DISMISSION. In college government, dismission is the separation of a student from a college, for an indefinite or for a limited time, at the discretion of the Faculty. It is required of the dismissed student, on applying for readmittance to his own or any other class, to furnish satisfactory testimonials of good conduct during his separation, and to appear, on examination, to be well qualified for such readmission.—College Laws.
In England, a student, although precluded from returning to the university whence he has been dismissed, is not hindered from taking a degree at some other university.
DISPENSATION. In universities and colleges, the granting of a license, or the license itself, to do what is forbidden by law, or to omit something which is commanded. Also, an exemption from attending a college exercise.
The business of the first of these houses, or the oligarchal portion of the constitution [the House of Congregation], is chiefly to grant degrees, and pass graces and dispensations.—Oxford Guide, Ed. 1847, p. xi.
All the students who are under twenty-one years of age may be excused from attending the private Hebrew lectures of the Professor, upon their producing to the President a certificate from their parents or guardians, desiring a dispensation.—Laws Harv. Coll., 1798, p. 12.
DISPERSE. A favorite word with tutors and proctors; used when speaking to a number of students unlawfully collected. This technical use of the word is burlesqued in the following passages.
Minerva conveys the Freshman to his room, where his cries make such a disturbance, that a proctor enters and commands the blue-eyed goddess "to disperse." This order she reluctantly obeys.—Harvardiana, Vol. IV. p. 23.
And often grouping on the chains, he hums his own sweet verse,
Till Tutor ——, coming up, commands him to disperse.
Poem before Y.H. Harv. Coll., 1849.
DISPUTATION. An exercise in colleges, in which parties reason in opposition to each other, on some question proposed.—Webster.
Disputations were formerly, in American colleges, a part of the exercises on Commencement and Exhibition days.