This weekend, I like thousands of others gathered for college graduations. This is a time of great joy for myself. I watched my oldest son walk across the stage at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma where I have taught for the past 13 years. Best graduation I have attended. I walked across a similar stage 24 years ago at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.
That prestigious institution awarded its first degrees in 1700, and while in many ways the two graduations looked similar the 300year time span has also brought about some major changes.
The look is the same as the basic academic regalia has not changed much since before even colonial times. Academic wear in Europe was taken from religious clerical robes worn during the Middle Ages and brought over to the colonies when institutes of higher learning were developed starting with Harvard in 1636 followed by my own William and Mary in 1696.
Over the years the gowns have standardized, allowing for identification of degrees and academic fields. In 1893 several of the Ivies got together and created the Intercollegiate Code on Academic Costume which identified the degree, subject and alma mater. The degree is shown by the robes. The bachelor’s degree is the basic black, or school colors, robe everyone is familiar with. The master’s degree is the same robe but with long pointy sleeves.
The Ph.D. is a much fancier robe and includes velvet strips on the sleeves and velvet down the front. Most robes are black, but some schools do give the option of school colors. The color of the velvet represents the type of doctorate earned, most are blue for the Doctor of Philosophy or Ph.D. The Ph.D. also wears a multi-sided tam instead of the mortarboard.
The hood is much more complicated. The colors represent where and what you studied. My own hood is red and white. Red for the University of Arkansas where I earned my Ph.D. and white for humanities. Some fields are much more specific than history.
Other traditions are much newer. For instance, Pomp and Circumstances was first performed in 1902 to honor the coronation of King Edward VII of Great Britain. The next year Yale invited its composer over to America to award him an honorary degree and so naturally played the song. Once Yale played it everyone else followed suit.
One of the major changes are the ceremonies themselves. Through colonial times and the first 100 years or so of America the ceremony was about celebrating the graduates. As public speaking was seen as one of the most prized attributes of a graduate, they did the speaking. There would be several addresses from graduating students and in several languages showing off their talents and knowledge. In modern times, as oration is less stressed and appreciated, graduation ceremonies changed. To honor graduates, a speaker was chosen to address the crowds. Most were associated with the college in some way, but by the 1960s it was more about the celebrity speaker.
Historically speaking, a few commencement speeches stand above others yet are not recognized as such today. I did several Google searches for the best, most important and most significant graduation speeches and pretty much each search produced the same list: Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, a bunch of actors, Barack Obama and even Taylor Swift.
I recognize that is what the modern students are hoping for, but there were a couple speeches in the 1950s that had an impact and did not make any of the 30 or so lists I saw. The first comes from my favorite Brit, Winston Churchill. In 1946 he was coming off a victory over the Nazis only to lose reelection. When Westminster College, a small college in Fulton, Missouri, reached out to President Harry Truman to ask Churchill to speak, Truman sent a note to his friend encouraging it. Churchill gladly accepted and gave one of the more important foreign policy speeches in history.
During his address Churchill recognized the horrors of the past war but also warned the days ahead might be just as dark with the communists’ control growing. Preparing his audience for the upcoming fight he said, “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent,” and coined the term that would come to represent the divide between the free and communist worlds.
In that same mode, Secretary of State George Marshall gave the commencement speech at Harvard the following year. He also feared the growing threat of communism and worried that with the dismal economic condition in Europe that they may be susceptible.
Marshall said, “It is logical that the United States should do whatever it is able to do to assist in the return of normal economic health in the world, without which there can be no political stability and no assured peace. Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos.”
With his speech the Marshall Plan was born which gave $13.3 billion in aid for European recovery following World War II. For many, this aid was responsible for stopping communists’ infiltration in Western Europe.
The modern-day commencement speeches are far away from student speeches in Latin or arenas for foreign policy proposals. This does not mean they do not have value as most are intended to inspire students. While Thomas Jefferson, 1762 graduate of William and Mary and not a classmate of mine, may not recognize today’s graduation, it is a great time for families and graduates to celebrate their accomplishments.
Congratulations to all the grads out there. I am sure your families are as proud of you as I am of my son.
James Finck is a professor of history at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma. He can be reached at HistoricallySpeaking1776@ gmail.com.
