Tag Archives: Freshman class

Running Around the Bonfire (Homecoming Weekend)

General Information:
Title: Running Around the Bonfire
Form of Folklore: Customary, bonfire festival
Language: English
Place of Origin: Hanover, NH, United States
Informant: H.A.
Date Collected: November 1st, 2021

Informant Data: 
H.A. is a 21-year-old member of the Dartmouth class of 2022. He studies neuroscience and wants to be on the cutting edge of mental health research, eventually pursuing a PhD. He was born in San Francisco, but moved to Washington DC in 2004. At Dartmouth, H.A. is the co-founder of the recently approved Dartmouth Undergraduate Psychedelic Society, and otherwise pursues neuroscience research with mice. In his free-time, H.A. enjoys reading scientific articles, listening to scientific podcasts, cooking, and spending time with friends. 

Contextual Data: 
Social Context: Every term Dartmouth has a ‘big weekend’ of celebrations, and in the fall this is ‘Homecoming Weekend’. While many instantiations of traditions are aimed at the freshmen during this weekend, the whole weekend stands as a yearly tradition for all students and a lot of alumni who will come back and visit for the weekend. The weekend features Dartmouth’s football team playing the ‘homecoming game’, and the school organizes parades, speeches, and a large bonfire that all alumni and students gather around. The bonfire itself is used as part of a freshman-specific tradition every year, where the freshmen class walks a lap around the fire in front of the audience. It is the first ‘big weekend’ that freshmen get to experience, and because they typically hear a lot about it from upperclassmen they often look very forward to it.
Cultural Context: The bonfire, specifically, features a freshman specific tradition where the whole class walks a lap around the bonfire. Typically, they are heckled by upperclassmen who are watching the bonfire lap, and these upperclassmen were again heckled by their seniors when they were freshmen. Notably, Henry is a member of the class of 2022, the first class to participate in this tradition after Dartmouth updated the safety restrictions surrounding the event. The class of 2022 was the first class who was prohibited from running their lap around the fire and were instructed to only walk one lap. Past classes were both allowed to run around the fire, and they ran the same number of laps as their class year. The bonfire lap is a once-in-a-Dartmouth-career experience, and because all students have participated once it stands as a well cemented and anticipated tradition every year. 

Item: 
The homecoming bonfire is organized by the College, and it is built in the middle of the Dartmouth Green. The wooden panels are decorated by various student organizations, who send their freshmen members to paint a panel. The top of the wooden structure is decorated by wooden numerals of the graduating year of the freshmen. Surrounding the bonfire is a large audience of current students and alumni. While the fire burns on the Friday of homecoming, the freshman walk a lap around the fire and are heckled by upperclassmen. Various traditional heckles are yelled, like “you are the worst class ever” and “touch the fire”. The latter emerged a few years ago, when the school took strict action to ensure that students didn’t run close to the fire. 

Associated File:

Image courtesy of Dartmouth, the Dartmouth Review

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

Informant: “I really enjoyed the bonfire tradition and generally thought it was a lot of fun. But I had heard a lot about the bonfire tradition from upperclassmen and I learned that we [the class of 2022] were the first class who only were allowed to walk one lap around the bonfire, instead of the traditional running the number of laps of your class year which all the students before us had done. I learned the school implemented this measure for safety reasons, but it sucked having to be the first class to experience it. It felt like a rupture in the lineage of Dartmouth student experiences that is passed down from one class to the next. To be on the other edge of that tradition break was an odd position and I was left always wondering what it would be like to run 22 laps and what I missed out on. I felt that I was getting a different experience than all the students who preceded me and had gotten the Dartmouth experience.”

Collector Comment:
As a fellow class of 2022, I felt very similarly about being the first class ever to only walk one lap around the bonfire. I remember a lot of upperclassmen commenting on how we were ‘missing out’ and ‘not getting the real experience’, and it made me feel slightly isolated from the Dartmouth experience, especially as this was my first term at Dartmouth.

