Academic Costume

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The wearing of academic costumes is a custom that goes back to the Middle Ages. When the early European and English universities were founded by the Church, the students and teachers were required to wear distinctive gowns at all times. Although the custom was brought to this country in colonial days, the requirement for students was dropped. In our own Columbian College, founded in 1821, the custom was retained for a number of years, for special occasions such as graduation exercises and inaugurations of new presidents.

With the increase in the number of educational institutions and the development of new subject-matter fields, some confusion arose in time about the type of gown and the specific color to denote various degrees. To introduce desirable uniformity and to set up a clearinghouse for new developments, a commission representing leading American colleges produced the Intercollegiate Code in 1895. In 1932, a national committee of the American Council on Education revised this code into The Academic Costume Code. It was revised again in 1959. Although not obligatory, most of the educational institutions in the country follow it in awarding their degrees, both earned and honorary.

The most significant part of the academic dress is the hood. The color of its velvet border indicates the academic field, and it is lined with the color or colors of the institution granting the degree. All liberal arts candidates of the George Washington University, for example, wear hoods with white velvet boarders and linings of buff and blue, the buff as a chevron across the field. The hoods of those receiving a Master of Arts or an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters or Doctor of Humane Letters have those same color indications, but each successively higher degree carries with it a longer hood. The doctoral hood also has side panels on the back.

Although most doctoral gowns are black, with black velvet bars and panels, in some cases the color of the gown is that of the university conferring the degree--blue for Yale, crimson for Harvard, slate for Columbia. All such gowns have black bars and panels. Examples of each of these are found in the University Faculty.

Academic fields may also be indicated by the color of velvet on the doctoral gowns; three two-inch bars on the sleeves and a five-inch border extending from the back of the neck down the two sides in front. For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy the color is dark blue; for the Doctor of Medicine, green; for Doctor of Education, light blue; for Doctor of Science, golden yellow; for Doctor of Juridical Science, purple. These colors also appear in the velvet of the hood unless the hood represents an honorary degree.

Caps are black. Tassels are usually black for bachelor’s and master’s degrees, gold for doctorates. Gowns for bachelor’s and master’s degrees are plain black, but sleeves of the latter are shorter with trailing “elbows.” Doctoral gowns of European universities are usually very colorful. The caps are often of some soft material like velvet and are ordinarily not of the conventional mortarboard shape. Several examples may be seen in the University Faculty.

• Arts, Letters, Humanities- white
  
• Commerce, Accountancy, Business- drab
  
• Education- light blue
  
• Engineering- orange
  
• Fine Arts, including Architecture- brown
  
• Law- purple
  
• Library Science- lemon
  
• Medicine- green
  
• Music- pink
  
• Pharmacy- olive green
  
• Philosophy- dark blue
  
• Physical Education- sage green
  
• Public Service- pale aqua
  
• Science- golden yellow
  
• Social Science- cream
  
• Theology- scarlet
  

Document Information

Images: 1
Photographic Credit: n/a
Author or Source: Commencement program
Document Location: University Archives
Date Added to Encyclopedia: December 16, 2006
Prepared by: G. David Anderson

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