Chain of Office
The Flagler College Chain of Office is bestowed upon the President at an official inauguration ceremony and is worn by them during all official occasions requiring academic regalia.
It is a permanent insignia of office and is passed down to each succeeding president of Flagler College. The chain consists of medallions of the Flagler College seal, as well as the names of the past presidents of Flagler College, including their years of service.
The College Mace
2001 Commencement featuring Mace, Image courtesy of Flagler College Archives
The mace represents the power, strength, and stability of Flagler College. It is carried by the elected Chair of the Faculty Senate.
The mace was constructed in 1992 out of materials from Ponce Hall for the 25th anniversary of the College by Associate Professor Emeritus Thomas Rahner.
The lion is cast in bronze by Professor Emeritus Enzo Torcoletti. The imagery on the mace symbolizes the tree of knowledge, academic departments, and St. Augustine.
Origin Story of Flagler’s Alma Mater
As Flagler prepared to celebrate its 50th anniversary during the summer of 2018, Flagler's VP and Chief of Staff Laura Stevenson-Dumas sparked the idea for creating a College Alma Mater through a conversation with Associate Professor of Music & Theatre Kip Taisey.
"And I’m so glad she did," Taisey said. "What a special part of Flagler’s legacy to be a part of."
After putting out some feelers, Taisey discovered the College had no official alma mater to speak of. So, he reached out to then Professor of English Dean Craig Woelfel in hopes of collaborating on the development of one in line with the 50th anniversary.
“Kip was just getting the Music program off the ground at that time, which I was incredibly excited about; quite aside from my personal love of music and its importance in the liberal arts, I had always said that Flagler is simply a place that cries out to be filled with music,” Woelfel said.
This was a project they were both excited about, and as result, the lyrics and composition came together rather quickly over the course of just a few weeks in August of 2018.
“I didn't have any real sense of what creating music entailed, and I have no actual musical talent or ability, but fortunately Kip had enough for the both of us,” Woelfel said.
The lyrics start with a line from a poem called "Prospecting for Gold" written by Liz Robbins, an accomplished poet and former English faculty member, for Former Flagler President Joseph Joyner's inauguration earlier that year.
“[Kip] had taken my scribbles of lyrics and created actual music - arranged the score, written the music, and conducted the live vocal performance which he recorded with students from the Choir,” Woelfel said.
Taisey saw Woelfel’s contribution to this project as equally important.
“I think the brilliance of Craig's lyrics is that they wrap in where we've come from, where we've been, where we are, where we hope to be, and what we strive for,” Taisey said.
Excerpts from the Alma Mater:
Here we stand, together.
Where sand meets with the sea.
And the pasts meet with the future
In old St. Augustine
...
Here we stand together,
Where Henry Flagler stood
To hail our alma mater,
To seek the common good.
Woelfel said the alma mater’s development from idea and inspiration to completion and performance seemed almost surreal.
“I'd never experienced something go from an idea to something real in that way before, and Kip deserves 100% of the credit -- along with, of course, our wonderful students,” Woelfel said. “We- a bit nervously now- shared it with the President, and then soon after the Board...The rest, I suppose, is history.”