The college or university commencement procession today, in this country and abroad, is a pageant, alive and bright with the dress and ceremony inherited from the medieval universities of the 11th and 12th centuries.
Academic life as we know it today began in the Middle Ages—with 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 the outward sign of privilege and responsibility. The dress made visible, in color and pattern, the unity of men of like purpose. Twelfth-century records of the University of Oxford carry this justification for academic dress: “It is honourable 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.”
Their design and heraldry were the outward indications of the bringing together of students and privileged persons under the same disciplines. In later centuries, to preserve their dignity and meaning, it became necessary for universities to set rules for academic dress. American universities agreed on a definite system in 1895 and set up a suitable code of academic dress for the colleges and universities of the United States. In 1932, the American Council on Education presented a revised code, which for the most part governs the style of academic dress today. The principal features of academic dress are three: the gown, the cap, and the hood.
The Gown. The flowing gown comes from the 12th 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 underneath. It is black for all degrees, with pointed sleeves for the bachelor’s degree; long closed sleeves for the master’s degree, with a slit for the arm; and round open sleeves for the doctoral degree. The gown worn for the bachelor’s or master’s degree has no trimmings. The gown for the doctoral degree 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 official colors of the college may now appear in the gown or its decorations. (The trustees and administrative officers of the University of Pittsburgh wear gowns trimmed in blue velvet edged in gold faille.)
The Cap. The freed slave in ancient Rome won the privilege of wearing a cap, and so the academic cap is a sign of the 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 mortarboard is the symbol of the masons, a privileged guild. The color of the tassel on the cap denotes the discipline.
The Hood. 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 university or college from which the degree was granted.
The Mace. A ceremonial staff is carried by the chief University marshal, who is the president of the University Senate. The chief University marshal opens and closes all academic convocations, such as Honors Convocation and Commencement Convocation. A Pittsburgh artist designed the mace for the University of Pittsburgh. The design was created from an existing bronze seal representing the Office of the Chancellor. The seal is surrounded by concentric rims that are supported by four contemporary shapes. The hand-turned shaft is made of native Pennsylvania walnut.
