First Commencement
The following is excerpted from University of the Northern Plains, the history of the University of North Dakota written by Louis G. Geiger and published in 1958 as part of the University’s 75th anniversary celebration.
The University of North Dakota graduated its first class on June 13, 1889. Seated: Frances M. Allen, B.A.; May Travis, B.A.; Genevieve Arnold, Normal Certificate; and Marie Teel, B.S. Standing: Irene Mares, Normal Certificate; Clinton S. DeGroat, B.S.; Cora Smith, B.S., and Ben E. Ingwaldson, B.S.
UND's First Commencement
A major milestone in student affairs, as well as in the University’s history, was the graduation of the first college class in 1889. A faculty committee was appointed in February to plan the exercises. In April the student body met and chose the school colors, the pink and green of the prairie rose, “suggestive of our green prairies and rosy prospects.”
On June 13, a cool, fair day, the ceremony began at ten o’clock in the University assembly hall, which had been decorated with flags and flowers and a large “89” centerpiece. A capacity crowd of students and spectators (perhaps as many as 250) was on hand as the graduates — “the ladies … dressed in white” and “the gentlemen … neatly attired” — marched to their places on the stage to the accompaniment of music by [W. W.] Hall’s Cadet Band.
Special guests were the Regents, H. M. Mellette, governor of the Territory, several other territorial officials [North Dakota did not attain statehood until November 2, 1889], and Nehemiah Ordway, who as governor had signed the organic act of the University. [President Homer B.] Sprague presided and introduced the speakers. Mellette observed that it was a “Red River letter day.” Ordway spoke with pride and feeling on the University’s founding. One of the Regents relieved the occasion with a touch of unconscious humor when he explained: “As to the faculty we have done the best we could with the money at hand.”
Following the official commemoration of the occasion, the main part of the program began; there were essays and orations presented by each of the eight graduates, six from the college and two from the four-year normal course; Frances M. Allen (B.A.), Clinton S. DeGroat (B.S.), Ben E. Ingwaldson (B.S.), Cora Smith (B.S.), Marie Teel (B.S.), May Travis (B.A.), and Genevieve Arnold and Irene Mares (normal certificates). The orations, on current as well as literary and moral subjects, were printed in full in the Grand Forks newspapers.
The Main Building and Ladies’ Hall (later Davis Hall)
Three of the college graduates were from Grand Forks; none had come from farther than Hillsboro. Not one had been born in North Dakota; Ben Ingwaldson had been born in Norway. In the class of 1890, of seven college graduates, four were from Grand Forks, three were women, and six took the science degree.
A considerable proportion of the early graduates entered medicine, law, or teaching. Cora Smith, a member of the first class, took a degree in medicine at Boston University; Mary Crans of the second class completed the course in dentistry at the University of Michigan. Ben Ingwaldson went on to the University of Minnesota law school. North Dakota’s first appointee to West Point, Joseph Travis, graduated in the class of 1890.