The Vanderbilt Mace: Ceremonial Icon

In the 1960’s Secretary of the University Robert A. McGaw and Chancellor Alexander Heard took on a special project overseeing the design and making of the university mace.

The mace was given by members of the Board of Trust and was designed and made by Norah Creswick, artist-jeweler of Edinburgh, Scotland. The embellishment and symbolic forms that decorate the gilded silver on the panels and shaft include university monograms, embattled shields, irises, magnolias, oak leaves, and acorns. The shaft of the mace is made of dark rosewood and all other parts are gold plated silver.

The Vanderbilt mace, an ancient symbol of a university’s authority to confer degrees, was first carried by the chair of the Faculty Senate, Professor Walter Waverly Graham, at Commencement on June 1, 1969.

[Vanderbilt University Mace]
Norah Creswick
Edinburgh, Scotland, 1969

On loan from the Vanderbilt Commencement Office

[Dr. Mildred Stahlman Commencement Marshal and Chair of the Faculty Senate Carrying the Mace with Chancellor Alexander Heard]
Photograph reproduction, May 14, 1975 
History of Medicine Collection
Vanderbilt University Libraries