Academic procession

Academic procession

An academic procession is a traditional ceremony in which university dignitaries march together wearing traditional academic dress. An academic procession forms a usual part of college and university graduation exercises. At many U.S. universities, the colors and styles of regalia are determined by a uniform dress code established in 1895ref|dress.

The installation of a university president is usually accompanied by a much more elaborate academic procession, involving visiting celebrants from other universities. In such processions, the order of appearance is governed by the institution's date of founding, oldest first. For example, when Eisenhower was installed at Columbia in 1948:

:dignitaries from the world's oldest universities—Bologna, Oxford, Paris, Cambridge, and Florence—led the procession, and representatives from over three hundred American colleges and universities followed, including Harvard's James Conant, Yale's Charles Seymour, Pennsylvania's Harold Stassen, and Princeton's Harold Dodds, and some two hundred other presidents.ref|eisenhower

The order of academic processions explains in part why universities have a tendency to use strained rationales to claim traditional dates of founding that are as early as possible. For example, the University of Pennsylvania's George E. Thomasref|thomas writes of a

:debate over the founding date of the University that began in 1896 when The Alumni Register promoted the story that the University’s origins lay in George Whitefield’s Charity School that was ostensibly founded in 1740.... this mergers-and-acquisitions model of institutional history had the desired effect of placing Penn ahead of Princeton in academic processions that in turn represented, in highly schematized form, the pecking order of American higher education. (The year before, in 1895, elite universities banded together to establish a national system of academic regalia that asserted an age- and class-based hierarchy and was most obviously expressed by placement in academic processions.)

ee also

Encaenia

References

# See Academic dress and American Council on Education, "An Academic Costume Code and An Academic Ceremony Guide," [http://www.acenet.edu/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Frequently_Asked_Questions3&Template=/CM/HTMLDisplay.cfm&ContentID=8086] , "Reprinted with permission from American Universities and Colleges, 15th Edition © 1997 Walter de Gruyter, Inc."
# Jacobs, Travis Beal (2001), Eisenhower at Columbia. Transaction Publishers, ISBN 0-7658-0036-5. (Description of academic procession, p. 119)
# Thomas, George E. (2002), "Building Penn's Brand" "Pennsylvania Gazette," Sept-Oct. 2002, 101(1), [http://www.upenn.edu/gazette/0902/thomas.html online text]


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужен реферат?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Academic dress — or academical dress is traditional clothing for academic settings, primarily tertiary and sometimes secondary education. It is also known as academicals and, in the United States, as academic regalia. Contemporarily, it is commonly seen only at… …   Wikipedia

  • Academic dress of Harvard University — As the oldest university in the United States, Harvard University has a long tradition of academic dress. Harvard gown facings bear crow s feet emblems, a symbol unique to Harvard, made from flat braid in colours distinctive of the wearer s… …   Wikipedia

  • Graduation — For other uses, see Graduation (disambiguation). Academic procession during the University of Canterbury graduation ceremony. Graduation is the action of receiving or conferring an academic degree or the ceremony that is sometimes associated,… …   Wikipedia

  • Fordham University — seal Latin: Universitas Fordhamensis Motto Latin: Sapientia et Doctrina …   Wikipedia

  • Rutgers University — infobox University name=Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey caption = Coat of Arms of Rutgers University motto = Sol Iustitiae et Occidentem Illustra mottoeng = Sun of righteousness, shine upon the West also established = November 10,… …   Wikipedia

  • RMIT University — Latin: Universitas Technicus Melburnensis Regia Motto perita manus mens exculta (Latin) Motto in …   Wikipedia

  • Prince Guillaume of Luxembourg — ( Guillaume Marie Louis Christian ) born 1 May 1963, is the third son and youngest child of Grand Duke Jean and Grand Duchess Josephine Charlotte of Luxembourg.Guillaume attended secondary school in Luxembourg and Switzerland, and received his… …   Wikipedia

  • Henry Merritt Wriston — (July 4, 1889 ndash;1978) was a United States educator and served as president at both Brown University and Lawrence University. Wriston was born in Laramie, Wyoming, the son of a Methodist minister and a schoolteacher. He received his B.A. in… …   Wikipedia

  • Lake Carnegie (New Jersey) — Infobox lake lake name = Lake Carnegie image lake = Carnegie Lake filtered.jpg caption lake = The lake with Princeton University s Cleveland Tower in the background image bathymetry = caption bathymetry = location = New Jersey coords =… …   Wikipedia

  • Rutgers University traditions — As one of the first nine colleges founded in the United States of America mdash;founded as Queen s College in 1766 (a decade before the country s independence from Great Britain) mdash;Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey has two and a… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”