Academic Regalia and Commencement Traditions
Academic Heraldry: The Symbols of Learning
While the current code concerning the types of academic regalia to be used by colleges in the United States dates from 1959, distinctive academic dress dates from the medieval universities of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The college or university commencement procession today is a pageant, alive and bright with dress and ceremony derived from the tradition of the oldest universities.
Academic life as we know it today began in the Middle Ages — in Bologna and Paris, Oxford and Cambridge, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Louvain — first in the church, then in the guilds. The teaching guild was the Guild of the Master of Arts, where the bachelor was the apprentice of the master and the dress was color-coded and patterned according to the academic level and discipline. In the hierarchy of the academic world, the associate degree is the modern entry point. Its equivalent in the guild of teachers was that of a junior apprentice. Twelfth-century records of Oxford University state this justification for academic dress: “It is honorable and in accordance with reason that clerks to whom God has given an advantage of the lay folk in their adornments within, should likewise differ from the lay folk outwardly in dress.”
There are three principal features of academic dress: the gown, the cap and the hood. Their design and heraldry were, from as early as the eleventh and twelfth centuries in the great European universities, the outward sign of the bringing together of students and privileged persons under the same discipline.
To preserve their dignity and meaning, it became necessary early on for these universities to set rules for academic dress. American universities agreed on a system in 1895 and set up a suitable code of academic dress for the colleges and universities of the United States. In 1932, and again in 1959, the American Council on Education revised the code that, for the most part, governs the style of academic dress today.
The Gown
The flowing gown comes from the twelfth century. Many think it was worn in olden times as protection against the cold of unheated buildings. It has become symbolic of the democracy of scholarship, for it completely covers any dress of rank or social standing. At Thomas Edison State University, the associate degree gown is burgundy. The gown is black for all degrees above the associate, with pointed sleeves for the bachelor’s degree, oblong sleeves for the master’s degree and bell-shaped sleeves for the doctor’s degree. For the bachelor’s and master’s degree, the gown has no trimmings. For the doctor’s degree, it is faced down the front with velvet and has three bars of velvet across the sleeves in the color distinctive of the faculty or discipline to which the degree pertains.
The Cap
When Roman law freed an enslaved person, they won the privilege of wearing a cap. Thus, the academic cap is a sign of freedom of scholarship and the responsibility and dignity with which scholarship endows the wearer. Old poetry records the cap of scholarship as square to symbolize the book, although some authorities claim that the mortar board is the symbol of the masons, a privileged guild. The color of the tassel on the cap is black or burgundy. The associate cap is burgundy. Caps for master’s and doctor’s degrees are often black, but may appear in other colors as well, depending on the rest of the regalia.
The Hood
Almost all of the students and faculty in the medieval universities were clerics (minor church ecclesiastics) and were tonsured (i.e., had shaved heads), and the hood served to cover the shaved head from the cold of unheated buildings. Eventually, the hood was superseded by the skull cap and evolved into a headdress more or less like those in use today. Heraldically, the hood is an inverted shield with one or more chevrons of a secondary color on the ground of the primary color of the college. The color of the facing of the hood denotes the discipline represented by the degree; the color of the lining of the hood designates the college or university from which the degree was granted.
The Mace
The mace — a heavy staff or club fashioned entirely of metal with a metal head — was originally a weapon of war. In the sixteenth century, it became a ceremonial standard and a scepter of office. It resembled the original weapon and was carried before officials at ceremonial occasions. A mace is still in use in the British House of Commons, where it lies upon the table before the speaker as a symbol of the authority of the House.
The mace of Thomas Edison State University was designed by the University and was inaugurated as the scepter of office at the October 1990 Commencement ceremony and updated in 2016 to reflect university status. It is a solid maple scepter with a two-sided medallion mounted to the head by a brass collar. There is a brass band on the top, upon which the names of the University’s four presidents and their terms are inscribed as follows: James Douglas Brown Jr., 1972-1978; Larraine Rose Matusak, 1979-1982; George A. Pruitt, 1982-2018; and Merodie A. Hancock, 2018-present. The mace shaft and base are finished in mahogany.
Carried in the procession by the president of the University Academic Council, the mace symbolizes the authority of the Office of the President.