Academic regalia of Harvard University James Michael Curley appeared in silk stockings, knee britches, a powdered wig, and a three-cornered hat with flowing plume. When University marshals objected to his costume, the story goes, Curley whipped out a copy of the Statutes of the Massachusetts Bay Colony which prescribed proper dress for the occasion and claimed that he was the only person at the ceremony properly dressed. Academic regalia of Harvard University As the oldest college in the United States, Harvard University has a long tradition of academic dress. Harvard gown facings bear crow's-feet emblems near the yoke, a symbol unique to Harvard, made from
President of Harvard University see President#Title. Harvard was founded for the training of Puritan clergy, and even though its mission was soon broadened, nearly all presidents through the end of the 18th century were in holy orders. All presidents from Leonard Hoar through Nathan Pusey were graduates of Harvard College (i.e., they were undergraduates at the university). Of the presidents since Pusey, Bok took his undergraduate degree at Stanford, Rudenstine at Princeton, and Summers at MIT, but each earned a graduate degree at Harvard. Drew Gilpin Faust is the first president since the seventeenth century with no earned Harvard degree. John Winthrop served as