Collected By:
Una Westvold
Oslo, Norway
Hanover, NH
Dartmouth College
RUSS 013
Fall 2021

Bonfire (Homecoming Weekend)

General Information:
Title: Homecoming Bonfire
Form of Folklore: Customary, bonfire festival
Language: English
Place of Origin: Hanover, NH, United States
Informant: M.S.
Date Collected: October 30th, 2021

Informant Data: 
M.S. is a 19-year-old member of the Dartmouth class of 2025, the most recent class at Dartmouth. She is currently undecided on her major but wants to potentially study economics. She is from New York City and very excited to have moved to the more slow environment of New Hampshire. She enjoys to ski and is part of the apprenti class that is trying out for the Dartmouth Ski Patrol.

Contextual Data: 
Social Context: Every term Dartmouth has a ‘big weekend’ of celebrations, and in the fall this is ‘Homecoming Weekend’. While many instantiations of traditions are aimed at the freshmen during this weekend, the whole weekend stands as a yearly tradition for all students and a lot of alumni who will come back and visit for the weekend. The weekend features Dartmouth’s football team playing the ‘homecoming game’, and the school organizes parades, speeches, and a large bonfire that all alumni and students gather around. The bonfire is used as part of a freshman-specific tradition every year. It is the first ‘big weekend’ that freshmen get to experience, and because they typically hear a lot about it from upperclassmen they often look very forward to it.
Cultural Context: The bonfire, specifically, features a freshman specific tradition where the whole class walks a lap around the bonfire. Typically, they are heckled by upperclassmen who are watching the bonfire lap, and these upperclassmen were again heckled by their seniors when they were freshmen. The bonfire lap is a once-in-a-Dartmouth-career experience, and because all students have participated once it stands as a well cemented and anticipated tradition every year. 

Item: 
The homecoming bonfire is organized by the College, and it is built in the middle of the Dartmouth Green. The wooden panels are decorated by various student organizations, who send their freshmen members to paint a panel. The top of the wooden structure is decorated by wooden numerals of the graduating year of the freshmen. Surrounding the bonfire is a large audience of current students and alumni. While the fire burns on the Friday of homecoming, the freshman walk a lap around the fire and are heckled by upperclassmen. Various traditional heckles are yelled, like “you are the worst class ever” and “touch the fire”. The latter emerged a few years ago, when the school took strict action to ensure that students didn’t run close to the fire. 

Associated File:

Image courtesy of Dartmouth, the Dartmouth Review

Transcript: 
Collector: “Why did you take part in traditions such as the Homecoming Bonfire?” 

Informant: “I think it just makes me feel more part of the community. Also it’s very fun. Like the bonfire, a lot of my friends were joking that it’s like an initiation into the Dartmouth cult. And it kind of felt like that, it was fun. It’s like, I did it now. I’m part of that community that walks around the bonfire. Also, growing up in the city I didn’t have a football team or any homecoming big experience like a lot of my friends here did. I was just super excited to go to a football game for a school, my school, and it was just a cool way to show school pride. And the bonfire added to that, making the whole homecoming weekend into a big and special event.”

Collector Comment:
Reflecting on my own homecoming bonfire experience, I felt very similar to M.S. I felt that I had participated in an event that all students before me had as well, welcoming me into the community. Like M.S., I had never attended a school with a football team or any homecoming traditions, and the bonfire made the whole weekend feel even more special and community-oriented, beyond just school spirit for the football team. 

Collected By:
Una Westvold
Oslo, Norway
Hanover, NH
Dartmouth College
RUSS 013
Fall 2021

Initiation into Dartmouth Social Spaces – Candle Light Ceremony

Title: Candle Light Ceremony

General Information about Item:

  • Initiation Ritual
  • Dartmouth College
  • Informant: Arvin Kumaran
  • Date Collected: October 31, 2018

 

Informant Data

  • Arvin Kumaran was born in Westwood, Massachusetts on July 28th, 1999. Arvin attended middle school and high school in Westwood and is now in his second year at Dartmouth College. Arvin is on the pre-med track at Dartmouth College and is planning on majoring in Economics. Arvin is a close friend of mine who I met the fall of my freshman year at the college.

