This May, nearly 8,000 people will receive undergraduate and graduate degrees at 17 ceremonies held in four different locations at UConn, a multiday extravaganza of accomplishment that could scarcely have been imagined the first time the institution celebrated its graduates.

The year was 1883, just two years after the school first opened its doors. The school didn’t award bachelor’s degrees for its first decade, and so everyone who completed their course of studies received a two-year certificate. And the graduating class in that very first year wouldn’t have needed Gampel Pavilion to hold it: there were just six students finishing their studies, all boys, some of whom later went on to finish high school.

That first ceremony was held in a grove of oak trees, near what is now Holcomb Hall, and each graduating student read a final paper as part of the exercises. They wore suits for the occasion; UConn ceremonies didn’t feature the familiar cap and gown regalia until 1907.

While that first ceremony looked completely different from what students experience today, it was the first step in a long history of commencement ceremonies celebrating the most important part about UConn: the students.