I’ve been teaching at the local community college and will be attending a lot of graduation ceremonies. I would like to purchase a cap and gown that looks nice and is higher quality then the polyester crap they would give me to wear. I also don’t want to look like I’m trying to be someone I’m not. I have a BS and wasn’t a member of any honor society.
I know the fancy hats are reserved for doctorates and cords have to be earned. What about the three stripes on the arms, velvet panels, hoods, tassel color and look, piping? Are these things chosen by tradition, the school, rules and etiquette? For the most part I just want one made out of a better fabric that looks a little more “professional” but I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes.
Go the campus bookstore. They can advise on the specific regalia your degree gets you. Arm stripes, for example, are for doctoral robes etc. The bookstore will be your best resource. They’ll also be able to help you get/rent a higher quality robe.
Right: stripes, hoods, hats, even colours of robes vary from institution to institution and from faculty to faculty (arts, sciences, e.g.) within each institution and by degree. So you could legitimately wear the regalia for the BSC from the institution you received your degree from. Or, you could go basic black, always cool.
Also, academic regalia is really expensive: you could easily lay out $1,000 for robe, hood, and goofy hat. And they might still be made of polyester. I’d go basic black, forget the hat, and wear nice clothes underneath for the meet and greet after, where you may be meeting parents.
Call the bookstore. They arrange regalia for all faculty, admins and staff who need to rent it (I finally broke down and bought my own). They know how to do this and can do it easily and fast.
I love graduation- the fanfare, pomp and circumstance and the regalia!
This. The university from which you graduated will have regulations specifying the cap and gown appropriate to your degree - cut, colour, fabric, everything. Generally you have no choice at all in any of these matters - they are all driven by your degree (bachelor’s, master’s, etc) and the faculty in which you took it.
The university will also very likely be able to direct you to suppliers of academic dress who cater to graduates of that university, so you can just go to them and say “I need the cap and gown for a B.S. of the University of Middle Earth”, and they say “right you are”, and put them on the counter.
This is how I’ve generally seen it happen in the US, both at the high school and the university level. Faculty will usually wear the gown that represents their highest degree. This did result in the faculty looking a bit mismatched - some wore doctoral gowns with the three stripes, most of the rest wore master’s gowns, and the color and cut of the gowns varied a bit. If a faculty member has more than one degree at their highest level (say, they have an MEd and an MBA, or an MA in English from UCLA and a second MA in History from Virginia Tech), I’m not sure what the exact procedure would be. I would guess that they would go with one of the following:
Wear the gown from their most recent degree.
Wear the gown that most closely represents their faculty responsibilities. E.g. if our instructor with the MA in English from UCLA and an MA in History from Virginia Tech were actually employed to teach History, they would wear the Virginia Tech gown.
Wear whichever one they want.
Anyone know whether any schools actually have formal policies on this, as opposed to general traditions that people are informally expected to obey if they want to keep getting invited to parties and whatnot?
Note that some universities have so-called ad eundem degrees that are awarded as a matter of course to faculty. If your school does this, you may be entitled to wear the local regalia.
My law school had a formal policy on it that is actually published in the hooding/graduation program: faculty wear the regalia of the school that awarded their law degrees or LLM if applicable. The school also listed each faculty member’s alma mater in the program so you could identify the regalia.