This article concerns the traditions of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. Dartmouth's website counts the College's "special traditions" among its "essential elements",^[1] and in his inauguration address, current College president James W. Wright said that the school is "a place that is marked by strong traditions".^[2] Some of these traditions remain supported by the administration, while others are officially discouraged. Download high resolution version (640x834, 52 KB)Description: Photograph of Baker Building at Dartmouth College Source: Photograph taken by Jared C. Benedict on 17 June 2004. ... Dartmouth College is a private academic institution in Hanover, New Hampshire, in the United States. ... Hanover is a town located on the Connecticut River in Grafton County, New Hampshire, United States. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... James Wright is the 16th President of Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, and has served in this position since 1998. ...

Weekends

Dartmouth functions on a quarter system, and one weekend each term is set aside as a traditional celebratory event, known on campus as "big weekends"^[3][4] or "party weekends".^[5] In the fall, winter, spring, and summer respectively, these weekends are Homecoming (officially Dartmouth Night Weekend), Winter Carnival, Green Key, and Tubestock,^[6] the last of which has been canceled indefinitely and was replaced in 2006 by an event called Fieldstock. An academic term is a division of an academic year, the time during which a school, college or university holds classes. ...

Homecoming and Dartmouth Night

The Class of 2009's bonfire on the afternoon before Dartmouth Night.

Dartmouth Night starts the college's traditional "Homecoming" weekend with an evening of speeches, a parade, and a bonfire. Traditionally, the freshman class builds the bonfire and then runs around it a set number of times in concordance with their class year; the class of 2009 performed 109 circuits, the class of 1999 performed 99, etc. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (1544x2080, 1044 KB) Summary Dartmouth Colleges fall 2005 bonfire. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (1544x2080, 1044 KB) Summary Dartmouth Colleges fall 2005 bonfire. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

The College officially discourages a number of student traditions of varying degrees of antiquity. During the circling of the bonfire, upperclasmen students encourage the freshmen to "touch the fire", an action legally considered trespassing and prohibited by police officials present.^[7][8][9] At halftime of the Homecoming football game on the Saturday of the weekend, some upperclassmen encourage freshman to "rush the field", although no upperclassman has seen a significant rush since several injuries sustained during the 1986 rush prompted the school to ban the practice.^[10][11] Among the two or three students who sometimes run across the field, those who are arrested are charged with trespassing (the conservative newspaper The Dartmouth Review occasionally has offered to pay any fines associated with freshman who rush the field.^[12]) The Dartmouth Review is a conservative, independent, bi-weekly newspaper at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire (U.S.). Founded in 1980 by disenchanted staffers from the colleges daily newspaper —The Dartmouth— it spawned a movement of similar right-wing independent newspapers on college campuses, and has been at...

History

President William Jewett Tucker introduced the ceremony of Dartmouth Night in 1895. The evening of speeches celebrated the accomplishments of the college's alumni. Originally the event took place in the Old Chapel in Dartmouth Hall, and it moved outdoors within about fifteen years. William Jewett Tucker served as the 9th President of Dartmouth College, 1893-1909. ...

Bonfire at the 2004 Dartmouth Night. The "08" stands for the Class of 2008, the freshman class that year

The focus of Dartmouth Night is the bonfire. Students had built bonfires during the late nineteenth century to celebrate sports victories, including one in 1888 that recognized a baseball victory over Manchester. An editorial in The Dartmouth criticized that fire, saying, "It disturbed the slumbers of a peaceful town, destroyed some property, made the boys feel that they were being men, and in fact did no one any good."^[13] Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (1200x1600, 539 KB) Summary Bonfire at the 2004 Dartmouth bonfire. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (1200x1600, 539 KB) Summary Bonfire at the 2004 Dartmouth bonfire. ... The Dartmouth (informally known as The D) is Americas oldest college newspaper, published independently at Dartmouth College (although its offices are located on campus). ...

