Tag Archives: alumni

Bonfire

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General Information:
Informant: Braden Mullen
Place: Hanover, NH
Date: November 2, 2021
Genre/Form of folklore: Customary/Ritual
Title: “Bonfire”

Informant Data: Braden Mullen is a 19-year-old Dartmouth student who is part of the class of 2025. He is from Glenview, Illinois, but he lives on campus at Dartmouth in Hanover, New Hampshire since the beginning of the fall term. He is a student-athlete participating on the football team and has an interest in studying economics.  

Contextual Data: Every fall term at Dartmouth there is a Homecoming celebration, which consists of parades, speeches, a bonfire, and homecoming football game. The bonfire is built on the center of the green with the freshman’s class number displayed largely at the top of the fire. The freshmen are supposed to run/walk around the fire.

Social Data: Homecoming weekend and the bonfire are intended to welcome the freshmen class to the Dartmouth community, while also providing a time for alumni to visit. When the freshmen run around the fire, the upperclassmen shout for them to “touch the fire.”

Item: The homecoming bonfire built on Dartmouth’s green with the freshmen’s class number at the top. 

Transcript: 
Collector: “What is your attitude towards Homecoming Weekend and the Bonfire tradition?”

Informant: “The bonfire was a really cool experience since it showed me how important traditions are at Dartmouth, especially since I saw so many alumni enjoying the event. It was a little weird to have both the 24 and 25 on top of the bonfire since COVID prevented the sophomores from having their chance to run around the fire.”

Collector Comment: As an older student, I really enjoy homecoming weekend since many of the recent graduates come back for the event. Although I have never seen someone attempt to touch the fire, the stories of individuals making the attempt are often reiterated during homecoming weekend. It is also interesting to hear how the tradition has evolved from alumni.

Collected by:

Carson Reich 21

Houston, TX

Hanover, NH

Dartmouth College

RUSS 013

Fall 2021

Returning as Alumni

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General Information

Informant: The informant is a Dartmouth graduate from the 2020 class and wishes to stay completely anonymous. 

Place: Hanover, NH

Date: October 19th, 2021

Form of Folklore: Tradition

Title: Returning as Alumni

Collector: Maria Angelino

Contextual Data

Cultural Data: Dartmouth was founded in 1769 and is one of the nine colonial colleges charted before the American revolution. Located in Hanover, New Hampshire, Dartmouth is a small, private liberal arts school and is a part of eight Ivy League institutions in the United States. The school is best known for its focus on undergraduate degrees, strong Greek life culture, and supportive alumni base.

Social Data: Homecoming weekend is an important weekend in the Fall term at Dartmouth College for both the freshman class and alumni. With so much activity going on, former students find this weekend to be a great opportunity to come back to campus and relive their “glory days”. This folklore was conducted via an interview a week after the informant went to her first homecoming weekend as an alumni, not a student. 

Item:

Alumni coming back to Dartmouth on Homecoming Weekend.

Transcript: 

Collector: “What do you know about the origins of the bonfire tradition?”

Informant: “ I don’t know much about how the whole thing started. I remember hearing about how the fire used to be way bigger and the classes would run, instead of walk, around the fire. I do know that it was always a time for a lot of alumni to come back because they warned us our freshman year to lock our dorms. They said alumni would try to come into their old rooms just to see what they look like now and reminisce on the good old days. I thought it was just another weird prank our UGA was pulling on us, but there were actually a ton of alumni that came back Homecoming Weekend when I was a student. This year was kind of weird for me because I experienced it as an alumni. It was crazy coming back and feeling like I was just another Dartmouth kid again. I love the adult life, but my four years here were the best years of my life. Coming back and seeing old friends reminded me of all the great memories and friendships I made. I definitely plan on coming back on Homecoming Weekend whenever I can.”

Collector Comment

This aspect of Homecoming Weekend often gets overlooked by the students because of the focus on the Bonfire and other events. The return of alumni speaks to the multiple existence and variation of Homecoming Weekend as students who graduate continue being apart of Dartmouth’s culture after graduation.

Quentin Kopp Jokes

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Title: Quentin Kopp Jokes

Informant Info: Mene Ukueberuwa is an Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of The Dartmouth Review. He is a ’16 (formerly ’14) from Princeton, NJ. He was interviewed on May 12, 2016 at the Collis Center in Hanover, NH.

Type of Lore: Verbal, Joke

Language: English

Country of Origin: United States

Social / Cultural Context: The Review has some eccentric subscribers. Some of the mail sent by these subscribers have now become jokes that are often repeated within the organization.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuYUjVJVsMc&feature=youtu.be

Transcript:

Very true. We have definitely some eccentric subscribers who like to send us letters to the editor, comments, criticism, things like that.  So one of the more famous is a fellow named Quentin Kopp, class of ‘49, so getting up there in years, and he’s a very careful reader of the paper, so he sent us some letters criticizing our use of language, I remember one of our staffers named Charles Jang coined the term “studentry” to refer to the student body, and Quentin Kopp sent him an angry letter telling to “shape up.”  Most recently, Mr. Kopp sent us a letter pointing out that some of the people listed on our advisory board in the paper have passed and asking us to update that, but he also was under the false impression that one of our students, a freshman, had passed, and asked us “Is Max Frankel alive?”, which made us all kind of scratch our heads, we made sure to check on him to see if he indeed was, but it was a good thing that he was safe and sound.

Is Max Frankel alive?

Is Max Frankel alive?

Collector’s Comments: “Is Max Frankel alive?” is now a joke often repeated within the organization. “Shape up!” is also a common expression used in an ironic and joking way at the Review. These jokes bring the organization together and also help bridge the gap with alumni who may be from another generation.