Legend                                                                                                      Timothy Brennan
DOC First Year Trips Croo Initiation                                                                    Hanover
5/10/2016

Informant Info:
Timothy M. Brennan was born in Princeton, N.J. on June 15, 1995 and grew up in Cranbury N.J. He attended Princeton High School and is currently a student at Dartmouth College in the Class of 2017 majoring in government. Outside of class, Tim is a co-captain of the Dartmouth track and field team and the president of Chi Gamma Epsilon. He is also active in the Christian community and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

Type of lore: Customary – Initiation

Language: English

Country of Origin: USA

Contextual Data:
During the winter of 2016, Tim applied to become a Croo member for First Year Trips in 2016. After submitting the application, Tim was selected to become a join the croo. The croo are the people the that introduce the first-year students to First-Year Trips. Croo members help serve food and integrate the new class into Dartmouth. For trips specifically, croo members teach new students dancing rituals and safety lessons before their trips. The dances and songs are based down orally to each new group of croo members.

Social/Cultural Context: This video was taken in his room in Chi Gamma Epsilon in a relaxed social environment and conducted in English.

Informant’s Comments: The Croo Initiation Ritual
During the spring before the first-year trips, Tim was accepted to become a croo member in a process of separation. Tim received an email from Dr. Wolfgang Schiltz, a former DOC leader, instructing him to go to the highest place on the Dartmouth golf course at 7:47pm with a blindfold. A car with former croo members picked Tim up and bought him blindfolded with other croo members to an unspecified local cabin. New croo members are initiated through numerous “trips” songs and dances and stories from former croo members. The new croo member class is kept secret until later in the spring but each new member gets croo trainers for guidance and training. In addition, each croo member must go through First-Aid and CPR training as part of initiation. After he have competed the transition process of initiation tasks, he was finally integrated into the group and officially became a croo member!

Collector’s comments: The Croo initiation was a great way to incorporate new croo members for the upcoming First-Year Trips. It was interesting to see all phases of rites of initiation incorporated into the Croo Initiation.

Tags/Keywords: Croo, Initiation, rites of passage