Academic procession
An academic procession is a traditional ceremony in which university dignitaries march together wearing traditional academic dress. An academic procession forms a usual part of college and university graduation exercises. At many U.S. universities, the colors and styles of regalia are determined by a uniform dress code established in 1895.
The installation of a university president is usually accompanied by a much more elaborate academic procession, involving visiting celebrants from other universities. In such processions, the order of appearance is governed by the institution's date of founding, oldest first. For example, when Eisenhower was installed at Columbia in 1948:
...dignitaries from the world's oldest universities—Bologna, Oxford, Paris, Cambridge, and Florence—led the procession, and representatives from over three hundred American colleges and universities followed, including Harvard's James Conant, Yale's Charles Seymour, Pennsylvania's Harold Stassen, and Princeton's Harold Dodds, and some two hundred other presidents.