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SERVING THE CAUSE ment reception for those seniors and parents who wished to greet faculty and staff members before returning home.219 One feature of the printed commencement program which did not change after 1946 was the listing of winners of prizes and awards. The 1985 program included forty-nine of these, a large increase over the thirteen named forty years earlier. Long before 1985 the College had established the practice of announcing some winners of prizes and awards in the fall and others in the spring, entirely apart from commencement. Including any on the program was evidence of the survival of part of an old tradition. The concerns which the trustees had so often expressed about the appropriate criteria to be used in awarding honorary degrees continued into the postwar years. In December 1946, for example, they debated and then adopted a lengthy committee report which declared that such degrees should be granted "only after mature and thorough deliberation; . . . only for outstanding merit," and sparingly. All candidates, they decided, should be selected in such a way that in honoring them the College honored itself. Although the committee found that "the average number of degrees granted by the better liberal arts institutions is three," it recommended, and the board approved, a maximum of eight during an academic year, of which no more than five could be divinity degrees.220 In 1954 the trustees approved awarding an "occasional" honorary degree apart from the commencement exercises. Eight years later they defined more specifically the categories of achievement which the College sought to recognize and directed their committee on honorary degrees to "carry on a continuing but discreet search" for "appropriate candidates."221 In April 1978, at the beginning of a new administration, the trustees adopted a revised statement of procedures and guidelines. It reaffirmed the normal annual maximum of eight degrees and also the existing goal of recognizing "persons of true distinction who, upon being thus honored, bring honor and distinction to the College." The 1978 statement included "the Church at large," scholarship, performing arts and applied sciences, business, and public service as "categories of attainment for recognition" of alumni and nonalumni. Between 1946 and 1985 the College awarded 283 honorary 219Until 1983 the numbering of commencements followed the faculty decision on the subject, which was announced in the 1878 commencement program. Then, without a similar decision and announcement, the 148th commencement in 1983 followed the 150th in 1982. 220The committee report stated that during 1942-1946 Gettysburg had awarded 52 honorary degrees, Franklin and Marshall 47, Dickinson 45, and Lafayette 40. 221The 1962 legislation declared that "to insure uniformly high quality recommendations, the trustee committee concerned must actively seek out the names of persons for consideration." Beginning with the Paul administration, the faculty were regularly asked to submit names for consideration. 92