Thursday, 4:30 PM
UMass Lowell to honor Jack Kerouac
By Sarah Kneezle, Globe correspondent
Fifty years after the publication of Jack Kerouac's "On the Road," the University of Massachusetts at Lowell plans to honor the Beat Generation writer posthumously with an honorary doctorate next June.
University officials said today that the doctorate of letters degree will be received by Kerouac's brother-in-law, John Sampas, who handles his literary estate, at the June 2 commencement. Two weeks later, the 120-foot scroll on which Kerouac drafted his manuscript on in 1951 will be displayed at the Boott Mills Cotton Museum in Lowell.
"Jack Kerouac is synonymous with Lowell," Provost John Wooding said in a statement. "His books made Lowell a literary location known to the world, like Thoreau's 'Walden' did for Concord. It is fitting for UMass Lowell to be the university that recognizes his achievement as one of the most important authors of the 20th century."
This will be the only college degree awarded to the famous writer, who dropped out of Columbia University as a sophomore. He died in 1969 and is buried in Lowell.
