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Dartmouth DOC First-Year Trips

Title: Matriculation Ceremony

General Information about Item:

  • Initiation Ritual
  • Dartmouth College
  • Informants: Fisher Katlin
  • Date Collected: October 23rd, 2018

Informant Data

  • Fisher Katlin is a senior at Dartmouth College, who has lived in Chicago for his whole life. He is a double majoring in Chinese and Chemistry and plans on going to medical school after college. He is an active member of the Dartmouth outdoors club and has lead Dartmouth freshman trips for two years. He was my trip leader and has remained one of my close friends at Dartmouth since then.

Contextual Data

  • Fisher has both been a trippee, which is what the freshman going on these trips are called, later served as an upperclassmen trip leader. His freshman year, he went to the Dartmouth grant on the “Climb and Hike” trip, where he was introduced to rock climbing. During his freshman trip, Fisher recalled becoming close with his upperclassmen trip leader, named Brad. Brad later introduced Fisher to the mountaineering club, a Dartmouth organization which Fisher is an active member of today. Fisher’s junior year, he led a “fishing” trip, and his senior year, he worked on “Grant Crew” and helped all of the “Hike and Climb” trips learn to rock climb.

Item

  • Every year, over 90 percent of Dartmouth first-years take part in a DOC First-Year trip, where they go on a five day outdoors trip all over New Hampshire. There are several different types of trips offered, including hiking, mountain biking, fishing, rock climbing, and many others.  These trips are characterized by various rituals, pranks, and verbal lore that encourage trippees to learn more about each other and Dartmouth culture as a whole. Fisher Katlin fondly remembers the “Robert Frost’s Ashes” prank as being a memorable and effective tradition, where the trip leaders tricked the trippees into thinking hot chocolate powder was famed Dartmouth alumni Robert Frost’s ashes. Additionally, trippees are not allowed to bring any technology with them, which creates an acutely solitary environment in which the group is intentionally coerced into being constantly engaged with each other and being present in the moment.
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Analysis

  • Initiation rituals consist of three stages: separation, transition, and incorporation. In this ritual, the separation stage occurs when the trippees leave home and embark on their trip. Next, the transition stage happens while the students are on their trip, as they both overcome the challenges that the New Hampshire wilderness poses and learn about Dartmouth’s culture and traditions. Finally, the incorporation process occurs when the students arrive back on campus with a stronger sense of understanding and belonging in the Dartmouth community.

Meaning and interpretation

  • DOC First-Year trips serve as an important aspect of initiating freshman into Dartmouth. They welcome new freshman to campus and give them a chance to get their first taste of look into Dartmouth’s culture. While on the trips, the trippees and trip leaders are able to grow as they weather the challenges from the wilderness. Additionally, DOC First-Year trips allow Dartmouth first-years the make their first purely Dartmouth connection, both with their fellow trippees and with their upperclassmen trip leaders.
  • Comparison:
    • Comparison within the subgroup:  In this sub-group, we focused on Dartmouth College social initiation rituals. The main similarity with these initiation rituals is that they all have the three phases of initiation rituals: separation, transition, and incorporation. Another similarity between most of these rituals is that freshman experience. A student’s freshman year is a time learn about his or her new community and the traditions that form its unique culture. Freshman year is also the time that most students join the clubs or sports teams that they will be most involved in throughout their Dartmouth careers. Therefore, it makes sense that so many of the Dartmouth social initiation rituals take place during the freshman year, such as the matriculation ceremony.  The homecoming bonfire and many of the rituals in our subgroup also involve helping freshman feel like they have officially become members of the Dartmouth community, and it also forms a connection with the leader of their community.

    • Comparison with the rest of the subgroups: The subgroups differ dramatically across the board. One difference within our subgroup is who initiates and rums each initiation ritual. Sometimes these rituals are set up and funded by the Dartmouth administration, and sometimes, like in the case of DOC first-year trips, they are student-run. Another difference is the duration of each ritual. Some social spaces take a while to initiate into or involve various rituals to initiate new members, while others only require one short ritual.

     

    Transcript

    • Fisher Katlin on how DOC first-year trips act as an initiation ritual “The most important thing trips does is it gives you that first group of people from Dartmouth that you know.”

