Pretty much any bio of Whoopi Goldberg has a one-sentence note that she earned a Ph.D. in literature from New York University. Earned, not an honorary degree, which are mentioned separately.
But not a mention of just when she found time in a career making several movies a year to go to school. It wasn’t when she was young and penniless. I found a 1991 article that makes no mention of it.
So, real? Or B.S. and not the degree kind?
Link?
Google brought up several mentions of her PhD, (here’s one on a celebrity-trivia site), but no dates.
Whoopi is not listed on the NYC alumni database, either as Whoopi or under her birth name. There’s no obvious break in her listing on the IMDB.
Did she leap of being a highschool dropout to being in a PhD program? There must have been some intermediate steps, I think.
Well, her species does have an exceptionally long lifespan.
IMDb also gives her birthdate as 1955, when 1949 is far more likely. Whoopi has fudged so much of her life that it’s hard to get solid facts now.
I just checked a database of doctoral dissertations going back to 1861 (you read that right), and there’s nothing under her real name (Caryn Elaine Johnson), her married name (Caryn Martin) or her stage name. There is also no dissertation by her in the NYU library catalog.
She’s not really jewish? 
–Cliffy
Cliffy, you have to remember she changed her name from the very WASPy “Cushion”. 
Walloon, thanks for the search. I thought this unsourced, undated tidbit smelled of urban legend. Now the question is where would something like this have come from? I know that her one-women shows used to feature Fontaine, a junkie who had a Ph.D. Normally I wouldn’t expect people to confuse a character with the real person - especially when the character is a man! - but the Internet is full of weirder stories.
I’d suggest it’s possible she earned an undergraduate degree or masters, from NYU or CUNY or whereever else, and it’s been embellished since.
Same problem arises. She didn’t do it when she was young, and when did she have time while making several movies a year since?
Based on watching one interview from her very bad talk show, her Ph.D. must have been in “Yaknowology” because she ended every single sentence with “Ya know?”.
Having performed no research whatsoever on this, I’ll mention that I seem to recall, back in the early to mid-90s, Whoopi receiving an honorary doctorate from the U of Somewhere-Or-Other.
Wait a minute. On preview, I clicked on The Devil’s Grandmother’s celebrity-trivia link, which says:
With no supporting detail.
On the other hand, her IMDb page (Whoopi’s, not The Devil’s Grandmother’s) says:
I have no idea how thoroughly these things are researched, and I’ve already done way too much clicking and formatting for a post that begins with, “Having performed no research whatsoever on this…” The reader is thus left to his/her own devices from here on out.
None of the biographical sources like the Marquis Who’s Who list any educational credits for Whoopi Goldberg. And since her publicist would likely fill it out for her, I don’t know if the degree is earned or honorary. No NYU alumni publication lists her as a grad.
OK, I did some more searching. A Google search for Whoopi Goldberg honorary degree turns up some cites:
On May 17, 1997, Whoopi spoke at the grauation ceremony of the University of Vermont:
That’s the most specific information I can find, and it’s from some kind of press release–never a terribly trustworthy source, though at least this one is university-sponsored.
Other than that, every page seem to say the same things: “She dropped out of high school at the age of 17” and “She holds a Ph.D. in literature from New York University, and an honorary degree from Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.”
Odd that the honorary degree mentioned all over the place isn’t even the one from Vermont that there’s at least some evidence for.
Perhaps she threatened to subject the Ph.D. committee members to her lousy jokes until they tossed a degree at her out of fear for their lives.
I think somebody confused Whoopi and one of her characters named Fontaine.
Source: Biography.com’s article on Whoopi, p2 (first paragraph). Evidently Fontaine is a character whom she created. Fontaine is a junky/thief with a Ph.D. in literature. And is a guy.
Walloon, feel up to searching dissertations under his name?
I met Fontaine on the corner, and he told me if I’d give him twenty, he’d tell me if it was true.
What is that supposed to mean Bryan??
Only three left!
It’s a reference to her role on Star Trek: Next Generation.
Also, note that this thread is 17 years old. We tend to refer to old threads like this that have been revived as zombies, so don’t be surprised if you see a few zombie jokes.
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