Elation as Toyin Falola makes history, graduates with a D.Litt from UI

Renowned professor of history and African studies, Toyin Falola has been awarded an academic D.Litt. (doctor of letters) at the University of Ibadan. By this, the teaching professor at the University of Texas, USA, thus becomes the first academic awardee of the D.Litt. in the humanities at the University of Ibadan.

The University of Ibadan conferred the award on Professor Falola on Wednesday during the university’s convocation ceremony held at the University of Ibadan Conference Centre.

Speaking about the award, he said: “I am very happy with the award. It is a process that I worked for and anything that you work for brings you tremendous satisfaction. I appreciate the honour by the university; it is a way of also recognizing my scholarship over the years. It is a privilege to do more work. I have to bring more recognition to the university and through the university more recognition to the city of my birth.

“The award will consolidate my scholarship and make me remain more productive. I hope my mentees will take the lesson of humility from this because it takes a level of humility. Part of the admission process was to go and look for my WAEC result, GCE, BA, PhD. Accidentally, I found many of them. There is a humbling side to it which others should learn from.

“Don’t forget that it is not an honorary doctorate. It is an academic degree. How does a man approaching 70 undertake the process for such degree? To me, that is unique. Bear in mind that the academic D.Litt is the first in the humanities at the University of Ibadan, in the country and perhaps in the continent. It is similar to applying for a PhD. You apply; you submit all your papers; the school can decline or accept you. They can ask for more paper work. It is a two-year process. The department that is awarding the degree will do its evaluation; thereafter it moves to the faculty for its evaluation. Thereafter, they will call on external accessors. Cumulatively, you are looking at three stages of a series of meetings. And you know how difficult it is for there to be a consensus in the university.”

The D.Litt is awarded by universities and learned bodies to recognise the superior accomplishment of an individual in the humanities, contributions to the creative or cultural arts, or scholarship and other merits.

It may be conferred as an honorary degree, or conferred as an earned degree upon the completion of a regular doctoral course of study, which comes with the usual academic ritual of development and defense of an original dissertation, or may be conferred as an earned higher doctorate after a high profile and sustained scholarship is considered.

Professor Falola is an African historian and the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair Professor in the Humanities and a Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Austin.  Falola has received honorary doctorates, lifetime career awards and honors in various parts of the world, including: The Lincoln Award, Nigerian Diaspora Academic Prize, Cheikh Anta Diop Award, Amistad Award,SIRAS Award for Outstanding Contribution to African Studies,

Africana Studies Distinguished Global Scholar Lifetime Achievement Award, Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters, Fellow of the Historical Society of Nigeria, and The Distinguished Africanist Award.

At the University of Texas at Austin, he received the Jean Holloway Award for Teaching Excellence, The Texas Exes Teaching Award, The Chancellor’s Council Outstanding Teaching Award, Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award, and the Career Research Excellence Award.

He has also received honorary degree of doctors of letters from thirteen universities, including the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB) during FUNAAB 26th convocation ceremony in November 2018, and Babcock University, in Ilishan-Remo.

He is a Fellow of the Historical Society of Nigeria and of the Nigerian Academy of Letters. Falola served as the president of the African Studies Association in 2014 and 2015.

 

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