As graduation ceremonies occur across the country, you might notice more decorated attire in Nevada. This is the first spring graduation since Nevada passed a law allowing students to decorate their grad caps and robes with religious or cultural regalia. Despite the law, earlier this month at Eldorado High School, a student was told she couldn’t wear a stole honoring her family’s heritage. Ultimately, the student was allowed to wear her stole, but this shows how the practice can be controversial. Today, we revisit a conversation with Dr. Sheila Bock, a folklorist at UNLV. She tells co-host Dayvid Figler how grad garb became so contentious and what happens when students use robes and mortarboards as a form of expression.

Taking mortarboard displays seriously as public performances of the personal, this book highlights the creative, playful, and powerful ways graduates use their caps to fashion their personal engagement with notions of self, community, education, and the unknown future.

Graduation season is upon us! We’re starting to see high schoolers and college grads descending on scenic spots around Las Vegas to take portraits — sometimes with elaborate additions to their stoles, gowns, and mortar board graduation caps.

For college students across the country, commencement formally marks the transition from student to graduate. Per tradition, most schools feature speakers, give out awards, organize departmental dinners – and, of course, designate caps and gowns for students to wear when they receive their diploma.

D.C. is growing wealthier and whiter every year. Is a conspiracy theory to blame?

It’s commencement season in Boston, a city that boasts almost 30 colleges and universities. On any given weekend, you’re almost as likely to catch a glimpse of someone wearing a cap and gown as you are to see a fan in a Red Sox hat. But the caps and gowns worn by graduates have a much longer history. In recent decades, caps even have become space for graduates to express their individuality.

"What happens in ... stays in ...."

BYU Radio/Top of Mind with Julie Rose: Commencement ceremonies are an exercise in uniformity. Seen from the front, the graduates are an indistinguishable sea dressed in identical caps and gowns. But look at a group of 2018 graduates from the back and their individuality shouts at you from the flat tops of their caps. Folklorist Sheila Bock has documented the rise of this graduation cap-decorating fad.