On Hooding Ceremonies

(This photograph is not of Wystan. It is simply a random one from the internet.)

I went to my first one this weekend in order to see Wystan hooded. It was about 92 degrees, so you might imagine how much he liked wearing the thick, heavy Ph.D. robes. Hooding is awkward--there are no two ways about it. No one really knows how the hoods hang--which side is right-side-out. Plus, it's a bunch of academics doing a ceremony--they mostly don't have minds for these sorts of details. The hoods were, of course, twisted, backwards, inside out, etc. (okay, fine, no one put one on backward).

Most delightful were the remarkably tall men who were being hooded by tiny little women. The hooding candidate stood there awkwardly, hunched way down so the professor could reach over their heads, waiting for the hood to come down over them.

It was nice to see the great variety of academic get-up: some of the men were too warm to wear their robes, so they just showed up in khakis. Some women didn't zip up their robes and wore mini skirts underneath. Most women asserted their individuality with bright, interesting shoes. One man was wearing a tartan hood. Some had on hot pink or hot orange gowns. Some hats were floppy; others were flat. One woman had an awesome felt bowler.