     

    • Collector: J.P. Mortenson, Dartmouth College, Russian 13, Professor Valentina Apresyan, Professor Mikhail Gronas, Fall 2018

     

    • Tags/Keywords:
      • Initiation
      • Ritual
      • DOC first-year trips
      • Freshman class
      • Dartmouth

Matriculation Ceremony

Title: Matriculation Ceremony

General Information about Item:

  • Initiation Ritual
  • Dartmouth College
  • Informants: Charlie Pashlo
  • Date Collected: November 3rd, 2018

Informant Data

  • Charlie Pashlo is a freshman student at Dartmouth College and has lived in Newtown Connecticut his whole life. Because he is still in his first year at Dartmouth, Charlie has not yet decided on his major. He is on the Dartmouth Swimming team and is a teammate and close friend of mine.

Contextual Data

  • Cultural Context: I interviewed Charlie on the first floor of the Baker Library. Charlie was introduced to Dartmouth’s matriculation ceremony during orientation. He was surrounded by all of his fellow floormates during the ceremony, which took place in the early afternoon in president Phil Hanlon’s office.
  • Social Context: Dartmouth’s Matriculation Ceremony occurs during freshman orientation week. Orientation week involves many activities and traditions that help new students to bond with the other members of their class.

Item

  • Every year, all Dartmouth freshman dress up in formal attire and are led by their UGA to the school presidents office. They are greeted by the president who gives them a brief talk about the Dartmouth values. After the talk is over, he shakes the hands of every student one by one, concluding the matriculation ceremony. After they do this, they have officially concluded the matriculation process and are officially enrolled in Dartmouth College.

Analysis

  • Initiation rituals consist of three stages: separation, transition, and incorporation. In this ritual, the separation stage occurs when the freshman gather with their floor and travel to the president’s office. Next, the transition stage happens when all the students arrive in the president’s office and listen to him speak. Finally, the incorporation process occurs when these students shake the president’s hand and return to their dorms.

Meaning and interpretation

  • The matriculation ceremony is a ritual that occurs each year during Dartmouth’s freshman orientation. It acts as a way for the students to both meet the leader of their new school and to formally enter the college. The matriculation ceremony is something that every Dartmouth student goes through, and many of them fondly remember it as it signified the official start of their time as a Dartmouth student.
  • Comparison:
    • Comparison within the subgroup:  In this sub-group, we focused on Dartmouth College social initiation rituals. The main similarity with these initiation rituals is that they all have the three phases of initiation rituals: separation, transition, and incorporation. Another similarity between most of these rituals is that freshman experience. A student’s freshman year is a time learn about his or her new community and the traditions that form its unique culture. Freshman year is also the time that most students join the clubs or sports teams that they will be most involved in throughout their Dartmouth careers. Therefore, it makes sense that so many of the Dartmouth social initiation rituals take place during the freshman year, such as the matriculation ceremony.  The matriculation ceremony and many of the rituals in our subgroup also involve helping freshman feel like they have officially become members of the Dartmouth community, and it also forms a connection with the leader of their community.
    • Comparison with the rest of the subgroups: The subgroups differ dramatically across the board. One difference within our subgroup is who initiates and rums each initiation ritual. Sometimes these rituals are set up and funded by the Dartmouth administration, and sometimes they are student-run. Another difference is the duration of each ritual. Some social spaces take a while to initiate into or involve various rituals to initiate new members, while others only require one short ritual.

 

Transcript

  • Charlie Pashlo on how Dartmouth’s matriculation ceremony acted as an initiation ritual “we weren’t really considered students of the college until we did it.”

 

  • Collector: J.P. Mortenson, Dartmouth College, Russian 13, Professor Valentina Apresyan, Professor Mikhail Gronas, Fall 2018

 

  • Tags/Keywords:
    • Initiation
    • Ritual
    • Matriculation
    • Freshman class
    • Dartmouth

Touching the Homecoming Bonfire

Title: Touching the Homecoming Bonfire

General Information about Item:

  • Initiation Ritual
  • Dartmouth College
  • Informant: Anonymous
  • Date Collected: November 5th, 2018

Informant Data

  • Due to the legal fallout stemming from the incident, the informant would like to remain anonymous. The informant is a close personal friend of mine who is also a Dartmouth Student in the graduating class of 2021.

Contextual Data

  • Cultural Context: I interviewed the informant in his dorm’s common room at Dartmouth College. Anonymous was repeatedly told to touch the homecoming bonfire by many upper-classmen in the weeks leading up to it. When he was running on the green around the 2017 homecoming bonfire, he decided to try and touch it, but the Hanover police tackled him, and he was arrested.

