Rauhmel Fox Advised Honorary Doctorate For Teen Farrah Gray

While residing in Cherry Hill, Colorado, and operating WHOmentors.com, Inc., I received a call from Paula Gray concerning her personal interest to find a effective mentor for her teen son, Farrah Gray.

Mrs. Gray described the enormous task of raising a child with a healthy ambition as an unwed mother and thought to contact me for reassuring guidance. We discussed at length her overarching goal for Farrah Gray and whether he should prepare for college. She encouraged I meet him immediately at the Denver Airport in Colorado before he departed to Las Vegas, Nevada.

During our "lunch meeting" and eating salads because of his personal religious convictions, I noticed a particular confidence in his demeanor even though he was 15 1/2 and thought to myself, "what advice could I give him as a MENTOR PRACTITIONER that is altogether different than any other MENTOR VOLUNTEER?" I wanted to determine defensible "positioning" or personal branding that could be sustained.

At the time, I was conducting research on the honorary doctorate programs of 4-year degree granting institutions who can formally recognize an individual's contributions to a particular field or philanthropic efforts and soon realized Farrah Gray would be a great candidate to be nominated for a Doctorate of Humane Letters.

To begin, I recommend for Mrs. Gray to refrain from using the moniker "Roads Scholar" as a description for Farrah Gray so as not to infringe on the trademark, "Rhodes Scholar," owned by Oxford University, and to re-evaluate the relative merit of stating Farrah Gray was a teen millionaire with deposits in the Young Americans Bank that could not be verified:

http://www.yacenter.org/young-americans-bank

Although the connection to Rhodes Scholar was obvious, it could be regarded as infringement of or "initial interest confusion" with a registered trademark in violation of Title 17 of the United States Code Section 1125.

Moreover, I stressed the requirement for Farrah Gray to become an author to be regarded as a legitimate expert in a particular area or topic.

After being awarded the honorary doctorate, Farrah Gray could adopt the use of the term Doctor before his name.

The result, Reallionaire was published when Farrah Gray became 19. To Mrs. Gray's credit, she was able to convince the administrators for Allen University, a private, coeducational historically Black university located in Columbia, South Carolina, to confer the honorary doctorate to Farrah Gray at the age of 21 in "recognition of his ingenious economic mind and distinguished commitment to the development of values such as leadership, integrity and scholarship."

Although the website http://www.allenuniversity.edu lacks details about the nomination process for an honorary doctorate, here is an excellent example from Pittsburgh University:

http://www.plattsburgh.edu/president/honorarydegreenominations.php

Mrs. Gray is a stalwart supporter of her son and I got the sense from our numerous phone call conversations she never guilt her son into becoming a successful young man.

Any feedback can be directed to my attention: Rauhmel@WHOmentors.com or phone/SMS: 415-373-6767.

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