Yunus Receives 66th Honorary Degree from Peru

The Cesar Vallejo University of Peru conferred on Nobel laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus their highest honour, the Ph D. degree honoris causa at a specially arranged ceremony at the Embassy Suites Hilton in Bogota, Colombia.

The Cesar Vallejo university is the largest university of Peru with 12 campuses in the Trujillo province of Peru. It was established 30 years ago, has 26 programs in 12 different fields.

Professor Yunus was offered this degree three years back but he could not go to Peru to attend the convocation ceremony at that time because of pandemic. This time when he was in Bogota, Colombia, the university authority came to Bogota to go through the degree giving ceremony with full regalia

The university was founded by Cesar Acuna, a former Presidential candidate of Peru in 1991 who himself traveled to Bogota for the special ceremony. He was accompanied by the Vice Chancellor of the University Dr. Jeannette Tantaleán Rodríguez and its general manager Dr. Karina Cárdenas Ruiz.

This highest honour of the university was conferred on Professor Yunus for his contributions towards lifting the lives of the poorest of the poor through microcredit and social business. They recognized his role in doing this through the establishment of Grameen Bank and improving the social and economic lives of the poor from below.

Before the ceremony authorities of the university and Professor Yunus were robed. The ceremony was opened with playing of the national anthems of Peru and Bangladesh in full. The President of the University Dr Jeannette Rodriguez then gave a history of the university and background of why they are giving the honorary degree to Professor Yunus. The degree was then conferred on Professor Yunus who received a certificate and a medal, also a special gift of all the works of Cesar Vallejo, the Peruvian poet after whom the university was named. The founder of the university Mr Cesar Acuna spoke at the end of the ceremony mentioning their pride at having Professor Yunus join the community of the Cesar Vallejo University. He also announced that the university would establish a YSBC soon.

The university caters to low income students and the philosophy of the founder is that nobody goes without schooling for lack of money. The university has previously conferred honorary degrees to 11 other Nobel Laureates including Nobel Prize winner in Medicine Edvard Moser, Nobel Prize in Literature Maria Vargas Llosa.

This is Professor Yunus’ 66th honorary degree from 27 countries.