Encaenia

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At certain universities Encaenia is an annual ceremony typically involving the presentation of honorary degrees to famous alumni and to leading public figures. The word is derived from the Greek, meaning a festival of renewal or dedication, and corresponds to the Latin term Commencement, which will perhaps be more familiar to most people, especially in North America. In most British universities it corresponds to part of Graduation.

The most famous Encaenia is the ceremony at the University of Oxford, traditionally taking place on Wednesday of the ninth week of Trinity Term (meaning, typically, a Wednesday in the latter part of June).

Members of the public are most likely to see the very colourful procession, during which certain participants progress to the Sheldonian Theatre, inside which the main event takes place. Those who take part in the procession are the Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor, and Pro-Vice-Chancellors, the Heads of Houses (i.e. the university's colleges, societies, and halls), the four Heads of Division (i.e. the divisions of [1] Humanities, [2] Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences [3] Medical Sciences, and [4] Social Sciences), holders of Higher Doctorates (i.e. those in Divinity, Civil Law, Medicine, Letters, Science, and Music), the Proctors, the Assessor, the Public Orator, the Professor of Poetry, and the Registrar, together with the outgoing President of the Oxford University Student Union, and the Presidents of the Junior and Middle Common Rooms of the colleges to which the Proctors and the Assessor belong.