Official Latin Diploma Translation

Harvard University

Universitas Harvardiana · conferring as Praeses et Socii Collegii Harvardiani

The oldest American diploma tradition opens like an old book: a great inhabited initial Q — Quoniam — begins the text, which then proceeds in a tightly ordered block. At the close, the seal keeps to one side while the signatures are allowed to overflow their printed titles on the other: a small liberty on an otherwise disciplined sheet, and one a careful translation preserves in its notes.

Yale University

Universitas Yalensis · conferring as Praeses et Socii Universitatis Yalensis

Starts straight and upright, states its business plainly, honors itself and the graduate in the same breath, records distinction where earned, and closes by mirroring its opening — signatures and seal reflecting the head of the sheet. Among the most ordered diplomas in the American tradition, and among the most frequently handled here.

Grace Hopper College (Yale)

Collegium Hopperiense

What arrives from Hopper is most often a Bene Meritum — a Distinguished Member recognition at college level rather than the University diploma itself: simple, elegant, the college’s coat carried in the front line, the recognition set large against the deliberately minimal hand of the curators beneath. We love to see the exclusive expressions and personalities these college papers carry.

Princeton University

Universitas Princetoniensis · conferring as Praeses et Curatores Universitatis Princetoniensis

Follows the regular convention with one personal habit: time and place are recorded in their own small station at the lower left. Italic and cursive alternate through the text, the graduate’s name and degree standing clear between the blocks, and a golden seal closes the sheet at the middle end.

University of Pennsylvania

Universitas Pennsylvaniensis · conferring in its own name

Admits in its own name, on the professors’ approval — ob studia a professoribus approbata ad gradum — usually with a credential code, magna cum laude where earned, and, rarely among its peers, the counter-signature of the keeper of the seal. More Pennsylvania and Wharton parchments have come through EnLatin than any other institution’s.

Brown University

Universitas Brunensis · conferring as Universitas Brunensis Providentiae

Plain and straightforward, setting the honor of its own ground first — Providence named before all else — with measured spacings for graduate, degree, and honors, and an occasional credential code. A frequent commission here.

Wellesley College

Collegium Wellesleianum · conferring as Praeses et Curatores Collegii Wellesleiani in Republica Massachusettensi

Sets the College’s own year beside the date of conferral — two calendars sharing one line — and honors the graduate’s name and degree in a distinctive hand of their own.

Bryn Mawr College

Collegium Bryn Maurense · conferring as Curatores et Concilium Academicum Collegii Bryn Maurensis in Civitate Pennsylvaniensi

Plain in approach, brutal in its heading, and alone in this catalog in dating anno fastis gregorianis — the Gregorian calendar, declared in Latin.

Bard College

Collegium Bardianum · conferring as Curatores Collegii Bardiani

Opens sciatis nos — and that small word nos is the most commonly mistranslated word in all diploma Latin: what it performs here is not what it appears to perform, and we render what it does — the College gladly declaring the graduate one of its own ranks. The text runs narrow, pointed in the classical manner, dated ante diem against the Ides with the College’s own age beside the year; and the dateline Datis Annandale A.D. has led more than one reader — translators among them — to the wrong expansion. A cold sigil is struck into the paper itself; the signatures are wet.

University of Puerto Rico

Universitas Portoricensis · conferring as Auctoribus Professoribus Quibus Hoc Munus Commissum Est Curatores Universitatis Portoricensis

Opens in style — on the authority of the professors to whom this office is entrusted, the Trustees confer — then sets the graduate’s name and degree immediately after, the particulars following with classical point-spacing, and two seals flanking the signatures at the close. The page’s syntax rewards diligence and punishes haste: the reading order is not the printing order.

Georgetown University

Collegium Georgiopolitanum · conferring as Praeses et Professores Collegii Georgiopolitani

The oldest Catholic foundation in the United States welcomes with a gaudent badge of religious merit above — unique in this catalog — then mixes hands and cursives below, the essential facts stepping forward through changes of font, the original seal ringed by signatures at the close. And throughout, it keeps the long ſ of older typography, which most translators fail: officials have been left reading profeſsores as “profefsors.” We read it as naturally as the eighteenth century wrote it.

Fordham University

Universitas Fordhamensis · conferring as Curatores Universitatis Fordhamensis

A large, adept engraving beneath an ornamented title — and beneath that, a lesson in one word twice: LITERAS, in omnibus praesentes literas visuris, where it means the document itself, the “present letters”; and Literis, in the ceremony’s opening hisce literis, where the same word begins the act. Dating is written out in the words of modern Latin, closing an otherwise strictly ordered sheet.

Seton Hall University

Universitas Setoniana · conferring as Regentes Universitatis Setonianae

Technical and disciplined in tongue and layout alike: no flourishes, the graduate denoted in a fine hand with the honor directly beside the name and the degree below, the sheet closing in strict order — founding date, then the year of the Lord, the sigil beside, the signatures beneath.

Saint Louis University

Universitas Sancti Ludovici · conferring in its own name

Plain, straightforward wording set in an Old English face, dated in the North American fashion — unconventionally, for a Latin sheet — the seal struck between the signatures.

Universidad del Sagrado Corazón (Santurce, San Juan)

Universitas a Sacro Corde · conferring as Praeses et Decanus Auctoritate Rite Commissa

Confers by president and dean, by authority duly committed — auctoritate rite commissa — and otherwise keeps the classic convention: classical point-spacing, an embossed seal, its accompanying safeguards beside it.

