A ‘Jure Dignitatis’ is the process whereby selected applicants are awarded accredited substantive degrees, in recognition of the applicants’ previous relevant professional experience.
Gather unto me all the ancients of your tribes, and your doctors, that I may speak these words in their hearing, and will call heaven and earth to witness against them.” Deuteronomy 31:28 (Douay Rheims trans).
Charles Franklin wrote:
What did Moses (or his translators) mean in choosing the word “doctor”? Certainly not a medical practitioner, nor one who had completed a three-year program of research at a university under an academic supervisor, nor yet an honored celebrity or financial donor to the campus. Rather, this quotation suggests an older, and indeed a more profound, meaning of the word that is of relevance as we seek to establish how the concept of the doctoral award may be defined and indeed redefined in today’s world. To be a doctor of anything is to take one’s place as a leader in that field. Routes to the doctorate have in common that they demand the demonstration of mastery of the subject at hand in such a way that it may confidently be asserted that the chosen individual has the capacity to contribute at the highest level to knowledge and understanding in their field.
Some degrees are awarded ‘jure dignitatis’. That is, a person who has demonstrated the appropriate qualities to be given a particular office may be awarded the degree by virtue of the office held. It is an earned or substantive degree but not generally strictly academic—degree, but through approved professional experience.”
