(The President's Report 1995-1996)
Twice a year Memorial University's academics and administrators don colorful robes to perform a magnificent ceremony: convocation. Convocations usually take place in May and October, and are impressive occasions. The proceedings on stage resemble an intricate dance by performers who know where to stand, where to sit and when to talk -- but each performance holds meaning and has been honed by years of practice.
Memorial's first convocation took place in June 1950, when five degrees were conferred: four BAs and one BA(Ed.). Dr. John Facey, marshal of convocation, recalls the inaugural event with a smile.
"It was one of Dr. [Albert] Hatcher's last years as president at Memorial and he insisted on having a graduation, so we rounded up five graduates and we set up the ceremony," he said.
Today, convocation consists of a total of 10 sessions at which approximately 2,500 degrees are conferred. It was originally held in the auditorium of St. Patrick's Hall (the former U.S.O. Building), and later in the Physical Education Building, but was moved to the St. John's Arts and Culture Centre in 1970 to accommodate the growing number of graduates. The session for Grenfell College graduates is held at the Arts and Culture Centre in Corner Brook.
In St. John's often students and their families are awed as they watch the procession descend the "stairway from heaven" to the stage. The bright array of colors and silks that adorn the scholars adds vibrance to a ceremony that is traditionally fairly serious.
The custom of wearing academic robes began with European students in the Middle Ages, who wore them to stay warm within the cold, damp halls of medieval buildings. The gowns' style was influenced by the church, as all students were clerics. The hoods bestowed upon graduates originated from the bags worn around the necks of friars as they begged for alms in the marketplaces of medieval towns. Today each hood has a lining in the university's color(s), and a velvet border indicating the degree obtained. Green, the color of healing herbs of medieval times, represents medicine; yellow, like the gold alchemists sought to synthesize from base metals, represents science; scarlet, for divinity and theology degrees, refers to Christ's crucifixion.
After students have received their hoods and degrees, and before the two-hour spectacle comes to an end, honorary degrees are conferred. Recipients are chosen from society for their contribution to public life, the university, or arts and sciences. Honorary degrees are given, according to Memorial's public orator Prof. Shane O'Dea, "to reflect on their glory, or else give us a chance to confer them with the glory that they deserve."
The orations, or brief introductions, given before the honorary degrees are presented, are impressive. As early as 1564, public orators at Cambridge University had the difficult task of composing ceremonial letters in Latin and formal speeches of greeting to princes, captains, magnates, and others.
As the late Dr. George Story, longtime public orator at Memorial, described in Selected University Orations, "the element of play in an academic oration is usually attempted through the use of familiar rhetorical devices -- plays upon words, figures of speech, quotations, allusions and rhythm; and since the speeches come at the end of a long ceremony, brevity is essential."
These short speeches, however, take weeks of preparation, writing and revising. The art seems to lie not only in the way words and phrases are constructed, but through the richness of the language and the creativity of presentation.
"One has to stay within the confines of the academic surrounding, all the while making sure that one pleases the recipient, and makes an oration that is suitable to different groups in the audience," said Dr. Annette Staveley, deputy public orator at Memorial.
When convocation comes to a close, the procession ascends the grand staircase to the strains of organ music and the new graduates leave the auditorium with a sense of accomplishment.