Talk:Ray Lightwood

Was Ray Lightwood's BSc an honorary degree or not?
I don't think it is clear that Ray Lightwood's BSc in Pure Science was an honorary degree. Although Lightwood was 52, he appears to have had no previous undergraduate degree and was strictly speaking employed in the role of a technician rather than an academic. I know of no other case of Birmingham University awarding an undergraduate Bachelors degree as an honorary degree, certainly not as late as 1974. I had supposed that Lightwood had studied for the degree in his own time or as part of his technician job, which would not be so unusual for an employee in a technical capacity. It is nowhere stated (in the sources that I have been able to find) that the BSc was an honorary degree, and so until there is some evidence that it was an honorary degree I think Lightwood should be in the alumni page. Neither of the two sources that I have found online state that it was an honorary degree. http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/Documents/culture/BookletfinalPDF.pdf Mirrortoamermaid (talk) 16:18, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Evidence for BSc not being honorary
I have now found the evidence that the BSc was not an honorary degree:

"In 1974, he obtained the Official Degree of BSc for which he submitted a thesis under the title 'An inductively coupled system for electrical pacemaking of the heart' (a copy of which is available in the University's Main Library, Thesis Store Diss.S4.B74)" Mirrortoamermaid (talk) 16:22, 29 December 2014 (UTC)