Ice Spice to Receive Honorary Doctorate From Wharton Marketing Department

Isis Gaston, the artist more widely known as Ice Spice,  will receive an honorary doctorate of Marketing Sciences from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania during a commencement ceremony at Franklin Field where she will address graduates of 2023 as well as all the munches in the crowd. 

Citing the poet laureate’s extensive contributions to popular culture, religion, and data analytics, Wharton Marketing Program Doctoral Coordinator Professor Robert Meyer is pleased to confer such a high honor. “I was hooked after she played the opening lines of her new album, Like..?, during our interview, but her grasp on the business fundamentals – computer programming, calculus, and matrix algebra – are also unmatched.”

Recently spotted on campus, the Bronx native was warmly praised by Penn’s President Liz McGill, who called Ice Spice a stirring testament to what the human mind can achieve when uninhibited by the crushing weight of spectacle. "Penn is proud to honor the tremendous merits of Princess Di- I mean, Ice Spice, whose contributions to music, philosophy, and our collective understanding of consumer behavior have revolutionized global markets. I don't think I'm exaggerating matters when I say that Ice Spice has been an inspiration to us all." 

Gaston’s latest album Like…? was a notable thread in the school’s cultural fabric, receiving resounding applause from undergraduates studying into the wee hours of the night in the famously silent Moelis Grand Reading Room of the Van Pelt Library, many jumping to their feet, clapping in near unison for thirteen minutes and eight seconds uninterrupted (the exact length of the album), exhibiting symptoms of dissociative fugue, and then grinding their teeth in celebration of the long-anticipated contribution to human arts and letters.

In her 23 years on the planet, Ice Spice has had a profound and wide-reaching effect on the works of countless academics, contributing to a staggering 5 million research papers and blazing the trail for several thousand grants, fellowships, and exalted spiritual epiphanies. 

The presentation of the honorary degree to Gaston is predicted to be the most poignant moment of Penn’s 2022-23 academic calendar year (or any calendar year), moving all in attendance to the brink of tears, then laughter, then auto-flagellation, then laughter again, and then more tears.