As picture-snapping parents scanned the throngs of black-robed students filing into Schoellkopf Stadium for Cornell's 139th Commencement May 27, some had an easier time than others spotting their graduating sons and daughters.

One female student had hung a hot pink feather boa around her neck, visible from across the stadium. Large, white stuffed animals accompanied another pair of students.

The majority of graduates didn't decorate themselves with anything quite so stylish -- but were no less jubilant in their celebration. Following the crowd out of Schoellkopf after the ceremony, newly minted master's of engineering graduate Abishek Subramanian paused to thank a professor before finding his family.

Ithaca and Cornell were Subramanian's first taste of the United States after arriving from India, an experience he won't soon forget.

"I got to meet people from all over the world and even from all over India," he said.

Still, the varied and unique Commencement-day accessorizing often stole the show. Graduating with a bachelor's degree in information science, Ithaca native Peter Sherman had attached a homemade double-drink carrier made of foam board, plastic tubes and clip-on valves to his mortarboard. During the humid mid-morning ceremony, Sherman enjoyed sips from containers of Rockstar Energy Drink perched on either side of his head.

"I've done a lot of projects like this," Sherman said.

And who could forget the College of Veterinary Medicine graduates, who, as tradition demands, inflated large-animal exam gloves -- also called rectal sleeves -- which they waved over their heads as they screamed with joy upon receiving their degrees.

The inflated gloves at Commencement are a long-held tradition for a college that teaches, among other things, how to perform rectal exams on cows, horses and other large animals.

Baldwinsville native April Koich '00 demonstrated how the sleeve is designed to cover the examiner's entire arm in plastic, all the way up the shoulder.

"You wish it would cover more," Koich said.

That won't be a problem for Emily Harrison of Mount Kisco, who received a graduation gift of a palpation jacket, specially designed for large-animal rectal exams and complete with a zippable sleeve. Harrison, who is interested in equine reproductive medicine, has performed "dozens and dozens" of rectal exams on horses while at Cornell -- and can now do it in about a minute and a half.

"Some girls want diamonds," Harrison said. "I want[ed] a rectal jacket."