Red Oak Hollow

The University of California Hastings College of the Law, San Francisco, CA, now has an academic mace which expresses the history, ideals, and goals of the college. What is particularly interesting is that the college did not pay for this mace, but funds for the mace were donated to the college by the Hastings Class of 2005.

When UCH decided that the college should have an academic mace, someone googled "academic mace" and found, among others, my web site which has the article Academic Mace Completed for Patrick Henry College. So in July 2005, the Director of the Foundation at UCH contacted me by e-mail, telling me they had seen the one for Patrick Henry College on my web site and asking initially about the cost of such an item as they wished to develop a budget line to accommodate such a purchase. We exchanged several messages and then I didn't hear from them for two months and assumed they had found what they wanted elsewhere. In September 2005, another UCH representative contacted me to say they had chosen me to make the mace for UCH. Then followed several months of e-mail exchange about the goals and ideals of the college which I worked into a full-size design for a mace. With their approval of the design, the project was officially under way.

This is the result of that effort. This design, while similar to that which I made for Patrick Henry College, clearly reflects the history, goals, and ideals of UCH. The point of the finial at the top points the Way to the Future. The three rings, or beads, around the finial represent Mind, Reason, and Intellect. The large ball holds the medallion, a symbol of UCH itself. The first bead under the medallion symbolizes UCH as having been the First University in California. The two beads below that represent Morality and Professional Honor. The three beads around the top part of the shaft represent the Vision of the Founders, the Hopes of the Professors, and the Desires of the Students. The body of the mace represents that which is conveyed in the Present. The pointed tail of the mace represents that which was gained from the Past, and the mace itself is made from California redwood

This photo better shows the detail of the rings, or beads, around the finial, under the medallion, and at the top of the shaft. When an academic mace is designed, it must reflect the history, goals, ideals, and heritage of the college or university for which it is designed. This mace is a simple design, but clearly reflects those attributes of UCH which are important to the staff and students. For me, it was a great honor to have been chosen to both design and create the mace for them, something which will be used for decades to come to represent those attributes which are of special importance to UC Hastings.

Finally, a close-up view of the medallion embedded in the ball of the mace shows what I consider to be the bottom line, the Scales of Justice, that traditional symbol which is always associated with the legal profession and our judicial system. UCH is a law school, and both this medallion and this mace clearly reflect images of that profession. You may learn more about UCH at UC Hastings and read an article about the mace in the UC Hasting Alumni newsletter at http://uchastings.edu/site_files/Alumni/Autumn06.pdf. There is a photo of the mace on page 3 and the article is on page 16.