 

Contextual Data

  • Cultural Context: I personally interviewed Arvin in his dorm room at Dartmouth College. Arvin was first introduced to Dartmouth’s candle light ceremony during orientation. Arvin was surrounded by all of his fellow classmates during the ceremony in the woods surrounding the East Wheelock dormitory. The ceremony took place as the sun went down and this ceremony occurs every year with Dartmouth’s freshman class in the same place.
  • Social Context: The candle light ceremony occurs during freshman orientation week. Orientation week involves a countless number of activities and traditions that allow students to bond with other members of their class.

 

Item

  • Every year Dartmouth freshman all gather in the woods outside of East Wheelock dormitory where they first listen to a member of their class talk about what Dartmouth values. After that, each student is given a lit candle and walks in a group towards Dartmouth campus. Every Dartmouth freshman participates in this ceremony and it really acts as the first initiation ritual while at the college.

Analysis

  • Initiation rituals consist of three stages: separation, transition, and incorporation. In this ritual, the separation stage occurs when the students leave the main campus and go to the woods outside of East Wheelock. Next, the transition stage happens when all the students are gathered in the woods listening to a member of their class speak. Finally, the incorporation stage occurs when all the students receive a candle and collectively walk back to campus.

 

Meaning and Interpretation

  • The candle light ceremony is a ritual that occurs each year during freshman orientation. The ritual acts as a way for students to be initiated into the Dartmouth community while also allowing students to meet their fellow classmates. The candle light ceremony is many Dartmouth students first memories on campus and the image of thousands of lit candles resonates with the entire student population.

 

Comparison

  • Comparison within the subgroup: In this sub-group, we focused on Dartmouth College social initiation rituals. One similarity between most of these rituals is that they are experienced by freshmen. A student’s freshman year is a time to 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 homecoming bonfire ritual. One difference within our subgroup is who initiates and runs 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 a few different rituals that initiate new members, whereas others only require one short ritual.
  • Comparison with the rest of the subgroups: The subgroups differ dramatically across the board. Some of the subgroups focus on various ethnic groups while others focus on groups within Dartmouth. The initiation rituals of the groups within Dartmouth usually have the purpose of welcoming new members into their community and are symbolic. Ethnic-based group rituals have the purpose of testing the new members. Additionally, ethnic groups’ initiation rituals tend to be related to religious practices. Initiation rituals of Dartmouth groups are not religious in character. What all groups have in common though is the fact that the process of initiation creates closeness with the rest of the group and makes one feel completely immersed into the group.

 

Transcript

  • Arvin Kumaran on how the candle light ceremony acted as an initiation ritual, “This was our first bonding experience and it is probably one of the few events where we’d all be at the same place at the same time.”

 

Collector: Reg Anderson, Dartmouth College, Russian 13, Professor Valentina Apresyan, Professor Mikhail Gronas, Fall 2018

Tags/Keywords

  • Dartmouth
  • Freshman class
  • Orientation
  • Initiation Ritual

Initiation into Dartmouth Social Spaces – Kappa Kappa Gamma Sorority

General Information about Item:

  • Initiation Ritual
  • Dartmouth College
  • Informant: Sarah Roberts
  • Date Collected: Fall 2016

Informant Data:                   

  • Sarah Roberts was born in Miami, FL in 1996. She has lived in Miami her entire life with her mother, father, two sisters, and brother. Today, she still lives with her family in Miami and is currently a senior at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH. At Dartmouth, Sarah is majoring in cognitive science and minoring in education. In the fall of 2016, Sarah’s sophomore year at Dartmouth, she rushed Kappa Kappa Gamma Sorority (KKG) and was initiated into the house as a new member. Sarah’s Grandmother, mother, and older sister are also all members of KKG since they joined the sorority when they were in college. In the spring of 2018, her junior year at Dartmouth, Sarah was elected as New Member Educator (NME) of KKG. When a new class is chosen in KKG, NME helps to initiate the women into the sorority. Sarah served as NME in the fall of 2018 when a new class of women became members of KKG.

