2009 GRADUATION GUIDE
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, MAY 7, 2009
CAMPUS CUSTOMS
SOMETHING OLD SOMETHING NEW SOMETHING CRIMSON SOMETHING BLUE
BY RACHEL BURCHFIELD rburchfield@kansan.com
Kansas is a university ripe with tradition year-round — the Rock Chalk chant, waving the wheat and the alma mater to name a few.
Yet at no time of year are some KU traditions more in bloom than at the peak of spring, and the peak of graduating seniors' college careers — commencement.
From the University's first commencement in 1873 to now,
here is a brief glimpse of some KU commencement traditions.
"I think these traditions are special because it unites layhawks throughout generations," said Michael Gray, Buhler senior. "Walking through the Campanile,
you're experiencing something that your parents, and maybe your grandparents, experienced. It unites Jayhawks throughout history."
Edited by Sonya English
walking down the hill
At the University, students don't ask, "Are you going to commencement?" said Kathryn Nemeth Tuttle, associate vice provost for student success.
"They say, 'Are you going to walk?' Nemeth Tuttle said. "It has taken on such a symbolic thing in everybody's mind. There is something very special about it."
KU Info director Curtis
Marsh said Memorial Stadium wasn't built until 1921, so the walk down the hill couldn't have occurred before that. Nemeth Tuttle said she had seen film of students walking into the stadium from as far back as the 1930s.
"It's a long established tradition," Nemeth Tuttle said. "Obviously, the size of the stadium — it's the only venue of that size, because remember, at that time we didn't have Allen Fieldhouse. We had Hoch Auditorium, which was somewhat limited in seating
— so for thousands of guests the stadium became the only place to really do it."
Marsh called walking down the hill the primary KU commencement tradition. According to the KU Info Web site, there are two different trails that graduates take down
the hill. Going down the west side are students graduating from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences as well as master's and Ph.D. students. It takes a graduate about 300 steps to get down the hill. For those taking the second trail, down the hill on the east side — students from professional schools — the walk is a little longer, with about 330 steps to get into the stadium.
Nemeth Tuttle said the Campanile was constructed in 1950 and that she thought the tradition of walking through the tower began sometime soon after that. She said she couldn't remember the curse of the Campanile — that if students walk through the tower before commencement they will never graduate — from her undergraduate years in the late 1960s and the early 1970s, and guessed that this
curse of the Campanile
tradition started sometime in the 1970s.
Marsh said the curse of the Campanile was one of the University's traditions that did not have a formal beginning.
"There are a lot of them like this, like waving the wheat," Marsh said. "There are traditions that are just extraordinarily important to the KU experience that are hard to pinpoint as far as origin."
Campanile — built to honor the 277 students, faculty and staff who died in World War II — is special to graduating students, Nemeth Tuttle said. She remembered her own experience graduating from the University with her doctorate degree in 1996, when construction surrounded the Campanile. Because of this, she said, graduates were not allowed to walk through the Campanile at commencement.
The walk through the
"This created very bad feelings," Nemeth Tuttle said. "It's a great example of a tradition becoming so strong that students got quite upset that they didn't get to do that."
Nemeth Tuttle found a way, though — one of her relatives at the time was Baby Jay, she said, and as Baby Jay led her through the crowd, "the seas parted" and she got to walk through the tower after all.
Matt Bristow/KANSAN
The World War II Memorial Campanile is one of the most recognizable landmarks on campus. It is a time-honored tradition for graduates to pass through it on the way to Memorial Stadium for the commencement ceremony.
SINCE WHEN?
University's first commencement
1886
1873
Football team first took the field as the "Jayhawkers"
Rock Chalk Chant written "Rah, Rah, Jayhawks, KU" in its original form
Students began walking down the hill before commencement
1896
1890
Crimson and blue adopted as official colors Before that, they were malize and sky blue
1950
1920s
Baby Jay born on the football field during the Homecoming game
The construction of the Campanile The curse likely began soon after
1971
Congratulations to the Class of 2009!
You have worked hard to reach the long-awaited walk down the Hill, and we want to help you celebrate your success here at KU by officially welcoming you to alumni status. Please join us for two events held in your honor: Grad Grill, 5:30-7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 7, at the Adams Alumni Center, and Commencement Lunch, 11 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Sunday, May 17, at the Outlook.
This year, the KU Alumni Association has teamed up with the KU Endowment Association to give you a special graduation gift-a one-year membership in the Alumni Association.
If you are interested in becoming a Life Member of the KU Alumni Association, take advantage of our limited-time offer; you can purchase a life membership for $500 (half price!) until June 30, 2009.
www.kualumni.org
CAP AND GOWN
Exploring the history of graduation garb
The words'cap and gown' have become synonymous with the ceremony and tradition of graduation. And although most students wear them at least once in their lives, few people recognize their long-standing history.
BY NORA SIMON
nsimon@kansan.com
- Tradition: Uniformity
- Tradition: Wearing graduation regalia
- Origin: The first time any standard was discussed was in 1895 when an Intercollegiate Commission met at Columbia University to devise a unified system of academic dress. In 1932, the American Council on Education met to revise the collegiate dress code, and in 1959, a Committee on Academic Costumes and Ceremonies made revisions to the code. The last time the American Council on Education made a change was in 1986.
- Tradition: Wearing graduation regalia
* Origin: Students and teachers at early European universities in the 12th and 13th centuries commonly wore clothing that looked like a priest's robes. By the 1300s, universities had often created academic dress codes, including long gowns and prohibited "excess in apparel." The evolution of academic clothing depended on the growth of the academic community in Europe, especially as more specialized degrees were created.
From left to right, University of Kansas; KU crimson and blue,
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; white, Business; drab, Education;
light blue, Fine Arts; brown, Engineering; orange, Pharmacy;
olive, Architecture; blue lilia, Journalism; crimson, Music; pink,
Social Welfare; citron, Law; purple, Health Services; pink salmon,
Nursing; apricot, Doctoral and Masters; black
- Tradition: Varied tassel colors
- Origin: Oxford and Cambridge began reserving white for arts and literature degrees, green for medicine, olive for pharmacy and golden yellow for sciences. Since the early 1900s, the American Council on Education has published standards for tassel colors that each student of a particular discipline receives. White, for example, is still given to students in the humanities and the University's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The Council recognizes a total of 25 disciplines that get separate colors. The University's commencement uses 14 of the colors for its tassels, plus a custom KU crimson and blue mix.
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American Council on Education, www.acenet.edu
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Edited by Grant Treaster