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For the first several hundred years of universities鈥� existence, students and faculty wore robes daily to signify their status outside of campus walls. While that is mostly no longer the case, universities today revive academic dress and other traditions to emphasize the specialness of the commencement ceremony.

Each university has their own way of celebrating, so here is an explanation of what TU graduates and their families and friends will see during the 2025 Spring Commencement ceremonies.

Regalia

Students earning a bachelor鈥檚 degree wear gowns with pointed sleeves and black caps. 

MASTER'S GRADUATES wear gowns with extra-long sleeves and hoods trimmed with velvet in a color that signifies their area of study. Candidates can rent their regalia through the TU Graduate Student Association.

Doctoral graduates wear a gown with bell-shaped sleeves bearing three bands of velvet that are black or of a color signifying their field of learning. They receive their hoods during the ceremony.

Gowns for all graduates bear the TU seal.

Faculty regalia is similar, in that each member of the stage party wears the regalia that represents their highest degree earned and/or the institution from which they earned it.

All students can wear stoles (that look like sashes worn around the neck), cords and/or medallions representing their colleges, honor societies, club and organization affiliations or athletic participation. Every student receives a black and gold stole representing TU. Usually, the cords represent academic honors while the stoles express student life activities.

Prominent participants

Students representing each college, graduate studies and the Honors College are selected by their deans as banner carriers and lead their classmates in the processional and recessional.

Grand marshals are faculty members chosen for each ceremony to represent the colleges they teach within. They carry the academic mace during the processional and recessional and are selected by the college deans.

Two graduates鈥攖hat change each ceremony鈥�sing and sign the at the conclusion of every ceremony. It was composed and orchestrated nearly a decade ago by J. Kyle Richards and , respectively.

Undergraduate and graduate students serve as speakers during each ceremony, offering words of wisdom and congratulations to their fellow graduates. They are nominated by faculty and/or staff and chosen by the dean.

Symbols and traditions

罢鲍鈥檚 academic mace is constructed from glass, black metal, gold and maplewood and was commissioned by the late President Emerita Maravene Loeschke 鈥�69, 鈥�71, and designed and created by College of Fine Arts & Communication faculty Joshua DeMonte, Jenn Figg, Kimberly Hopkins and Jon Lundak.

The heraldic banners, also known as gonfalons, are carried into and out of the arena representing each college, graduate studies and the Honors College. During the ceremony, the banners line the stage.

Joining the banners onstage are international flags that represent just some of the 85 home countries of 罢鲍鈥檚 international students.

During the ceremony, the president wears the presidential medallion, which is circular to represent the continuous impact TU has on the lives of those who learn here. The outermost circle contains the university name and location, while the center is the university seal. This was adapted from the Great Seal of Maryland.

罢鲍鈥檚 seal has at its center a shield, or escutcheon, with the Calvert and Crossland families' arms quartered on an antiqued gold background. Above that is an earl鈥檚 coronets and the pennants. The university鈥檚 founding year, 1866, is inscribed on a banner beneath.