By Hank Huber


Buffalo State College celebrated the academic achievements of 870 honor students Thursday in Rockwell Hall in one of the college’s oldest traditions.

The All-College Honors Convocation and Reception is an annual, ceremonial event recognizing students at the college who have attained distinction through superior academic achievement.

The event honors students with more than 45 credit hours earned and who have achieved a cumulative grade point average of at least 3.5. The convocation has been held since 1958, when the college was mainly a teacher education institution. It has been co-sponsored by the Office of Academic Affairs and the Kappa Delta Pi Honor Society since 1983.

The students honored in the ceremony are encouraged in turn to honor one faculty member who they feel has been instrumental in their pursuit of academic success.

The Buffalo State College Chorale, directed by Thomas E. Witakowski, performed, and this year’s keynote speaker was chemistry department associate professor Dr. Kimberly A. Bagley.

The ceremony began with faculty members dressed in their full academic regalia walking in their semiannual procession down the two center aisles of the auditorium.

College President Muriel A. Howard gave the opening address, congratulating the students for the diligence they showed in their scholastic pursuits. She acknowledged the faculty for providing the support and guidance to the students, but stressed that it is the students who are responsible for their own success.

“All the learning is in the learner,” she said, quoting Plato.

After the short welcome, Cari L. Oldfield, president of co-sponsor Kappa Delta Pi, provided a brief history of the ceremony and introduced Natural and Social Sciences Dean Lawrence G. Flood, who presented the honor students.

Dr. Flood asked the students to rise and led the audience in applause of their accomplishments. He then asked the faculty to rise in their stead and acknowledged the support and mentoring they provided. He also voiced the sense of pride felt by the faculty members chosen to be honored by their students.

“There is no greater reward than to see your students succeed,” he said.

After the faculty was seated, Dr. Flood bid the friends and families of the honored students to stand up and be recognized as the ones who provided invaluable support to the students in their endeavors. The supporters were not expecting to be honored themselves, and rose hesitatingly to their feet as the rest of the audience applauded all that they have done to help the students succeed.

“You have no doubt made tremendous sacrifices,” he said to a smiling crowd. “Your support is a central driving force in their success.”

The regalia adorned faculty then went into the audience distributing pins to the honored students, who were encouraged to have their mentor or loved one affix it to their shirt.

Dr. Bagley used her speech to remind us that this is the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the double-helix DNA structure, and that we have only recently mapped the entire human genome. The ensuing speech centered on the dilemmas and challenges of cloning, global warming and using fossil and other non-renewable fuel sources.

She touted the possibilities of hydrogen power and offered solutions to the imminent energy crisis that threatens to arise from the world’s dependence on fossil fuels.

All the hydrogen that we need to make inexpensive power can be extracted from water, using electricity from wind, water or solar power, she said. It’s up to the next generation of scientists and leaders to make it a feasible reality.

“You are the talented tenth,” she said of the students, and expressed her hope that they will be able to use their talents to better an increasingly troubled world.

The ceremony concluded with the singing of Buffalo State’s Alma Mater, “Our Finest Hour,” and the procession of ornamented faculty on to the front lawn of Rockwell Hall for a reception of punch and cookies.

The professors march twice a year, once in the spring and once in the fall, and are usually piped in by a bagpiper.

The different styles and colors of the academic robes are indicative of where the individual faculty members came from and what degrees they have. They also march in order of seniority, with the longest tenured leading the procession with a mace, a staff symbolizing authority.

Faculty wearing black with bars on long sleeves have earned a doctorate. Short sleeves with no bars means a master’s degree was the terminal level of education for that member.
The colors inside the hood indicate what institution the member graduated from.

Dr. Deborah Hovland was wearing a hood with the gold, blue and purple colors of the University of Minnesota.

The headwear is left up to the preference of the wearer. Some choose the traditional mortarboard, while others prefer to wear a tam, or Tam O’ Shanter, a round Scottish headpiece with a pompon on top.

“There’s one who wears-- it looks like a chef’s hat,” Hovland said, motioning with both hands in the air above her head. “He graduated from the Sorbonne (France).”

The vestments and procession gives the professors a chance to show their pride in their education and roots, and is not done everywhere.

“I was extremely blown away when I realized that Buff State had this ritual that they do twice a year, when they asked the faculty to dress up in this regalia,” Hovland said.

As for her position in the line, she said, “Right now I’m about half. I’ll know I’m really over the hill when I’m first, holding the mace.”