It’s gowns, hoods and silly hats season again
I’ve written quite a few posts on graduation in recent years and, being short of something new to say as our graduation season starts again this week at Nottingham, I thought I would bring together a few earlier pieces on this most special of university occasions:
- A recent(ish) post on graduation challenges including Decanal difficulties with names and a failed graduand backflip.
- The surprising news that swimming was not part of graduation requirements any more for one US university.
- The differences between a US-style commencement and a graduation.
- The strange ceremonial use for a weapon at graduation – the place of the mace.
- And, finally, graduation as being all a bit lovely like London 2012 (if we can remember that far back).
Honorary Degrees are always a key feature of graduation and there have also been several reports on Honorary Degrees awarded in recent times, such as this one starring a bunch of politicians and this one, featuring a selection of musicians, a dog and a deity.
Last year we also had the report in The Independent that thousands of female graduates across China have ditched the traditional mortar board in favour of wedding dresses:
Unlike Britain, where ingrained traditions of tearful parents, gowned lecturers and celebrity speakers are all part of graduation day, in China there are fewer set in stone traditions and this has given birth to new ideas and rituals, including the wearing of wedding dresses.During this summer’s graduation ceremonies, more and more of China’s female graduates have been adorning white gowns and tiaras to pose for the all-important graduation photo. According to Liu Xiangping a student from Xi’an Polytechnic University in central China “The wedding dress makes things feel more meaningful.”
Whilst I have yet to see anyone in a wedding dress cross our platform, there is always a first time.
We have also recently had the selfie ban. As reported by the Telegraph:
Students are being warned not to share graduation selfies in a bid to stop sellers creating fake degrees.
Sellers of counterfeit degrees can access the latest designs from photos posted online of graduates celebrating with their certificates, Prospects’ Higher Education Degree Datacheck (HEDD) has warned.
They can easily copy the logos, crests, signatories, stamps, holograms and wording onto fake certificates and pass them off as genuine to unwitting employers.
(They have to be pretty unwitting really.)
But the big story of graduation season has to be the alleged ban on mortar board throwing. Again the Telegraph had it covered:
The tradition of throwing a mortarboard into the air after graduation has been scrapped by a university because of health and safety concerns, according to a student newspaper.
The University of East Anglia in Norwich said a number of graduates had been hurt by falling hats in recent years, which gave rise to “avoidable injury”, according to a statement published in student newspaper The Tab.
But students could have a mortarboard added digitally to photographs afterwards – for £8.Instructions sent by Penguin Photography to third and fourth-year law students at the university urged graduates to “mime” the throwing action instead, The Tab said.
“As well as being safer, this will have the added advantage that even more of the students’ faces will be seen in this photograph,” the photography company said.
Utter guff of course. And exactly the kind of thing which makes staff at the HSE very cross indeed:
HSE has provided a response to this age-old myth:
Geoff Cox, who heads the Health and Safety Executive public sector team, said: “You’d think universities would study history and do a bit of research before repeating tired health and safety myths like this one. The banning of mortar board tossing on supposed ‘health and safety’ grounds is one of our most popular myths and actually appears in our Top 10 all-time worst health and safety excuses.
“As far back as 2008, HSE made clear the law does not stop graduates having fun and celebrating their success in the time-honoured fashion. The chance of being injured by a flying mortar board is incredibly small and it’s over-the-top to impose an outright ban. We usually find the concern is actually about the hats being returned in good condition.”
Hurrah! Here’s to some terrific hat throwing over the next few weeks.
