Degree ceremonies of the University of Turku
The eighteenth degree ceremony of the University of Turku will be held on May 26-28, 2011. It is intended for all those holding a doctoral degree from any of the seven faculties of the university who have not taken part in the ceremony before. (It is voluntary to take part in this occasion)
Introduction to the festivities
Many traditions of the Finnish academic community today are deeply rooted in the history of the Academia Aboensis, the university founded in Turku in 1640 by the Swedish Queen Christina. As stated in its founding charter, the new Academia was to be modelled on the medieval Uppsala University. Via Uppsala, academic ceremonies conducted at Turku came to follow a spectacular tradition that had originated at Bologna and Paris in the 13th century. This tradition still flourishes in all of its central features.
The first degree ceremony of the Academia Aboensis was held in 1643 when ten Candidates of Philosophy were awarded the Master's degree. Thereafter degree ceremonies were conducted at an interval of approximately three years. The first ceremony in which Doctor's degrees were awarded took place in 1781.
After the great fire of Turku in 1827, the Academia Aboensis was transferred to Helsinki and renamed the Imperial Alexander University. It took almost a century before Turku again became an university town with the foundation of the Swedish-language Åbo Akademi University in 1918 and the Finnish-language University of Turku in 1920.
The first degree ceremony of the University of Turku was held in May 1927 in association with the inauguration of the recently founded university. Until 1977 both Doctor's and Master's degrees were formally awarded in these festivities. At present the ceremony is confined to the doctoral degree only.
The degree ceremony
In the Finnish language the word for the degree ceremony is promootio, from the Latin promovere, 'to move forwards', 'to make to advance', 'to promote'. The degree ceremony is an academic rite of passage in which those who have completed their doctoral degree formally receive the insignia associated with this status: the hat, the sword and the diploma. In the degree ceremony the insignia are also bestowed upon a few distinguished persons (mostly from outside the University of Turku) whom the faculties have nominated as their Honorary Doctors. The doctoral hat symbolizes virtues of erudition and the traditional academic freedom of the doctor to conduct independent research. The sword stands for truth; it is a weapon of the mind to sharply defend what is true, right and good in the doctor's research.
