With over 2,000 University of Memphis students expected to walk on graduation day, Vanessa Muldrow, coordinator of commencement and special events, will have a hectic time handing out all of those mortarboards and gowns.
"It will be a busy day for sure," she said. "You definitely don't get to sit down too much."
Neatly piled stacks of paper work, student degrees, schedules and flyers overfill her desk and find space on chairs and in the corners of her office. For the last six years, she's planned 18 commencement ceremonies. The U of M even hired her to help plan her own graduation.
"I don't really remember if there is anything I would change about my graduation," she said. "But - as I was walking across the stage - I remember saying to myself 'This was a lot of work.'"
In a ceremony filled with traditions, there have been a few changes over the years for the U of M.
Preservations and special collections librarian Edwin G. Frank remembered his graduation from the U of M in 1976 as being rather uneventful.
"There were so many undergraduates at the time that we didn't even walk," he said. "They called out our names and we just stood up and sat back down."
Despite this being the largest graduating class for the University, Muldrow says everyone will get to strut across the stage and the event should be just under two hours long.
"Some people don't want to go because they think it is going to be long, but we have streamlined how it runs." She said. "We want people to have fun. This is their big day."
Cap throwing, a tradition that may have been started in 1912 by the United States Navy and has been known to send some students of other university to the hospital, is usually frowned upon.
"I don't tell students they can't, but I do remind them that they are rentals." Muldrow said.
However, for an extra $20 a student can buy their mortarboard, named because of their similarity to tools used by bricklayers. That is what soon-to-be-graduate-student Tiera Dishmon plans on doing.
"Decorating my cap is a must," the fashion and merchandising major said. "It will say 'Goodness and mercy will follow me,' on the top. I plan on throwing my cap and catching it, too."
One mortarboard that will not get tossed anytime soon is the one that sits on TOM the Tiger's head, Muldrow said. Laura Fenton, a U of M graduate with a master's in journalism, started this tradition a year ago after she saw it done at the University of Missouri.
"I went to my sister's graduation at Mizzou and saw that they put a cap on their tiger's head," she said. "I wanted us to have that same excitement and link back to our campus as they did. I feel like I have left my mark at the U of M."
However, not everyone will wear a mortarboard on graduation night.
"It is traditional for those conducting the ceremony to wear the colors and attire of the university they achieved their highest degree from," Muldrow explained.
So while the main floor of the FedExForum might look like an ocean of black squares, some of the U of M faculty will be sporting unique academic attire.
Thomas Nenon, the new Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, received his doctorate in philosophy from the Albert-Ludwigs Universitàt in Freiburg Germany, which had a retro flare to their scholarly threads.
"The hat is reminiscent of Christopher Columbus," the dean said. "(The robe) is the traditional and uniformed wear of scholars during the 16th century."
How a person dressed in that era was mandated, he said.
"Your job would determine your attire," Nenon said. "All bakers dress like all other bakers, and only professors were allowed to dress like professors."
The hood and wide sleeves were used to keep scholars warm, since many of them did not have extra money to buy coal to burn, Nenon said. Although he does not wear his cap and gown while studying or teaching philosophy, they hold sentimental value.
"My mother bought it for me as a graduation gift," Nenon said. "My friend at the university got an old dean's gown and had it duplicated by seamstresses who make priest vestments. The hat was also custom made but in a German town that has historical parades every year-the same place where my wife was born."
The U of M will have two graduation ceremonies on Saturday, May 10. The first ceremony begins at 10 a.m. and will be for graduates and doctoral candidates in the College of Arts and Sciences, Communication and Fine Arts and the University College. The second starts at 2 p.m. and is for graduates and doctoral candidates in the College of Business, Engineering, Nursing, Public Health and the School of Communication Sciences and Disorders.
If the Grizzlies make the post-season playoffs, then commencement will be moved to Sunday. The first ceremony will begin at noon and the second ceremony will begin at 4 p.m.
