About the Hooding

The Hooding Ceremony is a special recognition ceremony for masters or doctoral degree candidates. During the ceremony, a faculty member places the doctoral hood over the head of the graduate, signifying their success in completing the graduate program.

The ceremony is similar to a graduation in that there is a processional and a recessional, and faculty and graduates are dressed in academic garb.

What is the significance of the academic attire and specifically the hood?

• The academic dress worn at commencement ceremonies are the descendants of every day attire in the universities of medieval Europe.
• In medieval days most of the students were in clerical orders, so it took no formal decree to make their robes and hoods the badge of their calling.
• Technically, the hood that forms part of today’s academic dress was originally a head covering for bad weather and was attached to the robe. Later the hood was made to be separate from the robe.
• The tradition of special academic dress seems to have entered the USA through King’s College (now Columbia) in colonial New York.
• As late as the 1880’s different institutions had academic dress codes of their own.
• The custom grew so rapidly that a commission was formed to draw up an intercollegiate code of academic dress.
  • The commission determined that the hoods for all degrees should be lined with silk of the colors of the academic institution conferring the degree.
  • Members of the graduating class wear hoods lined with UNMC’s colors of red and white.
  • The faculty hoods are lined with the colors of the universities granting their respective degrees.
  • The edging or trim of the hood is a wide velvet band, the color of which indicates the academic area in which the degree is held (for example, blue for PhD or Hunter green for the Doctor of Physical Therapy).
  • Doctoral hoods differ from the Master’s hoods as they are much longer, have wider velvet edging and expose more of the silk lining.