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: KKG is a national sorority that was founded in October of 1870 as a women’s fraternity at Monmouth College. Since then, KKG sorority has expanded and currently has 143 chapters throughout the country. Although the chapters are very different, all of them must perform the same initiation ritual with new members.
  • Social Context: The Epsilon Chi chapter of KKG was founded at Dartmouth College in 1978. It was the second sorority at Dartmouth. Approximately fifty new members are taken every year from the sophomore class at Dartmouth—freshmen are not allowed to rush Greek houses.

 

Item:

  • The initiation ritual for new members in KKG lasts for about 6 weeks. The new members are required to go to a meeting hosted by their NME every week. In these meetings, the NME teaches the new members about the rules and values of the sorority and facilitates getting-to-know-you games. The NME also creates “Big-Little” pairs, where one older member of the sorority is paired with a new member and acts as the new member’s mentor. Finally, at the end of the initiation, there is a formal initiation ceremony that every chapter of KKG has been required to conduct with their new members since the sorority was founded. The new members of the sorority dress in white robes to symbolize new beginnings. The older members lead the new members in traditional songs about togetherness and sisterhood. Finally, the old members put a special KKG pin on the robes of the new members, marking the official initiation of the new members into the sorority.

Analysis: 

  • Initiation rituals consist of three stages: separation, transition, and incorporation. For this initiation ritual, separation occurs when the new class is chosen. The transition period occurs throughout the 6-week period when the women are learning about KKG but are not yet official members of the sorority. Finally, incorporation occurs after the official initiation ritual when the new members become permanent members of the sorority and are fully integrated into the house.

Meaning and interpretation: 

  • For members of KKG sorority, this initiation ritual is a very important part of joining the house. The ritual helps new members learn more about the house they joined and what their experience will be like as an active member for the next 3 years. In addition, the initiation period helps new members get to know other women in the house and to feel comfortable in their new social space. This ritual is taken very seriously by older members of the house and the NMEs.

Comparison:

  • Comparison within the subgroup:  In this sub-group, we focused on Dartmouth College social initiation rituals. One 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 homecoming bonfire ritual. One difference within our subgroup is who initiates and runs 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 a few different rituals that initiate new members, whereas others only require one short ritual.
  • Comparison with the rest of the subgroups: The subgroups differ dramatically across the board. Some of the subgroups focus on various ethnic groups while others focus on groups within Dartmouth. The initiation rituals of the groups within Dartmouth usually have the purpose of welcoming new members into their community and are symbolic. Ethnic-based group rituals have the purpose of testing the new members. Additionally, ethnic groups’ initiation rituals tend to be related to religious practices. Initiation rituals of Dartmouth groups are not religious in character. What all groups have in common though is the fact that the process of initiation creates closeness with the rest of the group and makes one feel completely immersed into the group.

Transcript: “One special thing (about initiation) is how much things open up immediately. Suddenly you have 100 upperclassman girls saying hi to you as soon as you join…they know your name and they know your face and I think that is really special”

Collector: Caroline Elliott, Dartmouth College, Russian 13, Professor Valentina Apresyan, Professor Mikhail Gronas, Fall 2018

Tags/Keywords:

  • Initiation
  • Ritual
  • Kappa Kappa Gamma Sorority
  • Freshman class
  • Dartmouth

Initiation into Dartmouth Social Spaces – Homecoming Bonfire (Original)

General Information about Item:

  • Initiation Ritual
  • Dartmouth College
  • Informant: Matthew Hayes
  • Date Collected: Fall 2015

Informant Data:                 

  • Matthew Hayes was born in Ealing, England in 1997. He lived there with his mother, father, sister, and brother until the year 2007 when they moved to Darien, CT in the United States. Matthew went to Darien public school until he started college at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH in the fall of 2015. Matthew is currently a senior at Dartmouth College majoring in mathematics and economics. As a freshman in 2015, Matthew Hayes participated in many of these first-year traditions, one of which was running around the bonfire during homecoming weekend.

