Colleges should hold commencement in the fall

As much of America remains under quarantine, college seniors are graduating in the most uncertain times, with their prospects clouded, at least for now. With public events and gatherings proscribed, maybe virtual graduation ceremonies will help fill the void, but festive Zooming and tweeting can only go so far. At graduations, we want actual friends, family and a physical community event, just what we crave but cannot have in our pandemic moment.

But history offers an alternative, which at least some universities are considering — a fall commencement. In fact, during much of the colonial period, graduation ceremonies typically occurred in September. By the mid-18th century, commencement had become fully established as a public event to demonstrate the individual achievements of graduates, introduce them formally to the community and make the case publicly for higher education as a producer of knowledge and expertise in the public interest. Fall rites served dual purposes, marking the beginning of the academic year for continuing students and faculty and commencing the public careers of graduates. These colonial precedents might offer an option for refashioning college commencements to provide an opportunity to celebrate graduates and the role of higher education, in this year when the world of higher education has been turned upside down.

British North America's oldest college, Harvard (founded in 1636), held its first graduation, "a commencement," on Sept. 23, 1642. On that occasion, graduates had their degrees formally conferred (though they did not receive diplomas, which didn't emerge until the early 19th century). Harvard College President Henry Dunster presented each graduate with a "booke of arts" borrowed from the library for the ceremony. They couldn't keep those tomes, which would have depleted the college's collection. But the presentation of the book symbolized the graduates' intellectual training and continued commitment to learning.

Commencements became a required and regular part of higher education in 1764 when the College of New Jersey (Princeton) president, Samuel Finley, wrote the "Process of Public Commencement," which served as a template for future ceremonies, with specific details about processions, orations, disputations, odes and songs, all of which soon took shape at America's nine colleges.

Their purpose was explicitly to commence — the academic calendar and the graduates' public lives — and to do so festively, ceremoniously, publicly. Medieval graduation rites had been held in private, as discrete rites of passage largely into clerical life. The new colonial colleges were also initially private elite (all male) institutions, mostly designed to train scholars for the ministry.

But they had increasingly turned toward secular purposes and claimed an important place in the public sphere. Elaborate public commencements signaled this turn, highlighting the new intellectual and technical skills and contributions of faculty and students, in arts and letters, science and medicine, commerce, law and government. The ceremonies themselves helped cement connections between the colleges, wealthy benefactors and the public, as well as between graduates and prospective employers. And graduation could also mark graduates' transition into married life, with many a betrothal between the male scholars and the sisters of their classmates.

Fall commencement was preceded by extended formal summer assessments. On the third Wednesday in August, one chronicler reported, "the Senior class are examined by the trustees, the college officers, and other gentlemen of learning then present, through all the branches of literature they have been taught." Those deemed "worthy of academical honors" were assigned parts to perform in "the general proceedings of which are so publicly known as to supersede all necessity of description."

Latin was the language of antiquarian scholarship. But as colleges turned toward the public and more practical matters, and as they embraced their distinct status as "modern" British and then American institutions, organizers increasingly shifted the ceremony to English, with good result. As one official explained, somewhat defensively, this adjustment "entertains the English part of the Audience, tends to the cultivation of our native language, and has been agreeable on former occasions."

Commencements soon gained more pomp and circumstance. A Sept. 25, 1760, ceremony at Princeton began with the ringing of bells, a grand procession precisely ordered by academic and social rank, and various collegiate exercises in English and Latin. The audience ultimately heard "a very sprightly and entertaining . . . ingenious English Harangue in Praise of Oratory," delivered by the graduate Benjamin Rush, later to become the most famous physician in America and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He was 14 at the time and about to commence a medical apprenticeship, before earning his MD at the University of Edinburgh. By 1769, Rush had established a medical practice and become a professor of chemistry at the College of Philadelphia (now the University of Pennsylvania).

Such accomplished alumni from the nine colonial colleges would demonstrate the value of their training, and the usefulness of their institutions, through their public service during the American Revolution and in the era of the early republic.

Much has changed, of course. In today's commencements, seniors are not publicly examined, speakers are differently selected (featuring established celebrities rather than just those in the making), Latin has been abandoned, and forensics has lost its place. Graduates and college officials are not exclusively men, nor are they exclusively white, and most scholars are not trained primarily for the ministry. Diplomas are standard (not do-it-yourself calligraphy projects) and inscribed on paper, not vellum, and they certify graduation in an array of majors never imagined by our academic founders - all to the good.

Graduation remains an important rite of passage, as it had been since colonial days. And its prominence as a public celebration remains critical, especially during uncertain times. But these events are endangered and require creative — perhaps historical — solutions. In fact, this very problem is not unprecedented, as tumultuous times in the past have forced postponements, rescheduling and even cancellation.

In 1775, after the first shots of the Revolutionary War had been fired, the College of Philadelphia moved its commencement on the calendar to allow and encourage visiting representatives of the Continental Congress to attend, making the observance in a sense national. In fall 1776, however, as the war threatened Pennsylvania, college officials were forced to cancel the public commencement "on account of the present unsettled state of public affairs." At Yale, the faculty suspended commencements throughout the Revolution. At Harvard, no public commencements were held between 1774 and 1779.

But the institution of commencement quickly resumed after the Revolutionary War. Educational reforms and changing college curriculums later eliminated summer examinations, perhaps encouraging a shift in commencement's timing. In 1844, Princeton moved its graduation ceremonies to spring. Harvard did so in 1869, and most colleges similarly made commencement a rite of spring by the mid-19th century, something that has continued to the present.

While the form has changed, commencements remain important celebrations for graduates and the families and communities who've supported them. As actual public events, they have also displayed and affirmed the importance of universities as critical social and cultural institutions, as places of innovative thinking and problem solving. Commencement is a moment when we celebrate individual achievement, yes, but that achievement occurs in a context, and such festivity is best achieved amid community, which sustains and is itself sustained by American colleges and universities. While even fall commencements may be optimistic with the uncertainty the novel coronavirus poses, such events could make for the best of homecomings.

Dennis is professor emeritus of history at the University of Oregon and author of several books on early American history, public memory and American political culture, including "Red, White, and Blue Letter Days: An American Calendar." This pieces was written for The Washington Post.