Dr Warwick: Soul Legend Receives Honorary Degree From Huron University College

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Huron University College bestows a rare honor on soul singer Dionne Warwick, and she didn’t have to come to London to pick it up.

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Last Wednesday, the Western University branch awarded an honorary doctorate to the 80-year-old woman known for her hits such as That’s What Friends Are For and her rendition of What The World Needs Now is Love.

The ceremony took place in East Orange, New Jersey. “This is only the second time in Huron’s 158-year history that an honorary degree has been awarded outside of the Huron campus,” the school said Monday.

“I am so happy to have been able to host this ceremony here,” Warwick told a crowd of children at the Dionne Warwick Institute of Economics and Entrepreneurship, East Orange Elementary School she attended last week. ‘she was a child, and from the place of the ceremony. “I hope this inspires my babies, as I call them, to realize exactly what just happened to me.”

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Barry Craig, president of Huron, praised Warwick’s “dedication to creating meaningful change in the world, something she has woven into the fabric of her entire life and musical career.”

Warwick is not a Huron graduate and has not been to school as a performer or lecturer, Huron said. Craig met her in September at the Toronto International Film Festival, and after a conversation about her work with young people, the process began to recognize her.

Warwick has been on a roll lately. The doctorate comes after she made a surprise visit to the set of Saturday Night Live on November 6, usurping her own image as a legendary singer.

In addition to her six-decade music career, Huron noted that Warwick campaigned for civil rights, raised funds for AIDS research, and served as a United Nations ambassador. She is also an aunt of the late Whitney Houston, and reached a new generation of fans in the 1990s via late-night infomercials for the Psychic Friends Network.

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“There are a lot of famous people in the world, and people with talents and gifts, but not everyone remembers the importance of giving back to the world,” Craig said of Warwick.

“Her life was not lived just for herself. Her life was also lived to create a better world around her, ”he said. The school also said that Warwick’s work to empower young people aligns with its mission of developing “leaders of the heart.”

“I know, without any reservation whatsoever, that each of you, at some point in your life, will have this same honor bestowed upon you,” Warwick said in his address to students at his namesake school. Huron also created a scholarship for a student from the Dionne Warwick Institute to come and study in London.

The first person to receive an honorary degree from Huron in an off-campus ceremony was Galen Weston Sr.

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