325th Commencement

Academic Procession

The procession includes the university leadership, members of the faculty, and the individuals listed below.

The Yale University banner and the Yale College banner are carried by the recipients of the Alpheus Henry Snow Prize and the Arthur Twining Hadley Prize, respectively. The American flag and the Connecticut state flag are carried by the recipients of the Warren Memorial Prize and the Russell Henry Chittenden Prize, respectively. The president’s banners are carried by the recipients of the Louis Sudler Prize. The New Haven city flag is carried by a graduating senior from the New Haven area.

Student Procession Leaders

Commencement History

The first Commencement of the Collegiate School was held on September 16, 1702, in Saybrook, Connecticut, in the house of the Reverend Thomas Buckingham, one of the founders of the institution. The Reverend James Pierpont, minister of the First Church of Christ in New Haven (Center Church), was one of the leaders in founding the school and served as a fellow from 1701 to 1714. The first Commencement in New Haven, with a graduating class of five, was held at Center Church in 1717.

On September 10, 1718, at the first public ceremony of Commencement, the institution was named Yale College in honor of its first benefactor, the Honorable Elihu Yale, of Wrexham, Wales. The name Yale University was authorized in 1887.

Except for private ceremonies during the American Revolution, Yale Commencement exercises were conducted in the church until 1895, when they were transferred to Battell Chapel. In 1903, Commencement was held for the first time in Woolsey Hall; it continued there until 1950, when the postwar increase in the size of graduating classes necessitated a move to the present location on Old Campus.

Assembly and Procession

The academic procession is under the direction of members of the faculty and administration appointed annually to serve as marshals. Degree candidates in Yale College assemble in the courtyards of their residential colleges and march, behind their individual college banners, to Cross Campus, where they join the candidates for graduate and professional degrees to await the formation of the procession.

The party of the Yale Corporation, the university’s board of trustees (with the party including the university banner, chief marshal, university officers, Corporation members, and honorary degree recipients), passes through the groups of candidates who are assembled on Cross Campus and proceeds to the Noah Porter Gateway.

From the Noah Porter Gateway, the senior marshal and chief procession marshal, the colors, the president’s banners, and the band proceed with the Yale Corporation; the banners and deans of Yale College, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and the School of Engineering and Applied Science; and the Yale College candidates down Elm Street and through the New Haven green along the walkway in front of Center Church. The procession then continues through Phelps Archway and down the center aisle of Old Campus.

In the meantime, the candidates for graduate and professional degrees proceed through the Noah Porter Gateway to Elm Street and enter Old Campus through Miller Gate and the High Street Gate under the direction of their faculty marshals.

The national, state, and city flags; the university, Yale College, and president’s banners; and the banners of the residential colleges, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and the professional schools are led by the senior marshal in procession to the platform.

Academic Costume

Academic gowns represent a tradition handed down from the universities of the Middle Ages. These institutions were founded by the church, and the students, being clerics, were obliged to wear the prescribed gowns at all times. Round caps later became square mortarboards; the hoods, originally cowls attached to the gowns, could be slipped over the head for warmth.

Many European universities have distinctive caps and gowns that differ from those commonly worn in this country. Some of the gowns are of bright colors, and some are embellished with fur. The usual color for academic gowns in the United States is black. Those holding Yale master’s and doctoral degrees, however, may wear Yale blue. The bachelor’s gown is worn closed; the master’s and doctor’s may be worn open or closed. The shape of the sleeve is the distinguishing mark of the gowns: bachelor’s, long pointed sleeves; master’s, oblong sleeves open at the wrist; doctor’s, bell-shaped with three velvet bars on each sleeve. Yale candidates for professional degrees requiring at least three years of graduate study, such as the JD or MDiv, are permitted to wear the doctor’s gown. Caps are black, as are the tassels for BA and BS degrees; tassels for the PhD degrees are gold, and those for other graduate and professional degrees may be the color corresponding to the border of the hoods.

The hoods are lined with the color of the institution that awarded the degree to the wearer. The color of the border or collar of the hood designates the degree: liberal arts, white; science, golden yellow; philosophy, dark blue; architecture, blue-violet; art and drama, brown; divinity, scarlet; engineering, orange; environment, russet; global affairs, peacock blue; law, purple; management, sapphire blue; medicine, green; music, pink; nursing, apricot; public health, salmon.

Honorary degree hoods are distinguished as follows: doctor of divinity (DD), scarlet; doctor of laws (LLD), purple; doctor of music (MusD), pink; doctor of letters (LittD), white; doctor of science (ScD), golden yellow; doctor of humane letters (LHD), white; doctor of fine arts (DFA Hon), brown; doctor of social science (SScD), cream; doctor of medical sciences (DMS), green; doctor of humanities (DHum), white; doctor of engineering and technology (DEng & Tech), orange.

University Insignia

The university mace, emblem of the authority of the president and trustees, is carried by the chief marshal. It was given to the university by Professor Samuel Simons Sanford, MAH 1894, and has been used in academic processions since 1904. The mace, made of silver gilt, weighs twenty-four pounds and is forty-seven inches long. At the foot of the shaft is an acorn, out of which come oak leaves, the symbol of strength. These leaves surround a sphere on which appear the seal and name of the donor. On the shaft are engraved the names of all the presidents of the university. Above the main shaft is a spherical section with a design of raised elm leaves surmounted by a cup that bears the arms of the university, of New Haven, of Connecticut, and of the United States. On the rim of the cup are four winged figures representing art, science, law, and theology. Rising above these figures is a deep blue sphere of lapis lazuli topped by a small pinecone, an ancient symbol of immortality.

The president’s collar is made of gold, silver, and enamel. There are fourteen cloisonné and champlevé roundels bearing the arms of the graduate school and the professional schools, as well as three shields bearing the arms of the university and Yale College and the Great Seal of the United States. At the back is a roundel with an abstract design that serves as the signature of the artist, William Harper. At the front is a jewel composed of a gold fragment embossed with the arms of the university sandwiched between carved rock crystal. The gold mountings for the jewel are set with cloisonné enamel plaques that bear renderings of the university’s motto, “Light and Truth,” in Latin and in Hebrew translated from ancient Latin. Commissioned in 1981 and completed the following year, the collar has been enlarged twice to better reflect the ever-evolving university.

The senior marshal of the faculty carries a mace presented to the university in 1948 by Loomis Havemeyer, PhB 1910, PhD 1915. It is believed to be an eighteenth-century Dutch bandmaster’s baton. The shaft is of wood with a richly decorated silver knob.

The chief procession marshal’s mace consists of a wooden shaft surmounted by the head of a “yale”—a fabulous and mythical beast of ancient lineage—made and formerly carried in processions by the late Theodore Sizer, MAH 1931, professor of the history of art and pursuivant of arms to the university.

The Old Campus marshal carries a mace fashioned from a slender staff surmounted by a section of the Old Yale Fence in miniature.

The faculty marshal of each residential college carries a mace especially designated for that college, while the student marshals carry wooden batons. Distinctive maces are also carried by the marshals of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and the professional schools. Each of these areas also has its own heraldic banner. Derived from the coats of arms of Yale’s schools and residential colleges and carried by students, many of these banners were designed by Professor Sizer and, more recently, under the direction of university printer John Gambell, MFA 1981.