Description: Mark B. Brown
When I graduated from college in 1990, I had mixed feelings about wearing an academic robe. I was thrilled to be graduating, but the black robes seemed a bit pompous and elitist.
I had recently returned from a year in Germany, where academic dress had been abandoned since the 1960s due to its perceived association with right-wing authoritarianism. I had heard the slogan “Unter den Talaren, Muff von 1000 Jahren” — “Beneath the gowns, the mustiness of 1000 years” — a reference to both outdated university traditions and the “Thousand Year Reich” of the Nazis. The slogan first appeared in 1967 on a banner unfurled by two law students in a packed auditorium at the University of Hamburg
Since the mid-1990s, academic dress has gradually returned to many German universities. When I started at Sacramento State in 2003, my department chair told me the department would buy an academic robe for me, if I wanted one. I hesitated for a while, since I assumed it came with the expectation that I would regularly attend commencement. But I decided to take the robe, and overall I’ve come to see commencement as an important and enjoyable occasion. Of course some of it is rather tedious, but I like shakin