GW Posthumous Degree Process

Approval Process for Posthumous Degree:

Requests for posthumous degrees should be initiated by a member of the university community and/or a member of the deceased student’s family to the Dean of the student’s school or college.
If the request is forwarded by someone other than a member of the immediate family of the deceased, the Dean of the school or college must obtain approval from the student’s family prior to a fuller consideration of the nomination.
Requests must have the support of the Dean of the student’s school or college.
The Dean of the deceased student’s school or college will recommend the candidate for a posthumous degree in the form of a formal written request to the University Registrar and Provost. The request will include the student’s name, GWid, degree to be awarded, and recommended semester for degree conferral.
Upon submission of the request to the Offices of the Registrar and Provost, the University Registrar will verify the deceased student’s academic standing and progress on degree requirements and will make a recommendation to the University Provost, who will make the decision on the awarding of the posthumous degree.
The Provost or designee will notify the University Registrar and appropriate Dean of the decision via memo to initiate the process to award the degree.
The University Registrar will be responsible for ordering the diploma.
The Dean of the school or college will inform the immediate family of the university’s decision to recognize the student with a posthumous degree. The Dean of the school or college will also inform the individual who made the request of its final disposition, if the person who forwarded the nomination is not a member of the deceased student’s family.
The school or college will work with the deceased student’s family to determine how they’d like to receive the degree, which could be conferred at the next regularly scheduled Commencement ceremony and presented to a member of the student’s family or their representative. A posthumous degree may also be presented by an appropriate university official to the family in a private gathering, separate from the Commencement ceremony.
The Commencement program will note the degree was awarded posthumously (as long as the posthumous degree was approved and awarded before April 1st). The Office of the Registrar will post the notice of the posthumous degree award to the student’s transcript.

Criteria:

Each case will be considered on its own merits. Some general guidelines apply:

The student must have been enrolled in a GW degree program;
The student must have been in good academic standing at the time of their death; and
The student must have completed at least 75% of their degree requirements at the time of their death.