DEGREE
Conferred On Those Whose Reputation Preceded The Degree.
Honorary Doctorate of Assholery
An honorary doctorate for the individual whose friends, family, and coworkers have, for years, described the credential as already earned.
Best for framing, gifting, and anyone who wants the credential to look alarmingly plausible from across the room.
Honorary Doctorate of Assholery
For those whose natural talent transcends traditional academic pathways.
Registrar's Positioning
Best for framing, gifting, and anyone who wants the credential to look alarmingly plausible from across the room.
An honorary doctorate for the individual whose friends, family, and coworkers have, for years, described the credential as already earned.
Personalization
Why You Want This
An honorary doctorate is not an academic credential. It is a community verdict.
This is the piece for the person who has been, for a decade or more, described in identical terms by every independent observer in their life. The spouse. The sibling. The first direct report. The second spouse, sometimes. When six unconnected people agree on the nature of a person, the institution has an obligation to respond. The Honorary Doctorate of Assholery is that response.
It is also, in practice, the single best gift in the A.U. catalog. Almost every Honorary Doctorate sold is purchased on behalf of someone who absolutely should not be buying it for themselves. The gift mechanic is load-bearing — at checkout, you enter the recipient's legal name, a personal note is laser-etched onto the registry record as a conferral citation, and the certificate renders with a dedication line at the base of the seal. It is not a generic doctorate. It is the doctorate with the sentence 'Conferred in recognition of persistent commitment to the discipline' above your father-in-law's name, and underneath, the line you wrote yourself.
The artifact itself is premium tier: 600 DPI, gold foil ready, doctoral sealing, Board of Doctors roster listing, the entire apparatus. Per Arduum ad Assholum, honoris causa — the only honoris causa the institution issues, and we issue it sparingly.
Two hundred forty-nine dollars is the price point for a gift you cannot un-give. It arrives by email. It is read aloud. It is printed and framed. It stays on a wall for decades. Most objects you buy for other people are forgotten inside a year. This is not one of them.
What You Actually Get
- Custom dedication line engraved onto the certificate at the registry level
- Unique conferral citation written by you — appears on the public verification URL
- Premium 600 DPI artwork, foil-ready, doctoral-tier border treatment
- Recipient listed on the Board of Doctors roster with an (Hon.) annotation
- Ships with a separate gift announcement PDF — suitable for printing or for email delivery
- Most common purchase occasion: retirement, fiftieth birthday, Father's Day, wedding toast
- Non-transferable once issued — the conferral is permanent under the named recipient
Common Objections
Isn't this the same as the Ph.D.?
Different discipline, different posture. The Ph.D. is earned (in the A.U. satirical sense). The Honorary is conferred — with citation, dedication, and a community-verdict framing. It is built for gift-giving; the Ph.D. is built for self-purchase. Different use cases. Both load-bearing.
Two hundred forty-nine dollars seems steep for a satire.
It is a premium tier for a reason. The dedication is custom, the citation is engraved, the artwork is the highest-fidelity we issue, and the recipient is permanently listed on the doctoral roster. Compared with most gifts in the same price bracket, the Honorary has a longer half-life — in most cases, decades.
What if the recipient doesn't get the joke?
The Honorary is written with enough institutional weight that it lands as a formal recognition first, a satirical one second. The best-selling recipient profile is a relative who, upon receiving it, reads the citation aloud at dinner before the joke fully registers. The second-best profile is a boss who never fully registers it.
Can I buy it without the gift dedication?
Yes — the dedication field is optional. Leaving it blank renders a clean doctoral certificate without the citation line. We recommend using it. The dedication is most of what makes the piece land.
Questions the Registrar Is Tired Of
How does the gift mechanic work?
At checkout, you enter the recipient name and the dedication. The certificate and the verification URL both resolve under the recipient. You receive a separate 'gift announcement' PDF you can print, email, or attach to a card.
Can I write anything I want in the dedication?
Keep it under 280 characters. We review the dedication before issuance to make sure it does not violate our editorial policy — no profanity, no targeting of protected classes, nothing that reads as a threat. Aside from that, you are the author.
Is there a physical shipment?
Digital only, same as the rest of the catalog. For foil printing, the 600 DPI file is ready to hand to any fine-art print shop.
Does the recipient know I bought it?
Only if you tell them. The certificate lands under their name; the transaction stays with you. Most gifters include a handwritten card; a minority prefer the mystery.
Refunds?
Seven days — but because the Honorary is a gift tier, please confirm the recipient received it before requesting a refund. We will process them; we will also gently raise an eyebrow.
From the Faculty Lounge
Gave it to my father for his seventieth. He read the citation at the table. Three grandchildren laughed. He did not. Two weeks later it was framed in his den.
Bought it for my outgoing boss. Presented it at the going-away lunch. He has it on his wall at the new job. He tells people it is real. At this point, I think it is.
Seven-day refund, recipient-confirmation recommended. If the dedication renders incorrectly or the Board of Doctors listing fails to publish, we reissue and upgrade to foil rendering at no charge.
Enter a name on the certificate above to proceed.