Alumni Community

Title: Alumni Community

General Information about Item:

  • Customary Lore, ritual
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: Russell Beckerman
  • Date Collected: 11/8/19

Informant Data:

  • Russell Beckerman is a male Dartmouth student in the class of 2019.  He was born and raised in Mendham, New Jersey.  During his time at Dartmouth, Russell studied engineering. He is currently in his fifth year completing a Bachelor’s of Engineering degree. Russell joined ski patrol in the winter of 2016, during his freshman year at Dartmouth.

Contextual Data:

  • Alumni, especially recent alumni, often come back to Dartmouth to visit friends and relive the good times they had as students. Dartmouth has a “big weekend” each term that has more events than normal, and tends to draw a large number of alumni back to visit. Also, ski patrollers can return to the Dartmouth Skiway to renew their patroller certification.

Item:

  • Ski patrol alumni always have an open invitation to come back to the Skiway. They often come during Winter Carnival, the big weekend of winter term, and will renew their patroller certifications and/or pick up shifts while they’re back.

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

Transcript:

  • “Alumni are always welcome. Plenty of alumni come back and renew their certification. I am  doing my fifth year BE on campus… and I decided to redo my certification, and I will probably pick up a few extra shifts here and there. Alumni are definitely a very present role and love to come back and sit in Topshack and patrol the mountain for a day or so just to kind of relive the experience as an undergrad, and so there’s definitely a lot of involvement.”

Informant’s Comments:

  • The alumni are always welcome and happily greeted when they come back. It is very common for alumni to work shifts when they are back visiting. It is also a great way to get your certification renewed back where you first got it with all your patroller friends.

Collector’s Comments:

  • This ritual of alumni returning to campus signifies the continuation of the close bonds developed on Dartmouth ski patrol post graduation. Despite no longer being students at Dartmouth, or official members of the ski patrol group, alumni are welcomed back any time with open arms. They want to come back and they do. This is especially seen as the alumni do not just visit, but continue to participate as they pick up shifts and go through the certification process with current members of the ski patrol group. This is a rite of incorporation as the alumni transition into the post-Dartmouth world, they are incorporated into the larger Dartmouth ski patrol family.

Collector’s Name: Lindsay Pitt

Tags/Keywords:

  • Customary Lore
  • Rituals
  • Graduation/Alumni

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