The Georgetown Mace heads the University academic procession in any ceremony where degrees are awarded or the faculty appears in formal academic regalia. Traditionally carried by either the University’s Provost or Registrar, students often see the mace featured at New Student Convocation in the fall of their freshman year and then again at Senior Convocation and Commencement.
Mace symbolism
At the inauguration ceremony of a new University president, the outgoing president traditionally presents the new president with three symbols of the president’s authority: the University’s academic charter, the seal, and the University mace.1 The mace represents the President’s administrative powers.2
The University commissioned the current mace in 1982. Designed by Paul A. Cavanagh of Greenville, Rhode Island, the mace is made of ebony, sterling silver, and azurite. The design combines the traditional form of a weapon with a cross. The base is square shape, and the wood splits into four distinct branches before merging into the silver sphere that tops the mace. The silver sphere symbolizes God, and the overall form of the mace captures “the flow and growth of an organic form, and also suggests human learning with its final culmination in God Himself.”3
