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Q: First doctorate in America created out of thin air ( No Answer,   3 Comments )
Question  
Subject: First doctorate in America created out of thin air
Category: Reference, Education and News > Teaching and Research
Asked by: kman-ga
List Price: $2.00
Posted: 09 Nov 2002 20:50 PST
Expires: 09 Dec 2002 20:50 PST
Question ID: 104418
I have a vague recollection. Two men wanted to start granting degrees
in America?(USA), but no one had a PhD. So one guy granted a PhD to
the other guy, then the 1st PhD granted a doctorate to the second guy.
Voila instant university. Does anyone have the details or a link to
the details of this story?

Request for Question Clarification by justaskscott-ga on 09 Nov 2002 22:30 PST
It seems that Yale awarded the first three Ph.D degrees in 1861.

"History of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences"
Yale University
http://www.yale.edu/graduateschool/general/history.html

I have not seen any indication that these degrees were awarded in the
manner indicated in your question.  Perhaps the degrees you are
thinking of were not Ph.Ds?

Clarification of Question by kman-ga on 14 Nov 2002 06:44 PST
I was told this story by a professor at the University of Arizona. If
I recall correctly, the individuals in question wanted to issue
degrees(PhDs?)and in order to confer a degree one had to have a
doctorate.
Answer  
There is no answer at this time.

Comments  
Subject: Re: First doctorate in America created out of thin air
From: davidmaymudes-ga on 09 Nov 2002 22:15 PST
 
are you saying that these were supposed to be the first two PhD
degrees in the US?  this seems unlikely--I would have assumed that
various European PhDs would have come over and started things here....
Subject: Re: First doctorate in America created out of thin air
From: bcguide-ga on 10 Nov 2002 13:16 PST
 
My guess would be that if this story is accurate, the University
involved would go to great pains to make the facts hard to verify.

bcguide-ga
Subject: Re: First doctorate in America created out of thin air
From: fstokens-ga on 13 Nov 2002 16:01 PST
 
Something like this may well have happened at some point, but I am a
bit skeptical of the story.  For one thing, PhDs are granted by
institutions, and not by individuals.  So even if a university did not
employ any PhDs the university could still grant PhDs.  Also, I
believe that the requirement that people who teach at universities
have PhDs themselves is relatively recent.  100 years ago it was not
too rare for someone who had no degree (but who had a lot of
experience in the field) to be a professor at a university.

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