COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: COMMENCEMENT

For more than one hundred years, Columbia University’s commencement has been held on Morningside campus. Commencement has grown enormously since the first ceremony of King’s College in 1758, when only seven undergraduate degrees and four honorary degrees were awarded. Columbia now confers around 12,000 degrees annually, as more than 30,000 guests cram onto the lawn in the middle of campus to celebrate with the honorees. Though many universities across the country boast of well-known public figures to deliver the keynote address at commencement, Columbia bestows that honor on the university’s president each year.

Graduates don the traditional academic cap and gown in non-traditional colors: the regalia are a slate blue to match school colors. During each school’s conferral of degrees, students wave, shake, or toss something into the air representative of their area of study: the School of Dentistry tosses up giant toothbrushes, the School of International Affairs waves miniature flags from their respective countries, journalism students shake rolled up newspapers, graduates of Teacher’s College lob plastic apples into the sky, and the law students shake gavels up and down. After years of hard work, commencement is a true day for celebration.