Last week, decorated figure skating champion -- now a grad student -- Michelle Kwan received an honorary degree when she gave the commencement speech at Southern Vermont College: Michelle Kwan receives honorary degree. She's still working on her master's degree at Tufts:
"I must be the only commencement speaker in the country who just handed in three term papers," she told SVC's graduating class of 91 students.Here's some video of her speech. I like the part where she recalls being (sort of) recognized at a shopping mall by a woman who did a double-take and exclaimed, "I know you! ... You did my nails!" Not quite:
"And now that I've got this honorary doctorate, I wonder how my professors will react if I insist that they should now call me 'Dr. Kwan,'" she added, then laughed.
Glad to see she hasn't been toiling away her post-Olympic career in a traveling ice show or something. For the record, the degree she received was an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters. In addition, she is a Public Diplomacy Envoy for the U.S. State department and a graduate student in international relations at the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy at Tufts University. Read the full text of her speech here.