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: Dartmouth College was founded in Hanover, NH on December 13, 1769, as an all-male private college. In the fall of 1972, 1000 women were enrolled into Dartmouth’s freshman class, making it the last Ivy League college to begin admitting women. As the ninth-oldest institution for higher education in the United States, Dartmouth College has many student traditions that have developed throughout the years. Many of these traditions revolve around integrating the freshman class into the Dartmouth community.
  • Social Context: Homecoming weekend is an event that happens every fall on campus when alumni of all ages are invited back to Dartmouth in order to commemorate the college and their class. The bonfire is a major event that all alumni and current Dartmouth students are encouraged to attend for the homecoming celebration.

 

Item:

  • Freshmen running laps around the homecoming bonfire is a very old tradition at Dartmouth. The homecoming bonfire is built to be approximately 2-stories tall with the numbers of the freshmen class’s graduation year at the top. On the Friday night of homecoming, the freshman class gathers as a huge group and marches around campus. When the bonfire is lit, the freshman class goes to the green where the bonfire is set up and begins to run around it. Upperclassmen and alumni stand on the outskirts of the bonfire and cheer for the freshmen as they complete their laps. Typically, the freshmen wear t-shirts with their graduation year on it to show support and pride for their class. The ritual serves as an initiation into the Dartmouth community for the freshmen running the laps. It is tradition to run around the bonfire as many times as the year one is graduating for good luck. However, as a new member of the Cords A Capella group, Matthew was encouraged to run around the bonfire 119 times—his class year plus one hundred. He completed his 119 laps with his classmates—most of which did not do 119—and symbolically became an integrated member of the Dartmouth community.

Analysis: 

  • Initiation rituals consist of three stages: separation, transition, and incorporation. During this initiation ritual, separation occurs when the freshman class isolates itself from the rest of the student body and comes together as a group to march around campus. The transition period occurs as the freshmen are running around the bonfire. Finally, the freshmen are incorporated back into the student body when the bonfire ends and the class disperses.

Meaning and interpretation: 

  • Running around the bonfire has been an initiation ritual at Dartmouth for over a century, and is, therefore, an important rite of passage that every Dartmouth student experiences. It is a chance for the freshman class to get attention and support from upperclassmen and alumni and to truly feel as though they are a part of the Dartmouth community. It is also a chance for the freshmen to come together as a group and to feel like a cohesive class.

Comparison:

  • Comparison within the subgroup:  In this subgroup, we focused on Dartmouth College social initiation rituals. One 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 homecoming bonfire ritual. One difference within our subgroup is who initiates and runs 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 a few different rituals that initiate new members, whereas others only require one short ritual.
  • Comparison with the rest of the subgroups: The subgroups differ dramatically across the board. Some of the subgroups focus on various ethnic groups while others focus on groups within Dartmouth. The initiation rituals of the groups within Dartmouth usually have the purpose of welcoming new members into their community and are symbolic. Ethnic-based group rituals have the purpose of testing the new members. Additionally, ethnic groups’ initiation rituals tend to be related to religious practices. Initiation rituals of Dartmouth groups are not religious in character. What all groups have in common though is the fact that the process of initiation creates closeness with the rest of the group and makes one feel completely immersed into the group.

Transcript: “Looking back on it (the bonfire), you are really able to see the significance it has. And even if you don’t realize it at the time, as you get older and look at the freshmen who are running it, you can definitely see that it is an important and cool part of homecoming”

Collector: Caroline Elliott, Dartmouth College, Russian 13, Professor Valentina Apresyan, Professor Mikhail Gronas, Fall 2018

Tags/Keywords:

  • Initiation
  • Ritual
  • Homecoming Bonfire
  • Freshman class
  • Dartmouth

Initiation into Dartmouth Social Spaces – Homecoming Bonfire (Post 2017)

General Information about Item:

  • Initiation Ritual
  • Dartmouth College
  • Informant: Wilson Hafner
  • Date Collected: Fall 2018

Informant Data:

  • Wilson Hafner was born on June 15, 2000. She grew up in Westport, CT with her mother, father, and four sisters. Wilson went to high school at The Taft School and started college at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH in the fall of 2018. Wilson is currently a freshman at Dartmouth and wants to study government and psychology. In the fall of 2018, Wilson participated in the homecoming tradition of the homecoming bonfire.

