CAPS, GOWNS AND SPEECHES . . .

                                                               

Courtesy of Clipart

                'tis  the Season. . .
                 for Caps and Gowns, Graduation exercises,
proud pictures, looonnnnggggg  forgettable speeches, diplomas, handshakes and hugs.

      Recently, seeing LOTS  of  pictures of smiling graduates, I decided to look in my family 'archives'.   Well, I found some and couldn't locate others.  Seems that it has not been so very long ago that I saw snapshots taken in our backyard at the time of my high school graduation.  There was one with mom, another with dad and my paternal grand-father.  My wife, her class Valedictorian, does not remember an individual picture. Perhaps when I cease looking, they will reappear.

    I did locate those made with my parents at my graduations from undergrad and grad school, another of my daughter with  her grand-parents and me  when she completed high school; another of a son's high school cap and gown; a brother's med school graduation; one of a nephew's college graduation and one of my wife and me with her niece's daughter.

With my parents at college graduation

Graduate School, Seventeen years later.  Guess I was a 'slow learner'  

     If 'commencement' means beginning, then why are these ceremonies at the end of an academic stage . . . whether from kindergarten all through doctoral level?  Probably to signify that the graduate is about to begin  the next stage of their journey of life and, it is hoped, to recognize the acquisition of 'wisdom'.

With my brothers at Den's Med School Graduation 1967

With my boys at Mike's High School Graduation 1975.
Chris graduated in 1977

My daughter's high school graduation.  Can't locate the college version.

    And, why the 'costumes' , as someone has termed the academic regalia of mortarboards, gowns , tassels, and hoods?  By now,  custom and tradition seem to mandate these.  But in the early medieval academic institutions, it seems they were a necessity for heat in often chilly buildings and they seem often to have been worn throughout the term.
Once when I borrowed a colleague's Master's gown, I commented about the cuff inside the sleeve and was told that it originated as a place for aspiring scholars to keep their libations.

    And, about those speeches . . . if your graduation (at any level) was more than ten years ago, do you remember the speaker, or his/her topic?  In the mid-1990's, I was speaker at a Junior High School commencement.  My 'profundities' are long since forgotten . . . by the students, the audience and the speaker.

     And, now, commencements have become  'politicized' with at least one prominent political person having received a hostile reception by the graduates.  Tomorrow's address by the Vice-President at Notre Dame will , it has been reported, be met by exiting Seniors.

    During the years that I taught at a nearby college, I learned that Dr. Hartsock, Chair of the English Department, annually drew an outline of the United States on her program and proceeded to fill in the contours of the states during the proceedings.  Then in the year of her retirement, the graduates requested her to give the Commencement address.  I actually remember a segment of her  speech and I doubt that maps were drawn that afternoon.

     As for the 'utility' of my degree, I often remember the hot Summer of 1962 at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, when several of us who had already had our turns at the rifle range were catching a rare few minutes of rest.  Suddenly, Sergeant Newton emerged in full voice telling anyone who was a "College Grad-ju-ate" to report to him.  Turns out, he needed help tallying the target scores of the company.  No 'Pomp and Circumstance' that day !

      Satchel