48 Fun Facts About Graduation

Which Latin word meaning 'step' gives English the word 'degree'?

Gradus, Latin for 'step', reached English as 'degree' through Old French degré; each academic degree marks a step up the ladder of learning.

The square academic cap gets its common nickname from its resemblance to a tool used by whom?

Bricklayers carry mortar on a flat square board called a hawk, and the flat square top of the academic cap earned it the nickname mortarboard.

In American commencements, undergraduates typically begin with the tassel on which side of the cap?

Right is the starting side: the tassel hangs on the right of the cap until the degree is conferred, then graduates move it to the left.

In what year was the Intercollegiate Code of Academic Costume adopted in the US?

1895 is when the Intercollegiate Commission, meeting at Columbia in New York, adopted the code; Gardner Cotrell Leonard, whose Albany firm Cotrell & Leonard made academic dress, advised it.

How many velvet bands appear on the sleeves of an American doctoral gown?

Three velvet bars cross each sleeve of the American doctoral gown, matching the velvet facings down its front; doctors may also swap the mortarboard for a velvet tam.

How long is a doctor's hood under the American code?

4 feet is the doctor's hood length under the code; bachelors' hoods are 3 feet and masters' 3.5 feet, and the satin lining shows the institution's colours.

Under the American code, which tassel colour is reserved for those entitled to wear the doctoral gown?

Gold is the tassel colour the code reserves for doctors and others entitled to the doctoral gown; everyone else wears black or the colour of their subject.

Which colour does the American code assign to science?

Golden yellow is the code's colour for science; green marks medicine, purple law and white arts and letters.

According to the history of academic dress, what was the original practical purpose of the gown?

To keep the wearer warm was the gown's first job: medieval university halls were unheated, and scholars, most of them clerics, wore long robes against the cold.

Who composed the Pomp and Circumstance marches, a staple of American graduations?

Edward Elgar wrote the five Pomp and Circumstance marches between 1901 and 1930; the trio of March No. 1 is the tune played at American commencements.

At which university was Pomp and Circumstance first played at a graduation ceremony, in 1905?

Elgar was there to collect an honorary doctorate of music, and the slow trio section stuck.

The trio tune of Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 is better known in Britain by what name?

Land of Hope and Glory pairs the trio tune with words A. C. Benson wrote in 1902, Edward VII's coronation year; it is a fixture of the Last Night of the Proms.

The word 'valedictorian' comes from a Latin phrase meaning what?

To say farewell is the sense of Latin 'vale dicere', from which 'valedictorian' and 'valediction' derive; 'vale' alone was the Roman word for goodbye.

In Australia, what Latin title is given to the highest-ranking student in a graduating class?

Dux, Latin for 'leader', is the title Australian schools give their top-ranked student, and it is also the root of the English word 'duke'.

What does 'magna cum laude' translate to?

With great praise is the literal sense of magna cum laude; 'laus' is Latin for praise, and 'magna' ranks the honour above plain cum laude.

Which was the first US college to award final honours to its graduates, in 1869?

Harvard began awarding Latin honours to its graduates in 1869, the first American college to do so; the practice is largely confined to the United States.

What does the title of the traditional academic song 'Gaudeamus igitur' mean?

So let us rejoice is the sense of Gaudeamus igitur, literally 'therefore let us rejoice'; the Latin drinking song became a university anthem across Europe.

Which composer quoted 'Gaudeamus igitur' in the finale of his Academic Festival Overture?

Johannes Brahms wrote the Academic Festival Overture in 1880 to thank the University of Breslau for an honorary doctorate, and Gaudeamus igitur crowns its finale.

Why is a graduation ceremony called a 'commencement' when it marks an ending?

Graduates were commencing as bachelors or masters: in medieval universities the ceremony marked a new master's 'inception', the start of his licence to teach.

Which economic programme was announced in a June 1947 commencement address at a Massachusetts university?

The Marshall Plan was outlined by Secretary of State George C. Marshall in his June 5, 1947 address; Congress funded it as the European Recovery Program in 1948.

Where did Steve Jobs take 'Stay hungry. Stay foolish.', the closing line of his 2005 Stanford speech, from?

Stewart Brand's catalog signed off with the phrase in October 1974; Jobs called the publication 'Google in paperback form'.

David Foster Wallace's celebrated 2005 commencement speech 'This Is Water' was delivered where?

Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, hosted the speech on May 21, 2005; Wallace, an Amherst graduate, died in 2008 and the address was published as a book in 2009.

The 'Wear Sunscreen' speech often credited to Vonnegut was really a 1997 newspaper column by whom?

Mary Schmich, a newspaper columnist, wrote the piece as a mock commencement speech on June 1, 1997; a viral email misattributed it to Kurt Vonnegut, and Baz Luhrmann's 1999 spoken-word version topped the UK chart.

In which newspaper did the 'Wear Sunscreen' column first appear?

Chicago Tribune ran the column on June 1, 1997, framed as a hypothetical commencement address under the headline 'Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young'.

What does 'honoris causa', attached to an honorary degree, mean?

