Capping and all that

by Margaret Gordon

In 1956 I was capped tor the first time, and although a kind young friend warned me that the graduation ceremony of today had all the charm and dignity of the freezing chain at Borthwick's, I went to the Town Hall this year for my second capping in a modest glow of anticipation. Time may have wrapped my memories of that earlier occasion in a certain haze, but a comparison of the two ceremonies leaves me with the conviction that the graduand of today is being sold short measure.

To begin, graduation once took a very long evening, for all faculties presented their graduands on the same night, and the full muster of staff in a long, dignified procession took a considerable time to assemble on the stage. Then followed three hours of ponderous ceremonial, offering a good night's money's worth for the audience and the chance of a pleasant slumber for certain staff members. How can one account for the fact that while the graduation ceremonies now take two evenings and degrees are conferred on a hundred more graduands, yet even allowing for repeats of the speeches and annual report, and this year the conferring of an honorary doctorate, the two ceremonies combined took less time than the one eighteen years ago?

I must admit to disillusionment. By dint of marrying a man with a Surname initial early in the alphabet I had achieved a seat in the front row, and although outdone in youth, beauty, academic achievements and regalia by the doctoral candidate, was looking forward to acquitting myself with grace. Over the years, too, I had carefully bred my own claque to provide applause, lured them to the ceremony with the promise that there was sure to be a streaker, only to find them faced with a command that there should be no individual applause. My cramping of their natural impulses into conventional modes meant that they stayed dutifully silent, but I admired those members of the audience who defied the edict and clapped when they wanted to. In the old days even the most obscure scholar received a meed of applause, and there is certainly time available for it in the evening's programme. I maintain that any ceremony has an inbuilt right to be tedious, and the audience's expectation of an evening of breathless interest is not high.

Way back then (I am almost beginning to think of them as good old days, although the atmosphere was restrictive, the buildings cramped, equipment outmoded and student facilities almost non-existent) the degree itself was rolled into a semblance of a scroll, but expediency has dictated that now it be a flat, hygenic envelope that cannot be torn, spindled, mutilated or handed to someone else by mistake.

Next the female graduand, already togged to the eyeballs in yards of frilly tulle, an academic gown, a hood, an illfitting mortarboard, a scroll and long white gloves, was further encumbered by a large bouquet, presented at the side of the stage by a flower girl, stationed for this purpose in a section of seats at the front of the hall. This distinction was denied the men, for which these days they are profoundly grateful.

The long ceremony wound to its end, and graduands and partners moved off to parties while the hail was hastily cleared, a band installed, the floor powdered and the Students' Executive assembled to greet the returning graduands at the Capping Ball, put on by the Students' Association to fete the successful members of their ranks. The ball was the highlight of a Capping Week full of activity of the ill-organised student sort — a Procession, an Extravaganza, a few feeble hoaxes, Cappicade, drinking contests....Many of these activities have very rightly been discarded: I can watch the abbreviated ceremonial with little regret, but the lack of recognition of the graduand by the Students' Association really hurts me. During my years on the Executive (1953-1955) we took this particular responsibility seriously. I realise a ball is an ambitious and costly affair and perhaps illsuited to the lifestyle today, but a modest supper after the ceremony is well within the range of an executive that gave very freely of my fee to liberation movements last year,

As one of the middleaged generation I thought that perhaps the whole idea of ceremonial was repugnant to the graduand of today, but I was soon disabused of that idea: the graduands were as excited, the parents as proud, as ever they were in the past. After all, every graduand had a choice whether to appear in person or not, and no-one was there who didn't want to be.

Seeking some sort of rationale for the lack of Student Association interest in the function I steamrollered into the office of the Editor of Salient, feeling that this might be an issue to rouse him as it would have done my colleagues on the paper 20 years ago, and was offered the following suggestions: the ceremony is a survival of medieval European ritual and as such is anachronistic and unsuitable for a young country on the other side of the world; that it tends to reward an elitist group for being successful in gaining their mealtickets; and that 45 to 50% of the socio-economic strata of the country never make it to University. I find I can accept those suggestions and still feel justified in demanding that the Association provide me with a cup of tea and a biscuit once every 18 years or so.

There were moments of pleasure in the ceremony, too. It was pleasant to be capped with so many of my former pupils. The earnest young, student Vice-President of yesteryear, magnificently arrayed in velvet bonnet, was shaking hands as Dean of his faculty; the handsome young English lecturer had undergone the same metamorphosis into Dean; the wily student politician of an even earlier day was dominating the proceedings as Pro-Chancellor. I would be tempted to exclaim at this point O tempora, 'O mores' or 'Eheu, fugacesl' if the singing of the song of Victoria University, 'O Victoria Sempiterna' had not informed me that a knowledge of Latin is no longer a requisite for staff or student. The words may be difficult today (they were always doggerel) but I would have thought the tune at least would have been familiar. Women's Libbers may care to take up the case for abolition of that condescending last verse about 'omnes virgines' (my case in 1956) and 'muliere dulces et amabiles, bonae laboriosae' (my case now although that isn't what the Editor called me....)

I suggest that the Students' Association re-examine its attitude, so that when I next appear on the platform I receive a handshake from the President of my fellow-students as well as from the Dean and Pro-Chancellor, and am not made to feel a pariah because I have dared to pass an exam.