Oprah Winfrey to Get Honorary Doctorate from South African University

Chat queen Oprah Winfrey will get an honorary doctorate from a South African university on Friday.

The central South African university in Bloemfontein, University of Free State, is getting ready to welcome the talk show celebrity and to acknowledge her contribution to the society.

A 4,500-seat auditorium is expected to be full for the one-person graduation ceremony. Tickets were sold for 10 rand (about $1)

The American television host-actress is best known for her self-titled, multi-award winning talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in television history.

Meanwhile, Nadipha Jacobs, a black student, said the university is slowly becoming more tolerant, and that the visit from the world's most recognizable black businesswoman shows that. In many ways, I feel the university and its people have grown, she said. Jacobs, who started as an undergraduate in 1996, is now a graduate student specializing in development studies, an AP report said.

Considered one of the most influential woman in the world, Winfrey visits South Africa frequently. In South Africa, she opened a school in 2007 dedicated to giving bright young women of all races opportunities in a society where they are handicapped by conservative traditions as well as the poor schools that are a legacy of apartheid.

A video was made by four white Free State students humiliating black cleaning women and expressing opposition to integrating the historically white school in 2006. Change has been largely brought in by Jonathan Jansen, who in 2009 became the university's first black rector.