Graduation

Honor Graduates
Students who have attained a cumulative grade point average of 3.55 will be graduated cum laude (with honors). Students who have attained a cumulative grade point average of 3.75 will be graduated magna cum laude (with high honors). The designation summa cum laude (with highest honors) is reserved for those students who have attained a grade point average of 3.90 or above. Because honors are not computed until all grades have been recorded, honors will not be announced for summer graduates or persons with transfer credit outstanding.

Photographs of Graduates
A professional photographer will be taking pictures of graduates receiving their diplomas. The photos will be available for download free of charge. A link to the photographs can be found on the commencement web page the week after graduation.

A student’s participation in the commencement ceremony neither guarantees nor implies graduation from McPherson College. Graduation is conferred upon completion of all program requirements.

Michaela Groeblacher

Born and raised in Austria as a people- and nature-loving, artistic child, Michaela worked as a physical therapist for ten years, before she and her husband and daughter emigrated to the USA in 1989, arriving first in McPherson, Kansas. They later moved to the Pacific Northwest, where she found that landscape design combined her love for art and nature, and she earned a degree that led her to plan and oversee the installation of many gardens in and around Seattle, WA. In 2000, moving back to Kansas challenged her creativity yet again. Influenced by the wide-open spaces, the closeness to land and earth, and encouraged by an artist friend who introduced her to clay as an artistic medium, Michaela began sculpting in clay, which led her to receive a BA in fine arts from McPherson College in 2005. During art classes her childhood love for painting re-awakened, and she started dividing her creative time between working in clay and painting. Eventually she found a way to combine both media and her knowledge as a therapist in her “Clay People” sculptures, many of which were derived from her experience as sculptor-in-residence in a Kansas nursing home (Bethany Home in Lindsborg). In 2014 she graduated with a Master of Fine Arts degree from Fort Hays State University, specializing in figurative ceramic sculpture. She has been a member of the art faculty at McPherson College for 14 years and resides in Lindsborg.

Her art work is exhibited nationally and internationally and has received many awards. It is part of private, corporate, and museum collections in the USA and Europe, has been featured on TV, and is published in ceramics magazines and art books.

Gowns
Since the clergy were the teachers of the Middle Ages, it was natural that their garb became symbolic of the teaching profession as it moved out of the cloister. In the United States, the general wearing of gowns for commencement began in the 1880s. Gowns were originally designed to be worn open or closed. However, closed gowns have become the tradition in this country. Currently, there are three distinct types of gowns: the undergraduate’s gown with its long, pointed sleeves; the master’s gown with long, closed sleeves; and the doctor’s gown with its rounded, full-balloon sleeves and chevrons.

At one time, the color of the gown denoted the wearer’s area of educational specialty, but in the United States the majority of gowns are black. Some universities have designated a particular color as appropriate for their gown, such as the Yale blue, the Cornell red, and the Northwestern purple. These are symbols of the schools’ colors rather than an area of educational specialty.

Gowns of the medieval period were woolen. Some were decorated, and some were lined with fur for warmth. In later eras, velvet came into use, primarily for decoration. In the nineteenth century, the bachelor’s gown was of worsted material; master’s and doctor’s were silk. Trim was used only on doctoral gowns, and the velvet trim on the facing, as well as the bars and chevrons on the sleeves, was either black or the color of the trimming on the hood. Contemporary materials of rayon, nylon, and polyester have replaced the lightweight wool formerly worn for warmth.

Hoods
Originally the hood was the upper part of the cowl worn by monks and friars of the Middle Ages and was designed to keep rain and drafts off its wearer. When not needed, it was pulled off and allowed to hang down over the tippet, or short cape, which was layered over the gown for additional warmth. Later the hood and tippet were joined in the American-style hood.

According to tradition, all hoods are of black material. Bachelor’s and master’s hoods have a “simple” shape attached to a tippet or small cape. The bachelor’s hood, from Oxford, should be three feet long. The master’s hood is four feet long, and the doctoral hood and panel are an additional six inches in length. The hood is usually the same material as the gown.

In medieval times, the hood lining was often fur, but in 1426 an order issued at Oxford allowed people to use hoods lined with silk for the summer months. Currently, most hoods are lined with rayon, nylon, or cotton satin instead of the more expensive silk or fur.

The trim around the edge of the hood, two to five inches wide, represents the department or faculty of learning. The hood lining is in the colors of the college or university conferring the degree. It is appropriate for the individual to wear lining colors of either the institution granting the degree or the institution to which the wearer is officially connected.

Caps
The Oxford cap or mortarboard worn by all graduates from a degree-granting institution comes from the biretta, a cap worn by the Venetian doges during the Italian Renaissance. This cap originally fit over the ears and had a square top with no tassel. Current usage has modified it to a black square on a skull cap pointed front to back. The attached tassel designates the area of educational specialty of the undergraduate degree.

Tassels
Graduates of McPherson College earning a bachelor of science degree wear gold tassels. Those receiving a bachelor of arts degree wear white tassels. Master of Education graduates wear blue tassels.

The College Seal
“Life and Light” (John 1:4) is sometimes given as an interpretation of the Greek motto on the McPherson College seal. The horizontal line (zoe) indicates life. The vertical line (phos) indicates light. The seal was designed in 1920 by W.E. Brubaker. The year 1887, which appears on the seal, is the date of the founding of the college.

The seal is reserved for use on official McPherson College documents and publications. It is stamped in raised letters on diplomas and transcripts, and a gold replica is placed or stamped on many official college certificates of award.