Sewanee is funded, in part, by various Southern dioceses of the Episcopal Church; although church attendance wasn't even required when I went many moons ago, the Episcopal Church is an important part of the Sewanee experience. All Saint's Chapel sits in the center of the school. It was at a convocation at All Saint's Chapel where four people received honorary degrees, and where eighty-nine young men and women, including oldest son, Davis, were inducted into the Order of Gownsmen.
The Order of the Gownsmen is "the body responsible for maintaining the spirit, traditions and ideals of the University of the South". The methods of selecting students for the Order have varied over the years, but currently they are selected by grade point average. Davis is a bright kid, and passed his comprehensive English exams "with distinction"; however, his grades are average, so he was selected to the Order in his senior year. My grades at Sewanee were pretty bad, and, had I remained at Sewanee, it is likely I would have received my gown just prior to my graduation. To the left are a couple of Gownsmen about campus. Convocations are filled with pomp and circumstance. The different hoods representing different university affiliations mixed with the Church robes, music and ceremony. I tried to film a bit of it, but didn't do a great job:
The procession begins outside...
and continues inside.
Robes are frequently passed down from one student to another. Davis got his gown from his fraternity big brother.
Davis with the Lads and Caroline.
6 comments:
Interesting. I graduated from a private Catholic college (I'm not Catholic or religious) in IA and we didn't have any of the religious overtones that Sewanee has. I had to take two religion courses (Old Testament and New Testament; but it was more like an English Lit class on the Bible). Must be a southern thing.
Anyway, congrats to Davis.
And, in the Episcopal tradition, there used to be mucho consumption of alcoholic beverages (William Faulkner even referenced it in "Sound and the Fury" Something to the effect of "At Harvard, they teach you how to swim at night without going in the water; at Sewanee, they don't teach you about water" A dig at both impractical education and alcohol abuse, I'm told). It's apparently toned down a bit.
And thanks.
and haircuts. The lads need haircuts.
True, dat.
That is very cool SD!
Thanks, Star.
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