Thoughts on Regalia

I noticed a couple of faculty members at Purdue today talking about how they avoided buying or renting a gown. One person said she uses one from a faculty member who retired years ago. (Except its not the same color as the ones her university uses.)

Three weeks ago when I was interviewing at a small liberal arts school I observed two faculty members talking about the virtues of buying versus renting gowns for the commencement ceremony. The senior faculty member was trying to persuade the junior faculty member that he really ought to buy a nice gown that he would use for decades.

One thing to bear in mind about these differences. At a small school faculty are required to march in the graduation ceremony every year; by contrast, Purdue faculty are only required to march once every five years. And there are four ceremonies three times a year at Purdue. By my estimation, less than two percent of the faculty would be at a given ceremony.