Title: New GroupMe Groups

General Information about Item:

• Genre: Customary Folklore: Tradition

• Language: English

• Country: United States of America

Informant Data:

Alexis Wyatt, aged 21, is a Director of Ujima who joined the group her freshman fall (2014). She is a senior at Dartmouth College majoring in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and minoring in Psychology. Alexis was born, raised, and currently lives in Akron, Ohio. Before Ujima, Alexis had two years of dance experience in high school with modern, contemporary, and lyrical dance.

Contextual Data:

• Social Context: On-campus team members are involved in the new GroupMe. However, off-campus members and alumni continue to remain involved through other GroupMe chats. Ujima leaders create a new GroupMe at the beginning of every term. Alexis created this tradition began last year.

• Cultural Context: Ujima’s culture is heavily oriented towards open communication and mentorship. By creating a GroupMe exclusive to on-campus members, Ujima not only creates a new channel for members to bond outside of practice, but also encourages younger members to ask older members with any assistance they may need.

Item:

Ujima uses the app GroupMe to communicate through group chats. Each term, Ujima leaders create a new GroupMe exclusive to the team members that are on campus. They retain other group chats for the entire team and alumni.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file): Video

Transcript of Associated File:

“I would actually say another one of our traditions is always having to remake a GroupMe. Because we’re really big on making sure that everybody who’s actually on campus during any given term is actually in a GroupMe together. And then, there’s a separate one that also includes Ujima members who are off or have taken time off, and even some alums who are in the area or things like that. But I think that there’s something very special about having that separate GroupMe that always includes just the people who are on campus because, in my opinion, that’s really where the familial aspect of Ujima comes through during a term. It’s because it’s like very concrete—these are the people who are on campus for you to actually utilize in whatever capacity that it would need to be. That’s something that wasn’t originally being done when I first joined Ujima. We weren’t, I would say, as close outside of dance because I don’t believe that the channels were really there to access people unless you did something like show up to practice. So I would say it’s kind of a new tradition is making sure that everybody is actually accessible in some communicative way.”

Informant’s Comments:

Although creating a new GroupMe every term is a very young tradition, members are likely to sustain it in the future.

Collector’s Comments:

Many extracurricular groups, Greek houses, and societies at Dartmouth create new GroupMe chats on a yearly basis. By creating a new chat every term, Ujima ensures that its members are only included in necessary discussions.

Collector’s Name: Marcus Reid

Compiled/Analyzed By: Shinar Jain

Tags/Keywords:

• Tradition
• Dance
• Team