Freshman Traditions
“Freshman Trips, Then and Now”

F.P. Greenwich, Connecticut Fall 2015, 2018

Informant Data:

FP was born in London, England in October of 1996. He grew up in England and later moved to the United States, attending high school in Greenwich, Connecticut. At Dartmouth, he studies as an Economics major. FP is a member of the Class of 2019, the 250th graduating class at Dartmouth. Outside of studies, FP is on the Men’s Lightweight Rowing team and was a member of the DOC Trips HCroo in 2018, and he intends to join the Marines after graduation.

Contextual Data:

Cultural Context:

Dartmouth College was founded in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock and is the ninth-oldest institution in the United States. Dartmouth currently has 4,310 undergraduates. It is located in Hanover, New Hampshire. Dartmouth is known to be a small, research university that emphasizes a liberal arts curriculum to its students.

Social Context:

As a college that is over two centuries old, Dartmouth offers a distinct series of events that provide every new student with an iconic freshman year experience. Freshmen go through first-year outdoor trips, a matriculation ceremony, and more. The College on the Hill has unique traditions and rites of passage that welcome freshman into the Big Green community. 

Item:

Almost all Dartmouth students begin their undergraduate experience with the Dartmouth Outing Club Freshman Trips, which occurs over the weeks leading up to the fall trimester. Their introduction to Trips begins with registration on the lawn in front of Robinson Hall (“Robo”). However, instead of merely standing in line and waiting to join their group, incoming freshman are greeted by the DOC Trips Hanover Crew (known as “HCroo”). These upperclassmen student volunteers, clad in colorful nonsensical outfits known as “flair,” serve the purpose of coordinating logistics as Trips groups go from Hanover into the New Hampshire wilderness, as well as providing fun and energy as the first student ambassadors to the incoming freshman. HCroo decorates the Robo lawn with assorted “Welcome Home” signs, and engages the anxious first years with icebreaker questions, games, music, and dancing. Two particular long-standing traditions are group coordinated dances to the songs “Everytime We Touch” and “Salty Dog Rag.”*

*(FP preferred not to be filmed or recorded, and was unable to demonstrate the specific dances)

 

Transcript:

SG: When you were a freshman, what was the moment when you first felt like a part of the Dartmouth community?

FP: I had already been up on campus for [rowing] preseason, so I felt pretty comfortable here. But I think the major moment for me was when I went on my trip and really started joining in with the rest of our class and not just rowers. I remember heading over to Robo to sign in, and I hadn’t really been thinking about anything other than rowing and the hiking I was going to be doing for the next few days. But when I saw all the crazy upperclassmen dancing, I was instantly hooked.

SG: What do you think made that particular moment special?

FP: It’s definitely a moment of anxiety for almost everyone. They get up to some tiny town in the middle of nowhere and are like, what’s this all about? Will I be okay in classes? Will I make friends? Am I going to be as cool as high school? And right away they’re greeted by a group of people that has already been through it all, and the major thing they convey is fun and being easy-going. It helps you let your guard down and just jump in from the very start.

SG: And you got to experience that from the other side when you were on HCroo as a senior?

FP: Yeah, that’s one of the reasons why it was super special for me. It was like everything came full circle.

SG: Were there any major similarities or differences between your freshman and senior experiences with that event?

FP: Unlike the whole Homecoming Bonfire issue, it seems like that Robo tradition is mostly the same. There’s definitely more of an emphasis from HCroo to be inclusive of different identities now. We always introduce ourselves with our gender pronouns, so everyone will feel comfortable and understand that acceptance of everyone is the norm here. There’s also little things you notice that are different when you’re on the other side of things. Like when I was a freshman I couldn’t believe how much energy the Croo people had, but as a senior I knew just how exhausted we all were, we just had to fake it in front of the triplings.

Collectors Comments: 

Even though it is on a somewhat smaller scale than bigger traditions such as the Homecoming Bonfire or Convocation, the Robo lawn is the first of many rites of passage that Dartmouth first years go through. Students go through a literal phase of separation when they leave their parents for college, but the Robo lawn helps lower anxiety throughout their transition. The element of flair is interesting, because it is prevalent throughout the Dartmouth experience while serving no real purpose other than nonsense. Perhaps it is meant to symbolize the traditions of Dartmouth, as most flair is passed down from one generation of students to the next, while also conveying the message that students should not take themselves too seriously. By the time Robo lawn is finished and freshman are off on their trips, they are another step closer to feeling fully incorporated with their new school.

Sam Gordon Dartmouth College Russian 13 Spring 2019