Informant Name: Jake Weidner
Date Collected: May 17th, 2016
Place Collected: Novack Café
Genre of Folklore: Separation
Informant Data: The informant is a junior at Dartmouth College. He is a Classics Major and is involved in a variety of activities on campus.
Contextual Data: Jake is a part of AD’s last new member class. He “Shook Out” AD and was selected for membership during the Fall of 2014.
Ritual: “During rush night, I, along with all of the other aspiring new members, waited at AD until bid night was over. At that moment, the brothers lined up outside of the house and greeted all of the aspiring new members with a handshake. After that, we all went to our dorms and hoped to be picked up by a brother, which would mean that we were selected for membership. I got picked up by a few brothers and went to the [AD] house with them, where I met all of my fellow new members.”
Interpretation: During bid night, sophomores attend their fraternity of choice and partake in Shakeout. During this ritual, as the source mentioned, an aspiring member of a house will shake hands with every brother, after which the brothers deliberate over which new members they will extend an acceptance to. The process of shaking out symbolizes the divorce of new members from their earlier unaffiliated status in the Dartmouth social structure. It also separates new AD members from the new members of other fraternities.

Collected by:

LM
Dartmouth College
HB 1674
Hanover, NH 03755
Professors Victoria Somoff & Mikhail Gronas
Russian 13: Vampires, Witches, and Firebirds; 16S