A BRIEF HISTORY OF COLLEGIATE MACES

Maces have long been part of academic heraldry, though their function was not always ceremonial. Originally weapons of war, maces are featured often in ancient Egyptian art where kings are shown ritually smiting their foes. This original function has not been entirely lost. Campus officials in the Middle Ag es more than once kept students in line by employing their university’s mace in a manner recalling its primitive function.

University maces today are, for the most part, treated as decorative emblems symbolizing the institution’s authority. Seen most often at commencement and other solemn occasions, they remind those in attendance of the deep traditions inherent in a student’s journey through university studies. Like the word for the ceremony itself, “commencement”—which admonishes its participants to remember that this is a celebration of beginnings, not endings—the mace turns the eye forward to the life to come by recalling the rich academic heritage of higher learning and the promise of attainment that comes through education and self-betterment. Our mace, thus, combines elements of both the old and the new, traditional features like gems and stone enhanced with modern designs such as arcs of faceted crystal. Both an impressive work of art and a hallmark of the university’s history, this mace brings to light everything that is best about Utah State University.

UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY’S CEREMONIAL MACE

The top of the mace depicts the circle of learning, the cycle of study, practice and tradition in which we learn, grow and teach. In the same way the students, alumni, professors and practitioners of Utah State University represent our highest achievements, the brushed copper disk emblazoned with the university’s official seal crowns the mace and sends light upward in every direction, symbolizing the illumination of truth reaching out across our community, our state and our world.

The copper bezel has thirteen sunstones set into it. These symbolize the thirteen presidents who guided the institution through its first century.

The white oak shaft comes from wood that was originally part of the banisters of Old Main and was rescued from the building after the fire of 1983.

The base consists of limestone provided by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and taken from the same quarry that was used to build the Logan Temple.

The mace of Utah State University envisions the very essence of our land-grant institution: seated in the bedrock of our community, striving and growing ever higher, sealed on top by a ring of metal, an emblem of our timeless quest for the merits born of learning.