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: Dartmouth College was founded in Hanover, NH on December 13, 1769, as an all-male private college. In the fall of 1972, 1000 women were enrolled into Dartmouth’s freshman class, making it the last Ivy League college to begin admitting women. As the ninth-oldest institution for higher education in the United States, Dartmouth College has many student traditions that have developed throughout the years. Many of these traditions revolve around integrating the freshman class into the Dartmouth community, such as the homecoming bonfire.
  • Social Context: Homecoming weekend is an event that happens every fall on campus when alumni of all ages are invited back to Dartmouth in order to commemorate the college and their class. The bonfire is a major event that all alumni and current Dartmouth students are encouraged to attend for the homecoming celebration.

 

Item:

  • Traditionally, the homecoming bonfire is built to be approximately 2-stories tall with the numbers of the freshmen class’s graduation year at the top. On the Friday night of homecoming, the freshman class gathers as a huge group and marches around campus. When the bonfire is lit, the freshman class goes to the green where the bonfire is set up and begins to run around it. Upperclassmen and alumni stand on the outskirts of the bonfire and cheer for the freshmen as they run their laps. Freshmen wear t-shirts with their graduation year on it to show support and pride for their class. It is also a tradition to run around the bonfire as many times as the year one is graduating. However, in 2018, the tradition changed because the college administration got increasingly worried about freshmen students attempting to touch the bonfire. In the past, some students thought it was “funny” or “exciting” to break from the pack of freshman running laps and try to touch the fire. To prevent this hazard, the administration changed the bonfire tradition so that the bonfire was slightly smaller, there was tall fencing around the bonfire, the freshmen were forced to walk instead of run around the fire, and they could only do one lap. Wilson and her class obeyed these new rules and walked one lap around the bonfire in the fall of 2018.

 

Analysis: 

  • Initiation rituals consist of three stages: separation, transition, and incorporation. In accordance with the old tradition, the separation stage of this initiation ritual still occurs when the freshman class isolates itself from the rest of the student body and comes together as a group to march around campus. The transition stage occurs when the freshmen walk one lap around the bonfire—signifying their integration into the Dartmouth community. Finally, the freshmen are incorporated back into the student body after they finish their one lap, and the freshman class disperses.

Meaning and interpretation: 

  • Running around the bonfire has been an initiation ritual at Dartmouth for over a century. Although some of the recent changes in the ritual—such as being forced to walk—might make the ritual less exciting, it is still an important rite of passage that every Dartmouth student experiences. It is a chance for the freshman class to get attention and support from upperclassmen and alumni and to truly feel as though they are a part of the Dartmouth community. It is also a chance for the class to come together as a group and to feel cohesive.

Comparison:

  • Comparison within the subgroup: In this subgroup, we focused on Dartmouth College social initiation rituals. One 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 homecoming bonfire ritual. One difference within our subgroup is who initiates and runs 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 a few different rituals that initiate new members, whereas others only require one short ritual.
  • Comparison with the rest of the subgroups: The subgroups differ dramatically across the board. Some of the subgroups focus on various ethnic groups while others focus on groups within Dartmouth. The initiation rituals of the groups within Dartmouth usually have the purpose of welcoming new members into their community and are symbolic. Ethnic-based group rituals have the purpose of testing the new members. Additionally, ethnic groups’ initiation rituals tend to be related to religious practices. Initiation rituals of Dartmouth groups are not religious in character. What all groups have in common though is the fact that the process of initiation creates closeness with the rest of the group and makes one feel completely immersed into the group.

Transcript: Wilson Hafner on the changes in the ritual: “We were hearing so many different things about the controversy surrounding (the bonfire). I think once it becomes more normal after a few years go by, it won’t be as weird. I do still think it is a very important event”

Collector: Caroline Elliott, Dartmouth College, Russian 13, Professor Valentina Apresyan, Professor Mikhail Gronas, Fall 2018

Tags/Keywords:

  • Initiation
  • Ritual
  • Homecoming Bonfire
  • Freshman class
  • Dartmouth