| Conferred Degrees  Departmental degrees are awarded at
Colorado School of Mines according to the order in which the department/program originally
conferred a degree.
The School's first degree was awarded in mining in 1883.
The Division of Economics and Business offers the newest undergraduate degree, which was
first awarded in 1996.
At the graduate level, a degree in materials science was initially conferred by that
program in 1989.
De Re Metallica
The president of the Colorado School of Mines Faculty
Senate, who leads the academic portion of the commencement procession, carries a replica
of the sixteenth century treatise "De Re Metallica."
Widely regarded as the seminal text on mining and the science of metallurgy, this historic
volume serves as a symbol of the academic enterprise shared by CSM's faculty and students.
The replica is placed on a stand at the front of the stage.
Its opening marks the start of the commencement ceremony, and also recalls the beginning
of the students' education at the School.
The ceremony's end is signified by the closing of the book.
Here, however, the symbolism is not of the end of the graduates' learning process-which
will continue throughout their lives.
Rather, it refers to the end of formal relationships between the graduating students and
their mentors and advocates-the faculty at CSM.
A first edition of "De Re Metallica", written by Georg Bauer under the pseudonym
Agricola and printed in 1556, resides in the vaults of CSM's Arthur Lakes Library, as does
a subsequent edition printed in 1621.
In addition to these original texts, the library also houses several copies of Herbert
Hoover's 1912 translation from the Latin and includes one signed by the nation's 31st
President and his wife.
The translation was initiated by Hoover's wife Lou, who, assisted by three Latin scholars,
began the project in 1906.
Herbert Hoover contributed the introduction and lengthy footnotes, and on his many
travels, visited actual mine sites in the Alps and elsewhere, carrying out Agricola's
formulas in laboratories to check the translations.
Five years and $20,000 later, the 637-page edition appeared, bound in vellum with
facsimile engravings of the original woodcuts.
Issued in a limited edition, it quickly became and remains to this day a valued
collector's item. Of the three thousand copies printed, over half were given free to
mining engineers and students.
The translation was signed jointly by Lou Hoover and her husband. |
