MIT Shepherd’s Staff
The shepherd’s staff is carried by the Chair of the Faculty in the principals division of the OneMIT Ceremony procession. It is a gift to the Institute in 2023 by outgoing Chair of the Faculty Professor Lily L. Tsai and designed by Professor Brandon Clifford. The shepherd’s staff traditionally symbolizes the chair’s role as a leader of the faculty (the flock). This staff maintains the crook, though reimagined as a temporal device for an institution that measures its work across decades and centuries. The staff is a terrestrial artifact, carved in concert with the two celestial bodies that govern the pace of the academic experience. The Moon is represented by a brass dome punctuating the base of the staff. The top of the staff wraps around an imaginary sphere to form the crook. These two figures bracket the staff and define Earth’s relative size and distance to the Moon at the perigee of its orbit. The crook forms an angle of 23.5° to serve as a solar-ranging device. When the staff is aligned with the Sun at noon on the equinox, this angle defines the limits of the Sun’s path throughout the year, marking the solstice. The staff is carved from a black walnut tree that grew into the air, snatching carbon molecules from the atmosphere when aided by energy from the Sun. It is hardened by the seasonal shifts of the earth’s tilt. If ignited, the staff will burn, revealing the energy it has preserved through time. A hidden pocket holds 25 brass plates, each inscribed with the name and date of service of the Chairs of the Faculty who held it. The staff will exhaust its plates after half a century of use. Each Chair of the Faculty holds the position for two solar years.