The “ceremonial mace used at convocation ceremonies is out of step with contemporary values.”<\/a>\u00a0Dalhousie University now uses what it designed and calls the New Dawn Staff instead of a mace<\/a>.<\/p>\n Indigenous peoples and advocates have said plenty about this already but the managers, well…<\/p>\n Currently, for instance, #UBC managers gleefully delight in the gravity and weight of their mace, entirely remiss that in addition to blunt power and violence, UBC’s mace signifies greed– the chainsaw and excavator– real estate development<\/a>— digging for gold– as the University feverishly exploits its Endowment Lands<\/a> (esp. Areas A, B, & D).\u00a0Some traditions just aren’t worth maintaining…<\/p>\n Remember this bedlam in December, when a lawmaker grabbed the mace in\u00a0Britain\u2019s House of Commons? “When he hoisted it up, a clamor erupted: \u201cDisgrace,\u201d \u201cExpel him,\u201d \u201cNo!\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Oh, and at the Nexo Knights’ Graduation Day<\/a>,<\/p>\n Jestro grabbed a sword, a mace, and a spear and began to juggle them… The unimpressed crowd started to boo… Sweat broke out on his forehead…. He let go of the mace, and it flew across the arena. The crowd gasped and ducked… Then … bam<\/em>! It hit the power grid on the arena wall. The area lights flickered, then turned off. Soon the power outage surged throughout the city.<\/p>\n Meanwhile again in England, Bradford College faculty members called the admin’s decision to spend \u00a324,000 on a new mace for graduation ceremonies a \u201ccrass bit of judgement.”<\/a><\/p>\n The days of the\u00a0mace in Convocation and governance are of the past and that part of the past is no longer worth reenacting.<\/p>\n It\u2019s difficult to know where this University now stands or what it stands for.<\/p>\n It is time to retire the\u00a0mace, symbol of aggression, authority, and war<\/a>. It\u2019s time to march to graduation ceremonies in late May and November with open and empty hands as symbolic of peace and reconciliation of controversies and roles of the President\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n UBC\u2019s mace<\/a>\u00a0is a relic but a relic of what? The mace is symbolic speech but what is it saying about us now?<\/p>\n From ancient times, this club, this weapon of assault and offence, the mace was gradually adorned until the late twelfth century when it doubled as a symbol of civil office. Queen Elizabeth I granted her royal mace to Oxford in 1589. From military and civil power derives academic authority. The rest is history and it is not all good.<\/p>\n Stephen Heatley wields the mace at the 2018 convocation.<\/p>\n It is time to retire the macebearer, whose importance is inflated every year by the\u00a0image\u2019s presence on UBC\u2019s graduation pages<\/a>\u00a0leading to Convocation. In pragmatic terms, if the mace falls into the hands of the wrong macebearer or manager at this point, someone\u2019s liable to get clocked with it.<\/p>\n Is UBC\u2019s mace still a respectable appendage to Convocation?<\/p>\n Remember, since that\u00a0fateful November day in 1997<\/a>, just five months into Martha Piper’s Presidency, when student activists put their bodies and minds on the line at the APEC protest,\u00a0Tuum Est<\/em>\u00a0adorns both the can of mace sprayed in their eyes and the\u00a0ceremonial mace<\/a>\u00a0that the President\u2019s Office is eager to carry across campus every November and May.<\/p>\n Is it not time to retire the mace and mace bearer?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" *Apologies to the medievalists once again. Customized below is our semi-annual appeal to UBC managers to Lay Down the Mace: As we count down to and roll through graduation, can we please\u00a0remove\u00a0the mace from\u00a0convocation and governance at the University of … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/workplace\/files\/2019\/05\/Dedj-bLV4AAq1h1-300x146.jpg\")
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