Pontificia Università Lateranense (Rome)

Pontificia Universitas Lateranensis

The Pope’s own university issues the most sophisticated instrument in this catalog: conferred Nomini Sanctissimi Domini Nostri Francisci, by authority granted from the Holy See, the father of the university set above, the particulars — down to gender and grade — entered by hand, the arms of the Holy See beside a date convention that is, for so ancient a house, ironically modern; a handwritten diploma number; and a Greek-key bezel running the border.

Universidade Católica Portuguesa

Catholica Lusitana

Confers through the chair itself: a professor cathedratica of the Faculty of Law, and Rectrix of the same university — the seal set at the head, the wording opening with the recognition of the conferral and unrolling like a medieval leaf from a small inhabited initial.

Ateneo de Manila University

Athenaeum Manilanum · conferring as Athenaei Manilani Curatores

The Jesuit tradition carried to the Pacific, and one of the rarest commissions we handle: a bezelled title followed by a salute, a cursive succession, a golden foil struck beside classical dating, the signatures beneath.

Congregatio pro Clericis (Dicastery for the Clergy, Rome)

Not a university but a dicastery of the Roman Curia — and its instruments arrive as Italian braided with dicasterial Latin, usually in pairs: one proclaiming the name, one the process and the year of formation. The signatures are often ring-stamps, an archbishop’s, under the keys of the Holy See. We translate both instruments under the same certification as any diploma.

Trinity College Dublin / University of Dublin

Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis iuxta Dublin

One institution, two names, one diploma: Trinity is the sole college of the University of Dublin, and the parchment speaks for both. It issues Ex Aedibus Academicis — from the academic house — with the full ceremony of the Kalends: the reckoning is never what it appears to an unpractised eye, and a date shifted by days can fail to match the registrar’s record. Uniquely, the admission to the degree is recorded within the text as taken upon the committee’s date, while the issuance — usually the same day — stands alone at the lower left.

National University of Ireland

Universitas Nationalis Hiberniae

Faces its leaf with a double coat of arms — the University’s own beside the faculty’s, each named in the text below — heraldry that has been mistaken for words by untrained eyes. It closes with dating in Roman numerals and its distinctive red seal beside the presidential signature. Among the most frequently translated Irish institutions.

University of Glasgow

Universitas Glasguensis · opening Noueritis omnes Almam Universitatem Glasguensem

Know, all — the alma universitas announces itself in the most official register on this page: lean, ordered wording on a spacious leaf, a cold stamp, a diploma number standing usually at the lower left. Its English inclusion describes the diploma’s character rather than translating it — the translation remains ours to make — and submissions usually pair it with a Transcript of Studies. Dated anno salutis: the year of salvation, an ordinary year in liturgical dress.

University of Malta

Universitas Melitensis · conferring as Universitatis Rector Melitensis

A grown design: an Old English face for the title, a paragraph of authenticity carrying a short history of the house, then the ceremony turning to address the graduate directly — With you, therefore… — the degree given ipse, by the authority itself. Dated by the Kalends, counting backwards and inclusively: the number on the parchment is not the day of the month. Of all the sheets in this catalog, Malta’s is the one where syntax itself becomes the display.

Charles University

Universitas Carolina / Universitas Carolina Pragensis

Two houses in one, and the oldest tradition on this page (founded 1348). The two forms issue distinct instruments, both opening under the old auspice Q.B.F.F.F.Q.S. and Summis Auspiciis Rei Publicae Bohemicae. The Prague form — rector and faculty dean conferring together — is the more ordained: every element in its own face, the variable particulars in a written hand, the graduate’s date of birth recorded, the date and diploma number closing the very last line; and it attributes merit rather than conferring title — a distinction the translation must keep. The Carolina form adds the pertaining law, its year and number. Both bear the seal as a cold stamp.

Politecnico di Milano — and the polytechnics

Italy and Greece seat a polytechnic in nearly every major city, and they write the modern successor of the Latin sheet: opening Si dichiara che — a declaration — then the head’s observations, the legal particulars, the grades. Where Latin appears, it lives in the coinages: engineering and the applied sciences Latinized by institutions, not by tradition. The results range from elegant to broken, and translating them means rendering what the institution meant to confer.

McGill University

conferring as Nos Gubernatores Rector Socii

We, the Governors, the Principal, the Fellows — an ordered page of paragraphed explanations, the graduate and the degree honored in large type, the conferral reasoned almost as cause and effect. Common dating followed by anno Domini; seal and signatures at the close — and the same seal embossed again as a watermark across the body of the sheet.

University of Manitoba

Universitas Manitobensis · conferring as Commendante Senatu Admisit

Admitted on the Senate’s commendation — one of the rarest and most distinguished commissions we handle: historical in bearing, elegant and uncrowded, right on the spot. Its chirographic sigil is perambulated by the signatures of master, chancellor, president, prefectal governor, and dean, and it dates in plain Roman numerals with — characteristically — no year-word at all.

Bishop’s University (Lennoxville, Québec)

Universitas Episcopi de Lennoxville Canadensis

The only diploma in this catalog that leads with the French form of its name before the Latin, exalting its “ingenious young” graduate to the degree; the signatures close, the year stands without a year-word at the foot, the seal at the right of the leaf. And its house idiom remains so much its own that omnibus quorum intersit — to all whom it may concern — alone opens onto a dozen defensible renderings. Choosing among them is judgment, not lookup; without the philological grounding, a translator picks one and hopes.