Starting this academic year, all appointed members of the Doctoral Examination Board at Radboud University are allowed to wear a gown. Wearing a gown is a personal choice and therefore not mandatory.

Since last week, at the start of the academic year, all appointed members of the Doctoral Examination Board are allowed to wear a gown. A university spokesperson confirmed this to the editorial team of Vox. This means that co-supervisors, all voting members of the Doctoral Examination Board, advisory guest opponents, and guest experts also have the option to wear a gown.

Wearing a gown is not mandatory but a personal choice. ‘The permission to wear a gown expresses the equality within the Doctoral Examination Board,’ according to the spokesperson. For other academic ceremonies, the right to wear a gown remains reserved for professors.

With this decision, Radboud University follows the example of several other Dutch universities. At Leiden University, the University of Amsterdam, and Utrecht University, all members of a Doctoral Examination Board are also allowed to wear a gown.

Right to Supervise

It is unclear whether this adjustment also means that all associate professors at Radboud University will now receive the ius promovendi – the right to supervise PhD candidates or confer academic degrees. The Radboud Young Academy made this request in July on voxweb.nl.

In that article, Radboud Young Academy members Mark Dingemanse and Mariska Kleemans described the right to wear a gown for all members of the Doctoral Examination Board as largely symbolic. ‘If wearing a gown is an excuse not to grant the ius promovendi, then I am obviously against it,’ Kleemans said at the time.

Translated by Nick Fidler