The college or university procession is a pageant bright with the dress and ceremony inherited from the medieval universities of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The caps, gowns, and hoods were worn to keep students and professors warm and to distinguish clerical and academic groups from laity. Academic regalia is worn today by those who play an academic role at celebrations of scholarly significance. The traditional costumes were used in few universities in America prior to the 1880s. With the growth in the late nineteenth century of institutions of higher learning, American universities in 1895 agreed on a definite system and set up a suitable code of academic dress for colleges and universities in the United States. In 1932 the American Council on Education presented a revised code which, for the most part, governs the style of academic dress today.

The flowing gown comes from the twelfth century. It has become symbolic of the democracy of scholarship, for it completely covers any dress rank or social standing underneath. It is generally black for all degrees, with pointed sleeves for the bachelor’s degree; long closed sleeves for the master’s degree, with a slit for the arm; and round open sleeves for the doctor’s degree. Holders of doctoral degrees from some universities may wear gowns of bright colors agreed to by the granting university. For the bachelor’s or master’s degree, the gown has no trimmings. For the doctor's degree, it is faced down the front with velvet and has three bars of velvet across the sleeves, in the color distinctive of the faculty or discipline to which the degree pertains. Some of the colors most frequently seen and the fields of learning they represent are: blue-philosophy; purple-law; green- medicine; yellow-science; light blue-education; and red-theology.

When Roman law freed the slave, he won the privilege of wearing a cap. And so the academic cap is a sign of the freedom of scholarship and the responsibility and dignity with which scholarship endows the wearer. For the doctor’s outfit, the tassel may be of gold bullion.

The hood is an inverted shield with one or more chevrons of a secondary color on the ground of the primary color of the college. The color of the facing of the hood denotes the discipline represented by the degree; the color of the lining of the hood designates the university or college which granted the degree; the color of the band indicates the degree of the recipient.  The AUP honorary degree hood lining is red with a black chevron and a white band corresponding to the Doctorate in Humane Letters.