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Meet Vermont's newly-minted PhD: Max Dow, the tabby cat

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Max Dow once lived on the streets of Fair Haven, Vt., but he receives an honorary doctorate this morning at Vermont State University Castleton. Max may have some faults, but he's really a pussy cat, a tabby. And as Vermont Public Radio reports, the once-feral kitten taken in by a woman named Ashley Dow has become part of university life over the past five years. He's posed for photography classes. He's hitched rides on backpacks and been a general source of campus cheer. Ashley Dow told Vermont Public Radio she's encouraged students to bring Max home if they see him out after 5, and students did actually bring him home, she says. I'll get text messages from random students. It's like, he's OK. He's up by the greenhouse.

A school announcement on Instagram says Max's Doctor of Litter-ature degree comes, quote, "complete with all catnip perks, scratching post privileges and litter box responsibilities that come with it." But don't invite Max to a kegger to celebrate this weekend. He's still not 21. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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Scott Simon is one of America's most admired writers and broadcasters. He is the host of Weekend Edition Saturday and is one of the hosts of NPR's morning news podcast Up First. He has reported from all fifty states, five continents, and ten wars, from El Salvador to Sarajevo to Afghanistan and Iraq. His books have chronicled character and characters, in war and peace, sports and art, tragedy and comedy.