College Drop-Out Kanye West Receives Honorary Doctorate from Art Institute

Caption: Kanye West accepts honorary doctorate from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago during graduation ceremonies. West (inset) as he appeared in his senior yearbook photo at Polaris High School.

Rapper and college dropout Kanye West is now Dr. Kanye Omari West after receiving an honorary doctorate from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago at the college’s graduation ceremony on Monday.

The 37-year-old pioneering recording artist, songwriter, producer and entrepreneur was recognized for his “transformative, genre-defying work.”

In explaining what the honor meant to him, West referenced a lecture he gave at Oxford University last year.

“I brought up this school because when I went on that mission to create in other spaces — apparel, film, performance — it would have been easier if I could have said I had a degree at the Art Institute of Chicago,” West said in his acceptance speech during Monday’s graduation ceremony.

It was this public acknowledgment of the renowned art school that first set Lisa Wainwright, dean of faculty and vice president of academic administration at SAIC, to thinking that West would be a bold choice for an honorary doctorate.

“I read it and thought, ‘Wow, this is a fantastic moment,’” Wainwright told the Los Angeles Times. “Here is this major figure in the cultural landscape promoting art school, this guy from Chicago saying art school is cool. So we thought, ‘This man deserves an honorary doctorate from us!’ He should have gone here.”

“Dr. Kanye West” sounds a lot better than what President Obama called him in 2009 when he interrupted Taylor Swift’s MTV video award acceptance speech. “What a jackass,” said the president, a label he slapped on him again in a 2012 interview. “He is a jackass.”

West raised by his mother, the late Donda West, a professor at Chicago State University, in the southwest suburbs. West attended Polaris High School, then an alternative education program offered by Community High School District 218. The high school was located in District 218’s current administrative building at 10701 S. Kilpatrick Ave.

After West swept the rap category, winning three Grammys in 2013, former teachers and staff at Polaris described West as “just a regular little kid. He was so small and tiny.”

West’s former teacher, Dr. Carol Baker, told CBS 2 Chicago in a 2013 interview that West was a “creative teenager” who was “easily distracted.”

“Absolutely, there were times during class where he would be doodling or drawing or writing,” said Baker. “Back then I would have called it poetry, but it was really rap.”

West’s wife, Kim Kardashian, did not attend Monday’s graduation ceremony but did Tweet from Brazil, where she is currently on a business trip.

“Dr. Kanye West!!!!!!! I’m so proud of you baby & I know your mom would be so proud too!!!!”

She also posted a photo of her hubby wearing a mortar board on Instagram.