Rustication (academia)

Rustication is a term used at Oxford, Cambridge and Durham Universities to mean being 'sent down' or expelled temporarily, or, in more recent times, to leave temporarily for welfare and/or health reasons. The term derives from the Latin word rus, countryside, to indicate that a student has been sent back to his or her family in the country, or from medieval Latin rustici, meaning "heathens or barbarians" (missus in rusticos, "sent among ..."). Depending on the conditions given, a student who has been rusticated may not be allowed to enter any of the university buildings, or even travel to within a certain distance of them.

The term is used in British public schools (private schools), and was used in the United States during the 19th century, though it has been superseded by the term "suspension".

Notable Britons who were rusticated during their time at University include:

"The penalty for plagiarism at Harvard Extension is a failing grade in the course and rustication from the university for at least one calendar year…" (noted on a course syllabus in 2009).

The term also was used in the United States in the 19th century, and on occasion, later. Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, in The Gilded Age, have a character explain the term:

In a story in the August 1858 Atlantic Monthly, a character reminisces:

Kevin Starr writes of Richard Henry Dana, Jr. that:

A biographer refers to one of James Russell Lowell's college letters as "written while he was at Concord because rusticated."

In a 1932 letter to TIME Magazine, publisher William Randolph Hearst denied he had been expelled from Harvard College, but had instead been "rusticated in [1886] for an excess of political enthusiasm" and had simply never returned.

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