Catholic University Confers Honorary Degree on Dr. Novak

On Saturday, May 16, 2015, the Catholic University of America conferred on Michael Novak the degree of Doctor of Education honoris causa, in recognition of his long career in education, writing, and scholarship. This was his twenty-seventh such honor.  At the same ceremony honorary degrees were also awarded to best-selling author and suspense novelist Mary Higgins Clark, who delivered the university's commencement address, as well as to Francisco José Gómez de Argüello y Wirtz and Maria Carmen Hernández Barrera, co-initiators of the Catholic movement the Neocatechumenal Way. 

In 1967 and 1968, Michael Novak was voted “most influential professor” by the senior classes at Stanford University. In 1969 he was appointed provost of one of the founding colleges (the Disciplines College) of the State University of New York at Old Westbury. He has held university chairs at Syracuse University and the University of Notre Dame, and a research chair at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC. Much of his early writing was devoted to higher education. 

Located in Washington, DC, the Catholic University of America is the national university of the Catholic Church in the United States, founded in 1887 and sponsored by the US bishops with the approval of the Holy See.