Norm MacDonald - Great Carleton Grad?

For those unaware, Norm MacDonald is a comedic genious. In fact, comedy central named him one of the 100 most funny stand-up comedians of all time (#83). He was a cast member of Saturday Night Live, hosted the Norm show, and created one of my favourite movies of all-time, "Dirty Work".

I remember watching David Letterman one night and watching Norm MacDonald. To my surprise, he talked about his experience at the "Panda Games" in Ottawa. You see, back before I went to Carleton University, Carleton actually had a football team ,and an annual "Panda Games" would be held at Frank Clair Stadium.

The Raven's football team had disbanded in 1998, but Norm recounts a time when the rivalry between Ottawa U. and Carleton U. was very heated. It resulted in a contest at Frank Clair where fans from both schools would come and party. Norm, being on the David Letterman show, self-censored himself to describe how incredibly high he got off of "beer" (referring to pot instead of beer).

This is the first time I found out that Norm lived in Ottawa at any point, let alone attending my alma matter. Obviously, any time you find out that someone famous attends your school, you are somewhat intrigued by that fact. With a little bit of research, I found out that Norm attended Carleton's math program. Not as surprisingly, Norm had also attended Algonquin College and completed a diploma in broadcasting.

Norm passed up a career in math and decided to pursue show business. He went on to become the host of "Weekend update", a very popular skit on Saturday Night Live. His career success has made me wonder why he has not yet been nominated for an honorary degree from Carleton University.

First of all, most of these awards are given to academics. Great research and papers are usually the root cause of someone receiving an honorary degree from a post-secondary institution. There is usually pretige and honour that comes with these degrees. However, these degrees represent accomplishment and not necessarily academic accomplishment. Therefore, I believe that Norm qualifies.

For those that believe that an actor shouldn't be given an honorary degree, Dan Akroyd has received a special mention that he was a Carleton degree recipiant. Carleton is proud of the fact that Dan Akroyd went to their school, so they should be proud of Norm MacDonald too. From what I hear from people in Kingston, Akroyd is a pervert. He hits on hits more than half his age at the bar in hopes that they want to fool around with a ghostbuster.

Granted, Norm MacDonald hasn't done much lately. He's been playing a lot of professional poker ever since some of his shows got cancelled. This fact should not disqualify his accomplishments in his career, so hopefully Carleton will recognize this fact and give Norm MacDonald an honorary degree.