This List of University of Florida Honorary Degree Recipients includes those persons who have been recognized by the University of Florida for outstanding achievements in their fields that reflect the ideals and uphold the purposes of the university, and to whom the university faculty has voted to award honorary degrees in recognition of such attainments. Often, but not always, the honorary degree recipients have been alumni of the university, or other persons who have had ties to either the university or the state of Florida.
The modern University of Florida was established in 1905, when the Florida Legislature passed the Buckman Act which consolidated four pre-existing state-sponsored institutions of higher learning into a single state university for men. After operating on the former campus of the Florida Agricultural College in Lake City, Florida during the 1905–06 academic year, the university moved to its present campus in Gainesville, Florida when the first academic and dormitory buildings were completed in September 1906. The university traces its historical roots to the 1853 founding of the East Florida Seminary in Ocala, Florida, the oldest of its four predecessor institutions.
The University of Florida awarded its first honorary degree in 1909 to Andrew Sledd, in recognition of his four years of service as the founding president of the modern University of Florida. The first woman to whom the university awarded an honorary degree was prominent Florida author and novelist Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings in 1941.
Read more about List Of University Of Florida Honorary Degree Recipients: Honorary Degree Recipients, 1909–25, Honorary Degree Recipients, 1926–50, Honorary Degree Recipients, 1951–75, Honorary Degree Recipients, 1976–2000, Honorary Degree Recipients, 2001–present, See Also
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