Just Interesting...

[L Verge]

I'm not sure how she managed to find my 1965 college commencement program online, but my daughter just sent me this. I'm not sure how many graduates today even know the symbolism and history of the gowns, caps, or maybe hoods that are worn at graduations.

ACADEMIC HERALDRY

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 eleventh and twelfth centuries.

Academic life as we know it today began in the Middle Ages — with Bologna and Paris, Oxford and Cambridge, Edinburg, 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 Oxford University 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 adomments within, should likewise differ from the lay folk as outwardly in dress."

The principal features of academic dress are three: 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 early became necessary for these 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 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 underneath. It is black for all degrees with pointed sleeves for the Bachelors degree; long closed sleeves for the Masters degree, with a slit for the arm; and round open sleeves for the Doctors degree. For the Bachelors or Masters degree the gown has no trimmings. For the Doctors 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. Of later years the official colors of the college may
appear in the gown or its decorations.

The Cap. When Roman law freed the slave he 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 mortar board 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.

As of 1965, these are some of the academic colors:

COLORS DISTINCTIVE OF THE DISCIPLINES AND PROFESSIONS
Arts, Letters, Humanities - White
Education - Light Blue
Fine Arts - Brown
Library Science - Lemon
Music - Pink
Philosophy - Dark Blue
Physical Education - Sage Green
Science - Golden Yellow
Social Science - Cream