Commencement Program - May 2026 - Lindenwood University

35 ACADEMIC DRESS The caps, gowns, and hoods worn by the faculty and students at this graduation are today’s formal dress of the worldwide academic community. While now worn only on festive occasions such as commencement, such dress was originally the normal garb of academics as they went about their daily business. Originating in Europe more than a thousand years ago, like universities and colleges themselves, academic dress first developed within the church, as all academics were once in at least minor orders. The robes and hoods are stylized versions of these ecclesiastical robes. In Europe, each institution seems to have its own variant of costume, but in the United States, academic costume follows a uniform code drawn up by a special commission in 1895. The code has three main parts, dealing with caps, gowns, and hoods. The Oxford-type cap or mortarboard seems to have evolved from the square biretta of Renaissance clergy. It is always black and may be of any appropriate material except that velvet is reserved for doctors. Many faculty members wear the Cambridge-style cap. The tassel worn with the cap has three variations. It may be black for any degree or it may be the color of the academic area in which the degree was granted. Doctors and governing officials of institutions wear tassels made of gold metallic thread. The tassel is fastened to the middle of the top of the cap and lies as it will thereon. The academic robes are all black, except for certain doctoral robes. The style of robe indicates the highest degree earned by the wearer. Bachelor’s sleeves are pointed, and the robe is plain. Students who have achieved honors display a cord. Students who graduate with University Honors wear a purple double cord; students who graduate with Community Service Honors wear a cardinal red and silver-gray double cord; students who graduate with Veteran Honors wear a red, white, and blue double cord; students who graduate having served as one of the president’s ambassadors wear a black and gold intertwined single cord; students who are the first member of their family to graduate from a college or university wear a golden stole embossed with the First-Generation Collegians emblem; students who graduate Cum Laude (with praise) wear a white double cord; students who graduate Magna Cum Laude (with great praise) wear a gold double cord; and students who graduate Summa Cum Laude (with highest praise) wear a gold and white triple cord. Master’s robe sleeves are oblong and longer. The doctoral robe features velvet bands in the front, and the robe sleeve also has velvet bands and is gathered at the wrist. The doctoral robe itself is cut much more fully than the other two gowns. The hoods indicate the academic area of degree, the level of the degree, and the college that granted it. The level of the degree is shown by the size and shape of the hood and the width of the velvet trimming. The master’s, the specialist’s, and the doctor’s hoods are three and one-half feet, three and three-quarters feet, and four feet long, respectively. The velvet trimming, in the same respective order, is three, four, and five inches wide. The outer band of the hood indicates, by color, the degree; the bright, silken interior of the hood, by its colors and design, indicates its source. Each university and college has a distinct hood. The Lindenwood University hood is lined with white and yellow silk, representing the university’s original colors. The colors of the mortarboard tassels worn by today’s degree recipients, as well as the hoods worn by faculty and graduate students, indicate the major fields of study.