What is the Deal with Graduation Tassels?

No graduation ensemble would be complete without graduation tassels. The graduation tassels symbolize a students hard work and efforts that they have achieved during their academic career, and during the graduation ceremonies, graduation tassels mark the exact moment that students are officially declared as graduates.

Graduation tassels are more than just fun little do dads that sit on one side of a tam or mortar board. Most high schools, colleges, and universities have a tradition of moving the tassel from one side of the head to the other during a graduation ceremony. However, there is more to the graduation tassels than just that.

Graduation tassels are worn on the mortarboard or the tam of a graduate. A tam is a graduation cap that is reserved for the higher level degrees, such as the Masters, Doctorate, or the PhD degrees. Graduation tassels are traditionally black in color, but more and more, the tassel can be representative of the schools colors, to match caps and gowns, or in universities, graduation tassels represent the specific school of study that a degree is being earned in. The graduation tassels can also be a certain color to signify membership in national honor societies or to distinguish recipients of certain other awards as well.

Exceptions to the traditional rule of being black that are technically allowed are for the gold tassel. The gold metallic graduation tassels are reserved for those students who are entitled to wear the doctoral cap and gown, just as the use of velvet headwear is.

Some high schools, colleges, and universities, participate in moving the graduation tassels from one side to the other during graduation. The act of doing this is usually called the turning of the tassels. This is actually a fairly modern innovation, but in outdoor ceremonies, turning graduation tassels may be skipped, especially if conditions are windy and the tassel would blow to all sides regardless.

The act of moving the graduation tassels from side to side is beneficial for graduation ceremonies with a large number of graduates, because it takes a lot less time than the more traditional rituals such as each individual conferring the hood, or sometimes a complete change of dress part way through the ceremony is done. In universities and high schools, it is now customary for students to start the ceremony with the graduation tassels on the right. Turning the graduation tassels to the left may be done individually or as a group. However, the graduation tassels usually begin on the left side of the head and remain there on the left for doctorate and masters degree students.

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