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I'm here with Steve Snow, the general manager of the Suffolk University Bookstore and our
resident regalia expert.
He's going to show us some of the different academic dress you might see at commencement and
explain how to read the regalia.
Um... so how old has the tradition of the regalia been going on for... do you know?
The regalia started back in the 12th or 13th centuries... Oh, ok. ...universities in Europe.
Um... most of the...
most of the academics were clerics of some sort. Ok. Um... so they did wear the
robes.
And has it been, like, that strict since the beginning because it seems like there's a lot of uh...
different variations
that mean a lot of things?
I imagine that the laws have been um...
developing as time goes on,
but the... earliest
disciplines in terms of the colors um...
do date back to the 12th and 13th century.
Here we hava a BS/BA graduate.
She's wearing a... bachelor hood with the Suffolk lining
and then the trimmings are a drab olive, which a..
stands for business administration.
This is a JD graduate for
law school ceremonies.
How can you tell that?
Well, he's wearing the JD gown.
You can see that there's three chevrons on the gown. The a... law graduates
here at Suffolk wear the purple tassels um...
purple is the color for the JD um... degree.
Okay great and uh... I notice he also has the purple hood.
That's correct the purple, again, is for the law.
He's got the same blue and nav... um...
blue and gold for Suffolk
on the lining
and then the trimmings are purple on the law degree.
So right off the bat I noticed that a... he's got a...what is this, crimson?
That's crimson for Harvard. Ok, great.
Master level...hood and gown.
So even if they are teaching at Suffolk they won't have the same Suffolk colors on the hood?
That's correct, they'll wear the hood from the university where they wanted to go.
Ok, that makes sense.
This a...hood is a master of law from Cambridge University of England. Ok.
You can see the difference here is that they've got a fur trimming... which no US university uses.
So there's a professor at Suffolk that teaches with this gown?
Professor Stephen Hicks at the law school.
That's awesome. So a... this is one of the
highest...a... hoods you can have? That's right. Wow.
We've got the Suffolk...a... seal on the rosettes here on the front panels.
And you can see on this gown, it's a PhD gown, so it's got the same three chevrons.
Right. Now these are a little fancier with the gold lining. Ok,
that's really nice.
Going off the gold, we also have a tassel there. A gold tassel for PhD level graduate. Ok and
also... This gentleman is wearing a tam
as opposed to the motorboard the rest of the students are wearing.
And are these the only students that are allowed to wear the tams?
Uh... that's correct.
So, same color as Suffolk, but a little bit different.
It's the custom made...
uh... hood for the program. It's got the same blue and gold
lining
the trim here is going to be navy for the PhD graduate. Great.
So now you know the difference between a tam and a tassel.
You too can be the regalia expert for the rest of commencement weekend.
Congratulations, guys.