy of Art in Chicago and Chicago State University. He didn’t finish his degree because he dropped out to pursue music full-time. But the desire to pursue his passions can be traced back to his undergraduate days. His honorary doctorate reminds us all of this.
#2: Kanye’s honorary doctorate reminds current undergraduates to stay in school. Kanye himself alluded to this when he talked about how he had diversified his business in different ways — by expanding beyond music into apparel and film. If he had been a student at the Art Institute of Chicago and graduated, he said, those other creative ventures would have been “easier.”
#3: You can have regrets and make something of them. That’s what we learn from Kanye’s honorary doctorate. His first three albums pay homage to those regrets with titles such as “The College Dropout,” “Graduation,” and “Late Registration.” We all know that Kanye did drop out, but he also is forging a path for himself that goes beyond a degree. Not everyone can do that, and Kanye knows this. The message is that he can hold both regret and success together — and graduates can too as they forge ahead.
#4: We learn that Kanye is controversial, and he embraces that. Getting an honorary degree shines light on him as a public figure once again. He doesn’t shy away from the spotlight and expressing his opinion — something he sees as his own personal art form through his music and his role as a producer. The message to graduates is similar: Make your voice your art form.
#5: Kanye’s honorary degree may inspire other people to push the boundaries of art forms by investing in creative, diverse genres and expanding beyond the forms that they are most comfortable with. Certainly his life as a musician, clothier, producer and more have shown the students at the Art Institute of Chicago that all they have to do is begin thinking outside of the box. They, too, can press forward and stretch the boundaries of art in their own lives and communities. In the end, the result is a better, more creative world, where hopefully some understanding can come about through the strangeness and controversy that comes with pushing boundaries. Kanye, standing on the podium, made pushing boundaries in art Okay.
Sure, you don’t have to do any kind of academic study at the institution that gives you an honorary degree. But you do have to represent and exemplify goals in line with the institution, and Kayne West’s honorary degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago certainly does help the public see how his creative mind is changing the world of music for the better.
