Freshman Traditions
“The Frat Ban”

W.H. Raymond, New Hampshire Fall 2015

Informant Data:

WH was born in Raymond, New Hampshire in April of 1997, where he grew up and attended high school. WH is a member of the Class of 2019, the 250th graduating class at Dartmouth. At Dartmouth, he studies as an Engineering major modified with Economics. Outside of studies, WH enjoys running, playing sports, and spending time with his friends. He intends to complete his B.E. in a fifth year at the Thayer School of Engineering and then pursue a career in that field.

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:

While the Dartmouth College social scene is largely driven by its vibrant Greek life, first year students are prohibited from attending fraternity parties until the end of Homecoming Weekend. Accordingly, many freshman feel somewhat isolated from the rest of campus for the beginning of their college experiences. Nonetheless, the so-called “frat ban” also offers an opportunity to bond with one’s fellow class and get to know people outside of the chaotic fraternity environment. It also places more of an emphasis on gaining a solid academic and extracurricular foundation before partaking in Greek life. Certain traditions, both particular to social groups within the freshman class and Dartmouth at-large, are also cultivated by word of mouth throughout this period.

 

Transcript:

SG: How would you describe your introduction to Dartmouth?

WH: I really liked it. Trips was pretty good, and then I had a really solid freshman floor.

SG: Would you say that your freshman floor was the main sense of community that fall?

WH: Yeah for the most part, especially because of the Frat Ban.

SG: Could you expand on that a bit?

WH: Well, because we weren’t really able to go out yet, we had to form our own social scene. We used to go to different people’s rooms every on-night to hang out and play drinking games. It was much better after Homecoming when we were finally allowed to go out with the rest of campus, but that was definitely the time that I made my first friends here.

SG: Did you feel at all isolated because of the frat ban?

WH: A bit, but it was also a good way to meet a bunch of people from our class, because we would all wander around looking for a good dorm party and find new people. It also made it so the different Dartmouth traditions seemed even cooler. I remember anyone who tried to set up a pong table in their room would seem like they were really in with the Dartmouth scene.

Collectors Comments: 

WH’s description of the freshman fall social scene highlights some of the key aspects of Dartmouth as a whole and the freshman class as a particular folk. The Frat Ban is largely defined by what students are not allowed to do, i.e. attend fraternity parties. As a result, many of the traditions and customs of that particular period emerge informally by word of mouth, as opposed to from the school’s “official culture.” At the same time, the Dartmouth values of socializing as a group, taking part in long-standing traditions, and finding time for fun amidst rigorous studies still persist throughout this time in a Dartmouth student’s experience.

Sam Gordon Dartmouth College Russian 13 Spring 2019