Regalia Symbolism and R-MC Traditions

Inauguration Home > Regalia Symbolism and R-MC Traditions

The Simpson Mace

The Simpson Mace is a symbol of academic authority at Randolph-Macon College. Dr. W. Schuyler Miller carried it for the first time on September 16, 1988, as the faculty processed to the fall convocation and dedication ceremony for the McGraw-Page Library.

Dr. and Mrs. Grellet C. Simpson presented the mace in honor of Dr. Thomas McNider Simpson, Jr., Class of 1901, a Randolph-Macon professor of mathematics and dean of the faculty, and the sixteen members of the Simpson family who attended the college between 1894 and 1984. Grellet Simpson, a member of the Randolph- Macon College Class of 1930, was a professor of English and dean of the faculty at his alma mater.

The Presidential Medallion

Susannah Wagner, a registered British silversmith of Ashland, Virginia, created the Presidential Medallion in 1998 using a silver representation of the college’s seal created by the Franklin Mint. The chain and frame around the seal are silver; the oak and maple leaf insets within the chain are gold. The medallion, which symbolizes the office of the president, was a gift to the college from Mr. and Mrs. John B. Werner of Richmond, Virginia.

Mr. Werner is a member of the Randolph-Macon Class of 1953.

The College Seal

The official college seal depicts Randolph-Macon’s first building, a four-story brick structure built in 1832, which still stands today on the school’s original campus in Boydton, Virginia. Encircling this image are the words Sigillum Collegi Randolph-Maconensis in Virginia—“Seal of Randolph-Macon College in Virginia.”

The seal appears on all Randolph-Macon College diplomas and other official documents of the college.

The Academic Dress

Modern American academic dress follows a custom that preserves many of the features that originated in the Middle Ages, when cap, gown, tunic and hood were ordinary clothing for men of all ranks, inside and outside the universities. The people of the Middle Ages associated particular styles of gowns and hoods with scholars of varying degrees of prestige.

President Lindgren’s black woolen gown with purple velvet chevrons and panels is the juris doctor gown of the University of Florida.

The velvet bindings seen in various colors on the hoods worn in Randolph-Macon’s academic procession indicate the following degrees: