RGU ‘faux pas’

The decision by Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, to award former BP chief executive Tony Hayward an honorary degree, might turn out to be a PR disaster (your report, 13 July).

Even allowing for the fact the offer of the award was made before Mr Hayward’s handling of the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, to still give him the award is, to me, an act of supreme folly.

This, of course, is not the first time the RGU has been embroiled in controversy over it’s awarding of honorary degrees. There were those who were flabbergasted when RGU decided to give Donald Trump an honorary degree, despite the fact that his development at Menie had barely begun at the time of the award. Many shall remember the former principal of RGU, Dr David Kennedy, returning his own honorary degree in protest against the Trump award.

RGU is in danger of devaluing such awards for the future, never mind the fact they it is likely to become a laughing stock over the latest faux pas.

ROBERT T SMITH

Braeside Terrace

Aberdeen