Graduation ceremonies and regalia

General standards

  1. Graduation ceremonies are normally separate occasions. They should only be held in conjunction with another activities if they are a distinctly separate component and all requirements below are met.
  2. Dress should be formal (e.g. ties and jackets for men, and the equivalent standard for women).
  3. Behaviour should be appropriately formal.
  4. All staff and graduands should be wearing correct academic dress according to their qualifications. Those not doing so will not participate and will sit with ordinary guests.
  5. Member colleges may invite representatives of the ACAS Centre to attend member college graduation ceremonies.
  6. Graduation ceremonies shall be held and paid for by the member college unless otherwise agreed in writing.

Recommended order of service for graduations

  1. Procession
    1. The Master of Ceremonies (MC) asks all present to stand.
    2. The staff and graduands proceed in with senior college office-holders at the front.
    3. All procession members go to their assigned places and remain standing.
    4. The MC invites all present to sit when all procession members are standing at their seats.
  2. The MC opens the ceremony with an announcement.
  3. Graduation
    1. The MC reads the name of each graduand, who will come forward to receive his/her testamur.
    2. The names of students graduating in abstentia are also read out.
    3. Graduations start with the lowest qualification first and finish with the highest qualification.
    4. Students receiving the same qualification are graduated according to the alphabetical order of their surname.
  4. Other appropriate activities (optional)
    1. Any other appropriate activities may be included at this point, for example academic prizes or awards, acceptance speeches, prayers and commissioning, and/or speeches on behalf of the graduating students.
  5. Speaker
  6. Close
    1. The MC asks the staff to form a procession, which will leave the room or go off the stage, and the graduation ceremony will be finished.
    2. Graduating students will not join the closing procession.

Academic dress: Staff

Academic regalia of staff is that of their highest award recognized by ACAS. If they do not have a qualification recognized by ACAS that entitles them to wear a hood, then they shall wear a black mortarboard with black tassel, a black stuff gown, and a black unlined silken hood in simple shape.

Academic dress: Students

Certificate graduands are not entitled to wear academic dress.

All other graduands shall wear a black stuff gown of exactly the same shape. It will normally be in the Oxford shape.

Caps and hoods are prescribed as follows:

Cap Hood
Socius (Fellows) Black mortarboard with black tassel Colored* unlined silken hood in Cambridge shape
Graduate Diploma Black mortarboard with black tassel Colored* stuff unlined hood in simple shape
Advanced Diploma Black mortarboard with black tassel Colored* knee- length sash, four inches wide
Diploma No cap Black knee-length sash, four inches wide, with colored* one-inch wide trim across each end

* Colors:

Any other colours follow Curtin University of Technology.