The first two are my brother and I, both MD's, both happily retired. He fixed broken bones and damaged joints, and I delivered babies and did other stuff.
Mike, our youngest, has been married to his wife, Adrienne for nine years. They have lived in Newark, Delaware for five of those years as she tackled and finished a PhD in biomechanics at the University of Delaware. She'll begin her professorship at Brigham Young University in June, and they've been getting settled in Utah with their two daughters since moving there in March.
We had the honor of attending Adrienne's "hooding" this week, a ceremony sponsored by the university to acknowledge the completion of their PhD programs. The apparent reward for years of lab work, long nights, lousy pay (if any) and other sacrifice is that you get to put on 'academic regalia,' also known as "weird stuff that you wear when you graduate."
Wait! Huh?! That's it?! No, no, NO! Now you get to help other people in THEIR academic 'journey,' so that they, too can put on weird stuff when THEY graduate. See?
The origin of this seemingly dubious reward can be traced back to the origins of the first European universities, which were founded by clergy in the 12th and 13th centuries. With few exceptions, the medieval scholars joined minor religious orders and made certain vows. The gowns and hoods (often brown or black in color) worn by the students signified their religious status, marking them as different from the lay people of the town in which they studied, hence "town and gown."
OK, yeah, but meanwhile the hoods kept the scholars’ shaved heads warm, at least back when the hoods were worn over their heads. The gowns also kept graduates warm in the unheated stone buildings in then-unheated Europe. Nowadays, with central heating, the hood is just slung over the neck and hangs down in the back. The cool octagonal velvet hat is called a "tam," and I am not making this up.
Of course, there is an Intercollegiate Code of Academic Costume, first developed by none other than the Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume in 1895 and it sets out a detailed uniform scheme of academic regalia in the US, and I am not making this up either. When I graduated from high school back in 1971, the Viet Nam conflict was still going on, and some of the more outspoken members of my class put peace signs on their headgear. The IBAC would not have approved! The penalties would have been fierce!
Note: when I graduated, photography had just come into being, and color was decades later.
OK, sorry, back to the real subject.
Those were five tough years for Adrienne and Mike. Along the way, they had two kids, they scrimped and saved and bought a house, she studied and taught classes, they scrimped some more, Mike worked remotely for an ad agency, they painted, weeded, held church callings, etc., etc., etc. But in the end, Adrienne completed her studies, successfully defended her doctoral thesis, and finally got to purchase the version of academic regalia specific to the University of Delaware. Whew!
So last Tuesday, Paula and I braved Interstate-95 heading north through Richmond, DC, and Baltimore and up to Delaware.
With a length of 1,924 miles, I-95 passes through 15 states and the District of Columbia, more states than any other Interstate, and it is by far the busiest one. Only five of the 96 counties along its route are rural, and the region it serves is over three times more densely populated than the rest of the US and is as densely settled as much of Western Europe. The road serves 110 million people and facilitates 40 percent of the country's gross domestic product. Take that, Route 66!
All of that is terrific, but getting to Delaware on I-95 takes 6-9 hours of white-knuckled driving, fending off semi-trucks, major traffic jams, ignored speed limits, tunnels and all the rest. However, we considered it a no-brainer and a privilege to go and see Adrienne honored for her hard work. And along the way, we caught up on podcasts, listened to last week's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, and checked out strange music that Spotify predicted I would like this week. I think they've mixed me up with someone much more hip.
Mike and Adrienne left Kate, their five-year-old with Adrienne's mom in Utah, who, to Kate's delight, took her along to the elementary school were she works. Let's see, go on a long plane ride and sit for several hours watching people in weird clothes, or have fun with Grandma? Duh!
However, to everyone's delight they brought along Emma Margaret, the World's Happiest Six-month-old. Whatever they've done to this kid needs to be done to every other kid in the world.
I fear that there were moments when grandmothers sitting around us at the hooding ceremony missed taking important pictures of their offspring while they were distracted by Emma. Once she had given her gleeful opinion of the weird clothing, she took a nap. A really cute nap, of course.
It finally came time for Adrienne to be hooded by her advisor. The academic regalia no longer looked unusual. Now dignified and proper, it represented years of effort and told the world that she had overcome countless obstacles to teach it something new. She was now a member of a rarified guild, ready to raise the next generation of learners to a higher level.
We are so proud of Adrienne for this achievement, and Mike for supporting her through it.
And now there are three "Dr. Hendersons" in the family! I just wish I could have gotten some cool stuff like that to wear when I graduated... I think I need a tam.
Dave & Paula
