A 21-year-old art student wants Emily Carr University of Art and Design to require its graduates to wear a cap and gown.
Painter Shauna Woods-Gonzalez will graduate with a Bachelor of Fine Arts May 5. She will wear traditional refinery to the event and she doesn't want to be alone in her choice of dress. But the art school hasn't required graduation regalia in the last 20 years, according to Barry Patterson, executive director of communications for the university.
When Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design became a university in 2008, it polled the student body on a graduation clothing. The majority of respondents didn't want to wear a cap and gown so the school introduced a scarf or sash colour-coded to their degree.
Woods-Gonzalez watched a video of a previous convocation and saw the sash worn as a bandana and a belt, with graduates crossing the stage in butterfly wings, pajamas and skimpy clothing. "It's a symbol for me, the cap and gown. It's just what I've expected my whole life about graduation," she said. "I don't think that the fact we're an arts university should change that tradition_ It's just the same as anyone else would at SFU or UBC. Basically the image that our school is showing to us is that they don't take seriously."
Woods-Gonzalez, who wore a cap and gown when she received a diploma from Capilano University, wrote to the visual arts dean and to Ron Burnett, president and vice chancellor of the university, asking for a change in policy.
Burnett told her the university hadn't received any serious complaints about the lack of a cap and gown requirement. In an email to Woods-Gonzalez, he suggested she contact the student union to see if it would poll students on the matter.
Woods-Gonzalez has contacted the student union. She adds she has spoken to 30 students and half of them agreed with her.
"The ones that don't want the cap and gown say that they don't want to pay to rent it or they may not go to the ceremony," she said. "The other half, a good group of them are international students and their families are extremely disappointed by this idea."
Fellow Emily Carr student Lindsay Braynen, who contacted the Courier after Woods-Gonzalez noted her interview with a reporter on Twitter, supports the school's open policy.
"If anything, I would prefer to see my fellow students take their creative licence onto that stage for the final time, she said. "Why should we be restricted to the idea that only by wearing a cap and gown will we be taken seriously by society?"
Woods-Gonzalez says graduates can express themselves in the grad show that happens the same day as convocation.
Patterson noted the ceremony at the Chan Centre is "very traditional."
He said the university encourages formal or semi-formal attire and that most students dress up and some wear a cap and gown.
"Other people choose to wear clothing that reflects their personal style or maybe a cultural choice, so we've had people wear button blankets before, saris," he added.
Patterson said administrators would be "more than open" to requiring a cap and gown if the student union found that's what the majority of students wanted. But he wasn't sure whether caps and gowns could be instituted by May 5.
crossi@vancourier.com
Twitter: @Cheryl_Rossi
