2025 NYU Doctoral Convocation

On Thursday May 8th, 2025, I attended the NYU Doctoral Convocation. The reason I was there was that my student, Selikem, requested that I attend so that I could ‘hood’ him. This was my first time to attend a college graduation ceremony during my time at NYU, and during my whole life. 

I arrived at Silver Center (Heights Alumni Lounge) at 9:00am Thursday, carrying my robe, hood and cap in a bag. Soon after, the other professors started filing in, most of them already wearing their ‘regalia’. You are supposed to wear regalia that matches the institution where you got your graduate degree. So I should have worn MIT colors. But when I ordered the robe from Herff, they just sent me black (which does not look like the MIT colors, which are red and silver-grey and really nice looking). The hat was also too small. The did agree to send me a larger hat, but I was not able to get MIT colors.

Once everybody was assembled, at around 11:00am, we filed out of the Silver Center, into Washington Square Park, which is in effect, a park owned by NYU. We went around the fountain in the center of the park, and then took a left to go into the Skirball Center across the street. 

As we were going to the auditorium, a security person asked me (but nobody else in the faculty line) if I had a ticket. I barely comprehended the question and said ‘what?’. Then they said ‘never mind’ and let me through. This is the curse of being a tall heavy person, you always attract attention.

Upon entering the auditorium, the faculty where seated on the stage. My number in the line was 50, and my chair was labeled with my name. Every faculty member on the stage was responsible for ‘hooding’ some graduate student. In the audience were the students (200-300 hundred) and then hundreds of other guests, mostly the families of the students, I imagine.

After several speeches, the hooding started. The students filed into the stage one-by-one, each holding their hoods. Then their designated faculty member took the hood from them, and the student turned and faced the audience. The faculty member fit the hood over the head of the student, and they either hugged or shook hands. After that, the student went back to sit in the audience.

Wearing the robe, hood and cap made me hot and thirsty. In addition, we were all sitting on a well-lighted stage facing an audience of hundreds of people. The organizers provided a little bottle of water for each of us, under the chairs, but I was afraid to drink it, because there did not seem like any way to use the restroom (once on the stage).

In our department this year, there were three graduates getting hooded. So after the ceremony we all went over to Washington Square Park and took some group photos. After taking pictures, I left the park at around 1:00pm. 

The ceremony provides a formal way for the student to gain closure and to transition from one period to the other. It also provides a nice context for the whole family to recognize the student’s achievements, and for the student to implicitly thank the family for always being there for him or her. In my case, it was a pleasure to be able to hood my student Selikem. I have greatly enjoyed working with him these last few years, advising him and watching his progress.  I include a picture of us below, taken by his wife Mawusi.