For the sake of the honour is the literal sense of honoris causa; the earliest recorded honorary degree went to Lionel Woodville at Oxford in the late 1470s.

Which Muppet received an honorary doctorate from Southampton College in 1996?

Kermit the Frog collected an honorary Doctorate of Amphibious Letters at the Long Island college's 1996 commencement and delivered the graduation address himself.

Which of these American universities does NOT award honorary degrees as a matter of policy?

MIT has never awarded an honorary degree, a policy it traces to founder William Barton Rogers; Cornell, Stanford and Rice hold the same line.

Which Founding Father called himself 'Doctor' after honorary doctorates from St Andrews and Oxford?

Benjamin Franklin received an honorary doctorate from St Andrews in 1759 and another from Oxford in 1762; he never attended a university, yet 'Dr Franklin' stuck for life.

In which year did Yale award the first PhDs in the United States?

1861 is when America's first PhDs were conferred, in philosophy and psychology, physics and classics; the research doctorate was a German model born of Berlin's 1810 reforms.

At which university did Elena Cornaro Piscopia become the first woman PhD in 1678?

Padua conferred her doctorate in philosophy on June 25, 1678, after she defended theses on Aristotle in Latin; the Church had blocked her from a theology degree.

Which university is recognised as the oldest in continuous operation in the world?

Bologna dates its founding to 1088; its students organised themselves into guilds, the original 'universitas', and hired their own professors.

Which Ohio college became the oldest coeducational US college by admitting four women in 1837?

Oberlin admitted four women to its bachelor's course in 1837, and in 1862 Mary Jane Patterson graduated there as the first Black woman to earn a B.A. in the United States.

The tradition of tossing caps in the air at graduation began in 1912 at which institution?

Annapolis midshipmen of 1912 were commissioned as officers the moment they graduated, so they flung their now-useless midshipman caps into the air and the custom spread.

The tradition of the class ring originated with the class of 1835 at which school?

West Point's class of 1835 wore the first class rings; by tradition the insignia faces the wearer until graduation and is turned outward afterwards.

What does 'alma mater', the Latin name graduates give their old school, literally mean?

Nourishing mother is the literal sense of alma mater, a title ancient Romans gave to mother goddesses such as Ceres before universities adopted it for themselves.

In Finland, doctors in some faculties receive what unusual item along with their doctoral hat?

A sword, symbolising the scholar's fight for truth, is presented with the doctoral hat at Finnish conferment ceremonies; graduates whet it at a party the evening before.

Germany's school-leaving qualification, the Abitur, takes its name from a Latin word meaning what?

Someone who is going to leave is the sense of Latin 'abiturus', the future participle of abire, 'to go away'; Prussia made the Abitur an official exam in 1788.

Which French leader introduced the modern baccalauréat school-leaving examination in 1808?

Napoleon Bonaparte established the baccalauréat by a decree of 17 March 1808, the same law that organised his Imperial University.

Roughly how many students sat China's gaokao university entrance exam in 2023?

13 million is close: 12.91 million candidates registered for the 2023 gaokao, a record at the time; Deng Xiaoping had restored the exam in late 1977 after the Cultural Revolution.

Which famous Harvard dropout returned in May 2017 to give the commencement speech and receive an honorary degree?

Mark Zuckerberg left in 2004, during his sophomore year, to build Facebook; he returned on May 25, 2017 to speak and collect an honorary Doctor of Laws.

Norwegian school-leavers who celebrate in coloured overalls each spring are known as what?

Russ is the name for Norwegian school-leavers who party through May in coloured overalls, red for general studies, with the celebrations ending on Constitution Day, 17 May.

What is it called when a student graduates without attending the ceremony?

Graduation in absentia is the term for a degree conferred with the graduate absent; many universities post the diploma or hand it over at a smaller departmental event.

In which country do graduates of state universities traditionally shake the president's hand at the ceremony?

Zimbabwe's president is chancellor of every state university and presides at their graduations, capping graduates in person, a duty Robert Mugabe performed for decades.

The mortarboard is thought to have developed from which hat worn by Roman Catholic clergy?

Biretta is the square, ridged cap of Catholic clergy from which the mortarboard is thought to descend; clerics and scholars shared the same dress in medieval universities.

What name does Oxford give the formal dark clothing worn under the gown for exams?

Subfusc, from the Latin for 'dark brown', is the dark suit, white shirt and white or black tie or ribbon worn under the gown at Oxford matriculation and examinations.

Elgar took the title 'Pomp and Circumstance' from which Shakespeare play?

Othello supplies the phrase in Act 3, Scene 3, where the Moor bids farewell to 'the pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war'.

Which Yale music professor invited Elgar to the 1905 commencement where the march was first played?

Samuel Sanford, a pianist on the university's music faculty, arranged the honorary doctorate, and the composer repaid him by dedicating his 1905 Introduction and Allegro for strings to him.

What do many women wear with a kimono at Japanese university graduation ceremonies?

Hakama, the pleated skirt-like trousers that were school wear for girls in the Meiji era, are paired with a kimono by many women at Japanese graduation ceremonies.