The first thing that springs to mind for many people in terms of a university's rituals and traditions is the traditional dress. The gown and cap reserved for professors are, of course, hard to miss. Which is precisely the intention. Joep Huiskamp, policy officer for the Executive Board is well versed in the university's history: “The ceremonial gestures and traditions at the university have their origins in the Middle Ages. Someone who wears a gown is using it to signal that he or she holds a particular position: he is followed. That was and still is the essence of a university: students follow someone who knows a great deal about a particular subject. This arrangement grew out of monastic and church traditions and even today the two systems breathe a similar sense of hierarchy. Once you are wearing this outfit, something happens. The wearer of the gown feels it. The look alone marks out a moment in time.”

Gown

When you reach the rank of professor, you are expected to buy a gown and wear it at formal occasions. “Gowns are available to borrow until the new professor has one made,” knows Maartje Mulder, coordinator at the Office of Doctoral Presentations. “Professors may only borrow the gown temporarily because the Executive Board wants all professors to have their own gown made. The borrowed gowns are often donations from deceased professors.” Gowns for use at TU/e are black outfits that will set the purchaser back nearly 1000 euros. For that price, the garment is made to measure and a cap is included.

A certain degree of decorum is required when wearing a gown: you can't wear sneakers, as Mulder acknowledges. “Certain dress codes apply at doctoral ceremonies, designed, it is true, to avoid things like jeans and trainers making an appearance. For professors, the dress code is gown, cap, white blouse or white shirt and grey tie, dark suit, black shoes. For ‘non-professors, there is also a code: dark suit or tailcoat, white blouse or white shirt, with tie and black shoes. The beadle should wear a gown, cap, grey tie and black shoes. Doctoral candidates and their paranymphs (supporters) must wear a dress suit or dark suit with a white blouse or shirt and black shoes.” In the basement of the Auditorium building is the robing room, the place where all the gowns are stored. Here, ceremony participants can change their clothes. In principle, a person keeps their first gown, the one they wore when appointed to the rank of professor, even if they later change universities. This explains why in photos you might occasionally see different gowns in one group, even though everyone shown works at TU/e.

On the photos below doctoral ceremonies over the years:

Intro week

The Intro is a tradition we think needs little explanation: every student is familiar with this phenomenon. But within the Intro there are many traditions, some of which go back a long way within our university and/or student life. Such as the recruitment drive held by associations along the Limbo path, the tradition of members of one association raiding another association and carrying off items as booty (het brassen van spullen) or the downing of a glass of beer in one go (het adje trekken). Students aren't strangers to centuries-old traditions by any means, take for example the initiation ritual of hazing (ontgroening).

“Anthropologists study a community's rituals in order to learn what is held to be vitally important,” says Huiskamp, in explaining the role of rituals at the university. “Rituals serve to reflect important values and unwritten rules. They are milestones in social life. Rituals often consist of a series of actions, performed within sight and hearing of an assembly of community members. They follow a fixed order of events, and have a clear start and finish. A ritual, in short, creates order in a chaotic world.”

New traditions

New traditions are also coming into being, joining the old ones. Take MomenTUm, at which graduates don a gown and mortarboard and walk across the stage, in American style. And also the Wall of Fame, where all our graduates may engrave their name in glass. This is hugely popular, so thought is already being given to where other panes might be made available for engraving.

Many old traditions at the university date back to the Middle Ages, when the gown and cap were hard earned. So what's the deal with MomenTUm? Ought students whose academic careers are just beginning be allowed to wear a gown and mortarboard? “See it as an invented tradition,” says Huiskamp. “Introduced to put that year's bachelor's graduates in the limelight and based on what American universities are doing. Is a tradition dating back 800 years better than a new one? That's the question. For the students themselves, it makes no difference. It is simply the way things are done. Every year another new cohort of students arrives and they hear about MomenTUm and for them it's simply part of the experience, just like all the other rituals.”