Ceremonial Mace a Rice Tradition Since 1962

Ceremonial Mace a Rice Tradition Since 1962

As mace bearer at Comencement, Lynette S. Autrey Professor in Humanities Bob Patten can’t help but draw a little attention, even if he’s wearing shades.

BY DAVID KAPLAN
Rice News Staff
May 13, 1999

Being mace bearer at Commencement is “a kick,” according to the Lynette S. Autrey Professor in Humanities Bob Patten. He gets to lead the imposing procession while carrying the mace, the scepter symbolizing the school’s authority.

Normally, he doesn’t seek attention, but on that day there’s no getting around it: “People do ask to be photographed with me in full marshal’s regalia and mace. I feel a little as if I am at a Renaissance fair,” Patten quips.

For sheer emotion, color and spectacle, no event at Rice can rival Commencement. It’s the biggest day of the year, and since 1962 the mace has been part of the pageantry.

Professor Emeritus Hally Poindexter, who has served with Patten as co-chief marshal of Commencement for the past several years, sees the mace as a Commencement focal point: “It should be held with both hands,” Poindexter says, “you don’t want to be distracted.”

She’s never carried the mace; it’s always held by her co-chief Patten.

He explains why: “You can’t carry a mace and carry a walkie–talkie, and she wanted to talk,” he says, tongue in cheek. Actually, Patten notes, Poindexter does have other pressing duties during Commencement, including the management of the inclement weather plan.

Notes Poindexter: “We work real well together, we’re great buddies.” When the two first worked as a team on the inauguration of President Malcolm Gillis, they discovered they had simpatico and have been a Commencement duo ever since. And Poindexter says she is more than happy to let her friend carry the mace.

Made of walnut, the mace was designed by James R. Sims, the Herman and George R. Brown Professor Emeritus of Civil Engineering. Sims had been chosen as one of the marshals who would help plan Rice’s 50th anniversary celebration, which would coincide with the inauguration of Rice President Kenneth Pitzer.

While attending the 300th anniversary of the Royal Society in England–also attended by the Queen of England and King of Sweden–Sims admired the society’s silver mace and decided that Rice should have a mace to lend authority and class to the semicentennial.

The mace was built by Raymond Martin, an instrument maker who worked in the Mechanical Engineering shop. On its four sides are a “W,” “R” and “U,” which stand for William Marsh Rice University. There is no “M” because the Rice seal takes up one side. The mace is topped by the bird of wisdom and school mascot, the owl.

Patten notes that the mace has been used as a symbol of authority for centuries, dating back to the fasces–a bundle of rods borne before ancient Roman magistrates. In the early days at Oxford and Cambridge religious and/or educational officials with maces would shepherd unruly students.

Sometimes, a mace can have more than symbolic meaning: Associate Professor of History Michael Maas recalls that just a few years before he graduated from Cornell in ’73, “a distinguished medievalist (carrying a mace) smashed a protester on the head with it.”

Of course, most commencements are far more gentle and civilized. Poindexter, who was a Rice student when Edgar Odell Lovett was president, describes Rice Commencement as “a beautiful thing. It’s a true celebration of the end of something and the beginning of something else.”

It can be celebrated in any kind of weather. Professor of Physics Stephen Baker recalls several years ago when, as chief marshal, he devised a rain plan: A series of smaller indoor graduation ceremonies would be held at various residential colleges, and Baker would benevolently drop in on each, driving from college to college in a golf cart while carrying the mace.

His rain plan was never implemented but, says Baker, “it would have been fun.”