“Introducing, Dr. Shiffrin.” Photo: Katie Lenhart // Dartmouth
People do a lot of things to get degrees from places like Dartmouth. Aspiring Ivy Leaguers frantically set about trying to get just the right mix of academics and extracurriculars to catch the attention of the admissions board. Even then, there’s only so many slots to fill, and many impressive transcripts don’t make the cut. It turns out it’s not all that complicated, though, all you have to do is be the winningest skier of all time.
On Sunday morning, alpine skier Mikaela Shiffrin was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from Dartmouth College. The award was conferred during the commencement ceremony for the graduating class of 2025, where actress Sandra Oh served as commencement speaker and was also conferred an honorary degree.
As Dartmouth president Sian Beilock noted in an address to the gathered crowd, Shiffrin has a personal connection to the school. Her late father, Jeff Shiffrin, was part of the class of 1976 and a member of the Dartmouth ski team. “When your family returned to the Upper Valley, you showed up to the Dartmouth Skiway to join a local club at the age of eight,” said Beilock. “Other children were using cafeteria trays to slide down a slope near the base lodge. You were analyzing turn apexes.”
While Beilock noted Shiffrin’s athletic achievement – she has the most World Cup wins of any alpine racer in history, along with two Olympic gold medals – she was also recognized for achievements outside of sport. “We honor you today for far more than athletic excellence. Throughout your career and life, you have encountered challenges we can all relate to: when a performance doesn’t go as planned; when an injury prevents us from being our best; when we lose someone or something that means so much to us.
“It is in how you’ve responded to those challenges — with vulnerability, grace, and resilience — that your true greatness lies. Because of your work as a champion of mental health, young people across the world are having conversations they’ve never had before. They do so because a figure like you — at the pinnacle of her profession — has boldly paved the way. For building a legacy far beyond the slopes, for teaching us all how to go beyond our comfort zone, for reminding us it’s not how we fall, but how we get up, Dartmouth is proud to award you the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters.”
View this post on Instagram
In an Instagram post about the ceremony, Shiffrin addressed the caption to her father, who passed away in 2020. “I received an honorary degree from Dartmouth today,” she wrote. “Who’d have ever thought we’d have two Dr. Shiffrins in the fam? (One went through 12+ years of school, one skis down a mountain.) Felt a bit closer to you in the past 24 hrs — for the first time in a really long time — and I’m so grateful for that.”
