Officials At Commencement
Today, the Sheriff of Middlesex County, Former Class Marshals, and other officials present at Commencement wear formal morning dress, including top hats, canes, and gloves. It is one of the few occasions in the United States where morning dress is consistently worn.
Harvard aides and marshals, at commencement, wear black top hats, white four-in-hand ties and cutaway coats for men, and white dresses and crimson sashes for women. This is a uniform based on formal morning dress.
At various times in history, dress at Commencement has been the subject of controversy, such as the occasion, printed on June 10, 1970 in The Harvard Crimson, when the Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts reportedly appeared in ancient dress some 35 years prior:
Gov. James Michael Curley appeared in silk stockings, knee britches, a powdered wig, and a three-cornered hat with flowing plume. When University marshals objected to his costume, the story goes, Curley whipped out a copy of the Statutes of the Massachusetts Bay Colony which prescribed proper dress for the occasion and claimed that he was the only person at the ceremony properly dressed.
Read more about this topic: Academic Regalia Of Harvard University, The Ceremony
Famous quotes containing the words officials and/or commencement:
“The ordinary man is an anarchist. He wants to do as he likes. He may want his neighbour to be governed, but he himself doesn’t want to be governed. He is mortally afraid of government officials and policemen.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“After that came commencement day—that great day for which all other days were made. And it went. And that night I felt of myself all over, and to my astonishment, I found ‘twas the same old Rud. Not a single cubit added to my stature; not a hair’s breadth to my girth. If anything, on the contrary, I felt more lank and gaunt than common, much as if a load were off my stomach.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)