Hillsdale College Presents Senator Mitch McConnell with Honorary Degree
U.S. Senate majority leader presented with honorary doctorate of public service
Hillsdale, Mich.— Hillsdale College is proud to announce that on Monday, April 15, the College presented Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell with an honorary doctorate of public service. McConnell also spoke on campus as part of the Distinguished Fellow Lecture Series.
“He has been the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, minority and majority whip, minority leader, and now majority leader. And these offices make him the longest-serving Republican leader in the history of the Senate,” said Hillsdale College President Larry P. Arnn, as he introduced Senator McConnell. “It’s a remarkable career.”
At a luncheon hosted by Dr. Arnn and Associate Vice President Matthew Spalding, McConnell received the honorary degree Doctor of Public Service in recognition of his long career serving the people of the United States, in particular by his consistent defense of free speech and through the consistent exercise of the Senate’s power of advice and consent to support the nomination of constitutionalist judges. In addition to the honorary degree, McConnell also met privately with students and gave a lecture on “How the Legislative Branch Can Restore the Constitution.”
McConnell began his distinguished career in public office as a chief legislative assistant to Sen. Marlow Cook and then as deputy assistant attorney general to President Gerald Ford before he was elected as a representative of Kentucky to the U.S. Senate in 1984. He is the longest-serving Senate Republican leader and the longest serving Kentucky Senator in U.S. History. In 2014, he was unanimously elected as the Republican Majority leader and was re-elected in 2016 and 2018. In 2015, TIME Magazine named him one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World.
McConnell joins an esteemed list of Hillsdale College’s honorary degree recipients, including poet Will Carleton (1876), cryptologist Elizebeth Smith Friedman (1939), entrepreneur Malcolm Forbes (1984), Senator Mitt Romney (2007), Senator Ted Cruz (2013), and the most recent recipients, Vice President Mike Pence and Second Lady Karen Pence (2018).