Item

  • During homecoming, freshman are told by upperclassmen to touch the fire, despite the fact that they can be injured or arrested. A class is called the “worst class ever” if it does not have a member who touches the fire. Several people have touched the fire in years past out of their own volition. It is a very difficult task to touch the fire, as doing so involves climbing a 10-foot tall fence and evading security officers and Hanover Police Officers. Many students have gotten caught attempting to touch the fire in years past and faced consequences from both the Police and Dartmouth College. However, in 2018, no freshman touched the bonfire due to increased security measures.

 

  • In order to best protect the informant’s anonymity, I left out the audio file and transcribed the interview instead.
  • Interviewer: Alright, so let’s start with the obvious question. Why did you want to touch the fire?
  • Informant: For the weeks leading up to it a lot of upperclassmen had talked to me about it and kind of made it seem they painted it as a very old Dartmouth tradition that was being threatened by the current administration. It’s actually only a 5 or 6-year-old tradition, but they kind of painted as this very old Dartmouth tradition that Phil Hanlon was trying to destroy. I had almost a contrarian impulse that I had to stop that and like because I hate when Dartmouth administrators try to change Dartmouth, well change isn’t always but, but I hate it when they change the things that people love about it. For example, the bonfire itself is just like this great unique thing that everybody loves.
    But now, this year, like it’s such a far cry from what it once was.
  • Interviewer: Can you walk me through what happened your freshman homecoming?
  • Informant: So, I didn’t think that I would actually do it so in the weeks leading up I kind of jokingly told everyone “ I’m going to do it.” Then the night of, I essentially was just running around a bunch of times people were screaming at me like screaming at everyone like touch the fire. And I guess In the Heat of the Moment I just did it you know. It wasn’t even really like thought our planned it out because, well, I obviously got caught.

Analysis

  • Initiation rituals consist of three stages: separation, transition, and incorporation. In accordance with the old tradition, the separation stage of this initiation ritual occurs when the freshman class isolates itself from the rest of the student body and runs laps around the homecoming bonfire. The transition stage occurs when the freshman class proves their bravery and touches the fire. Finally, the incorporation stage occurs after the bonfire when the upperclassmen have gained more respect for the freshman class due to the bravery they displayed during the bonfire, and generally stop referring to them as the worst class ever

Meaning and interpretation

  • Touching the bonfire is a freshman tradition that had occurred for several years before the increased security measures in 2018. It acted as an opportunity for Dartmouth’s freshman to come together as a class by supporting and cheering on their classmates brave enough to touch the fire. Additionally, the stories and legends about the students who touched the fire served as a way for Dartmouth students to bond with one another.

 

  • Comparison:
    • Comparison within the subgroup:  In this sub-group, we focused on Dartmouth College social initiation rituals. Obviously, the main similarity with these initiation rituals is that they all have the three phases of initiation rituals: separation, transition, and incorporation. Another similarity between most of these rituals is that they are experienced by freshmen. A student’s freshman year is a time learn about his or her new community and the traditions that form its unique culture. Freshman year is also the time that most students join the clubs or sports teams that they will be most involved in throughout their Dartmouth careers. Therefore, it makes sense that so many of the Dartmouth social initiation rituals take place during the freshman year, such as the touching the fire ritual. The homecoming bonfire and many of the rituals in our subgroup also involve helping them feel comfortable in their new community and connecting them both with their own classmates and with the upperclassmen.
    • Comparison with the rest of the subgroups: The subgroups differ dramatically across the board. One difference within our subgroup is who initiates and rums each initiation ritual. Sometimes these rituals are set up and funded by the Dartmouth administration, and sometimes they are student-run. Another difference is the duration of each ritual. Some social spaces take a while to initiate into or involve various different rituals to initiate new members, while others only require one short ritual. 

 

Transcript

  • The informant on how touching the bonfire acted as an initiation ritual “I really feel like because touching the fire was an event that was exciting and that the whole class experienced together, it definitely helped bring the class closer both with each other and with the upperclassmen.”

 

  • Collector: J.P. Mortenson, Dartmouth College, Russian 13, Professor Valentina Apresyan, Professor Mikhail Gronas, Fall 2018

 

  • Tags/Keywords:
    • Initiation
    • Ritual
    • Homecoming Bonfire
    • Freshman class
    • Dartmouth