At the University, where traditions frequently remain undisturbed for generations, the University’s graduation ceremony, or Finals, has seen several incarnations.
Board of Visitors Secretary Alexander “Sandy” Gilliam, who received his bachelor’s degree in history from the University in 1955 before assuming numerous staff and faculty positions, has witnessed better than anyone else the evolution of this important ceremony over the years.
“An ancient tradition at the University [in the 1950s] was that there were four big party weekends, and Finals was one of them,” Gilliam said. “From that the name for the whole graduation weekend became Finals.”
He added that there was a whole social agenda for the weekend of final exercises.
“The social part of it originally was Friday night,” he said. “There was a formal dance with the big band, and Saturday night was an informal dance. Saturday night, it was all first year men. Everyone went to the concert on Saturday afternoon. It all took place at Memorial Gym.”
Gilliam, who graduated from the University back when the ceremony was held on Monday afternoon, said Final Exercises were just part of an entire weekend of celebration.
“I graduated on a Monday afternoon,” he said. “Of course, it was much later in the year, in June. The University didn’t start until the third week in September.”
By 1975, when Gilliam returned as a faculty member, graduation ceremonies took place on Sunday mornings. Gilliam said this was probably established sometime in the 1960s.
“It was switched from Monday to Sunday when the University got to be bigger so it was less disruptive to life in Charlottesville,” he said. “When I first came here, angry preachers would write letters about holding it on the Sabbath.”
Gilliam also said ceremonies used to be held in the evening.
“It used to be at the end of the day. It was past the middle of June, so it was hot,” he said. “The idea was that it would be cooler at 4 p.m. than at mid-day. Then it was switched to Sunday morning, to get people out of here by the end of the day.”
A different kind of ‘celebration’
When Gilliam returned to the University in 1975, he said there were problems with drinking at Final Exercises, especially bad in the mid-1980s.
“We had someone from Washington as the speaker,” Gilliam said. “A couple of students who could barely stand up wandered up to the speaker, got in front of the podium at Lawn level, and shakily poured a glass of champagne for the speaker.”
Gilliam said luckily, the speaker handled the drunken interruption gracefully.
“The speaker, without missing a beat, raised the glass and put it back on the podium and the police went after the two students,” he said.
At the Final Exercises of 1988, drinking was also out of hand, Gilliam said.
“It was a disaster,” he said. “Someone had released a cage of mice in the middle of the ceremony. We only provided seats to a few spectators, so people would camp out on the Lawn.”
Gilliam said this ‘disaster’ inspired him to persuade former University President Robert O’Neal, now a University Law professor, to change things.
“I formed a committee and we went to the graduating class and the third-year class,” Gilliam said.
He said they began to provide two seats for each graduating student.
“We told the graduating students and the third years, ‘There will be absolutely no drinking and [you all] will be monitored in process to the Lawn,’” Gilliam said.
He added this stricter, more monitored form of graduation was initially an experiment.
“That’s when it took on more or less the present form,” he said. “A year or two later we added more chairs so each graduating student had tickets for more guests.”
Today, Gilliam said that it is getting to the point where the Lawn is full.
“It is a grand occasion,” he said. “The weather is not always comfortable. It’s’ going to be a given that people will be uncomfortable at Finals.”
Before Lawn ceremonies
According to University President John Casteen, graduation became a ceremony in 1904 with Edwin Alderman, the University’s first president.
“Before then, Final Exercises were held in the library of the Rotunda,” Gilliam said. “It went on all day because everyone gave a speech [and] prizes were given.”
Final exercises were quite the social event for Charlottesville residents.
“Charlottesville was a small place so people flocked to it for the entertainment value,” Gilliam said.
It wasn’t until 1905 or 1906 that graduates wore caps and gowns, Gilliam said. “Cabell Hall had been finished by then, the Academic procession started, and everyone wore caps and gowns,” he said. “Students complained about this at first.”
Graduation ceremonies have also graced the University’s amphitheater.
“When the McIntire Amphitheater was built during the First World War, ceremonies were performed there,” Gilliam said. “At some point after the Second World War, it was switched from the Amphitheater to the low end of the Lawn.”
Gilliam said the Lawn was more ideal because it was shaded and allowed for more guests.
A Presidential affair
“The most famous graduation was in 1940,” Gilliam said. “Roosevelt was speaking; his son was graduating from the Law School.”
Gilliam said this was a historic day, not only for the University, but also for the country.
“Roosevelt left Washington that morning, and France was being overrun by Germans,” Gilliam said. “Italians had stayed out of the war. Paris was overrun, and then Mussolini dared to invade France from South. This word reached Washington before Roosevelt left for Charlottesville.”
Gilliam added that in exploring the Roosevelt presidential library, he discovered that Roosevelt started working on his graduation speech in April.
At the ceremony, however, Gilliam said Roosevelt was observed scribbling away at his speech.
“What he did was add a couple of lines to it,” Gilliam said. “The most famous one was, ‘The hand that held the dagger and plunged it into its neighbor’s back.’”
Roosevelt was referring to Italy’s decision to join Germany’s side in the War.
“It was the first time that Roosevelt advocated that we have got to come to the aid of the democracies,” Gilliam said. “Every time he said that in his speech, there was thunderous applause.”
The 1940 graduation ceremonies were broadcast on national airwaves.
“It was broadcast live on national hook-up,” Gilliam said. “Word went out instantly. A couple of months later, France had fallen and we sent out destroyers.”
Finals today
Gilliam said that while most graduation speeches here are not memorable, there was one about three or four years ago, given by Dr. Francis Collins, a Medical School graduate, who is an authority on the famous Human Genome Project.
“A few days before he was to come down here, his secretary called us wanting to know about the sound system,” Gilliam said. “He wanted to know if he could plug in his guitar.”
Gilliam said Collins gave a good speech, but surprised the audience at the end.
“Then he whipped out his guitar and started singing the old Frank Sinatra Song, ‘My Way,’ with his own words,” Gilliam said. “He had the whole crowd on their feet yelling for an encore. Every now and then there is something out of the ordinary.”
According to Politics Prof. Larry J. Sabato, every Virginia governor has also been invited to speak at the University’s final exercises, which he said is one of the University’s most important and meaningful traditions.
“Thousands of young people, who have worked very hard, are receiving their just desserts; that alone is tremendously gratifying,” he said.”I frequently tell people that Finals is like an event of concentrated joy, like a thousand weddings held at the same time and place.”
