This wasn't my first university degree, but I realized about a week before commencement that graduation holds mysteries I had never plumbed.
In the bookstore basement, I puzzled over the colors of the velvet trim on the master's hoods. White, purple or pink? After eliminating all other possibilities, the clerks and I finally agreed that a master's degree in rhetoric and communication must fall in the arts category--and thus call for a white trim.
But what to do with the hood? The student clerks looked at it, looked at me and shrugged. They hadn't graduated with a hood before, either.
Well, I figured, I could always watch the other grads in line and follow suit. This may have been the universal mistaken assumption of the evening. Thank goodness for all those wonderful staff volunteers in the dressing area with their caches of safety pins. They knew just how to adjust and pin the hood to the robe.
Then I learned there is an etiquette to dealing with the tassel on the mortar board. The word was you shouldn't switch it when first walking on stage but should wait until after you got your simulated diploma. And whether it begins on the right or left side depends on from which side you cross the stage--so the photographer doesn't shoot you with a tassel in the face.
Next came the shoes. I chose a sensible pair of black pumps--to coordinate with the black gown. As I sat at the back of Rec Hall watching master's and Ph.D. graduates amble their way to the stage, I realized color coordination was not at all important. I saw a pair of pink plastic, rhinestone-studded, spike-heeled, open-toed sandals; straight-out-of-the box, evergreen Birkenstocks; and worn-down Hush Puppies. You name the brand, color and style, and people were wearing it. But these obviously were all glad shoes, solving the final mystery for me about graduation: why do it.
I had chosen not to attend commencement for my bachelor's degree. After all, it was the mid-'70s, when such ceremonies were considered old-fashioned rituals of no importance. But this was one of the most joyous times of my life. As I stood being anointed as a master, a grin broke out on my face.
My smile held as I followed up the aisle after my professor, while my name was announced to family, friends and thousands of strangers, while I shook hands, and while I was handed my diploma and given a big hug. That grin continued on into the night. And, oh, I almost forgot; time to switch the tassel.
-- Susanne Rockwell '74, M.A. '96