By the mid-twentieth century, Dartmouth Night was set to coincide with one of the several annual bonfires, and that pairing helped preserve the one bonfire that now remains.

In 1904, the Earl of Dartmouth visited the campus on Dartmouth Night with New Hampshire politician and author Winston Churchill and marched around the Green with the students. Early on, the tradition of reading out telegrams (later e-mail messages) sent that night from alumni clubs around the country began. The title of Earl of Dartmouth was created in the Peerage of Great Britain in 1711 for William Legge, 2nd Baron Dartmouth, who was then Secretary of State for the Southern Department. ... Winston Churchill (November 10, 1871-March 12, 1947) was an American novelist. ...

Football first began to be associated with Dartmouth Night during the 1920s. Memorial Field was dedicated on Dartmouth Night in 1923. For decades the raucous pre-football rallies remained separate from the dignified official activities. In 1936, the College first began the tradition of football games during this weekend; ten years later the formal College events and the rally were combined in a single grand event, and for the first time Dartmouth Night was intentionally scheduled on what is called Dartmouth Night Weekend.

During the 1950s, students adopted a star-hexagon-square structure for the bonfire. Following the bonfire accident at Texas A&M in 1999, the school hired professionals to do some of the building; nevertheless the night still remains a highlight of the school year. The Aggie Bonfire was a long-lasting tradition begun in 1909 at Texas A&M University until an accident in 1999 that killed twelve students. ... Texas A&M University, often called A&M or TAMU for short, is a public, coeducational, research university located in College Station, Texas, USA. It is the flagship[3] institution of the Texas A&M University System. ...

Winter Carnival

Snow Sculpture at the 2004 Dartmouth Winter Carnival.

Winter Carnival is a long-standing tradition at Dartmouth College that was particularly famous during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. Download high resolution version (2048x3072, 1718 KB)Snow Sculpture at the 2004 Dartmouth Winter Carnival. ... Download high resolution version (2048x3072, 1718 KB)Snow Sculpture at the 2004 Dartmouth Winter Carnival. ...

The Dartmouth Outing Club, founded in 1909, organized a winter weekend "field day" in 1910. This was an athletic event centered on skiing, a sport which the Outing Club helped to pioneer and publicize on a national scale. In 1911, the event was named Winter Carnival, social events were added, and women were invited to attend. By 1919 the emphasis had shifted to dances organized by fraternities. Special trains made runs to transport women guests to Dartmouth, and National Geographic Magazine referred to it as "the Mardi Gras of the North". The event became famous, much as Spring Break in Fort Lauderdale was to be during the 1950s and 1960s. The Dartmouth Outing Club (DOC) is the oldest and largest collegiate outing club in the United States. ...

Carnival was the subject of the frothy 1939 motion picture comedy Winter Carnival, starring Ann Sheridan, who plays a former Winter Carnival Queen of the Snows who has made a bad marriage to a European duke and revisits Dartmouth in an attempt to save her younger sister, the current Queen, from repeating her mistake with a European count. Sheridan from Angels with Dirty Faces Ann Sheridan (February 21, 1915 – January 21, 1967) was an American film actress. ...

The movie is remembered mostly for its extracinematic associations; F. Scott Fitzgerald and Dartmouth alumnus Budd Schulberg were hired to write the screenplay. While gathering background in Hanover during Carnival, Fitzgerald became scandalously drunk at fraternities and was forced to leave the project. Although portions of his work were used, he was not given a writer's credit. The events and personalities bear a resemblance to those recounted in Schulberg's novel, The Disenchanted. Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an Irish American Jazz Age novelist and short story writer. ... Picture of writer Budd Schulberg (born March 27, 1914 in New York City, New York) is an American screenwriter and novelist. ...

Winter Carnival takes place each year on a weekend in February and include such events as ski competitions at the Dartmouth Skiway; a polar bear swim; a cappella and jazz concerts; a human dogsled race; a drag ball; and a showing of the 1939 movie. Students build a large Carnival-themed snow sculpture on the college Green. The 1987 sculpture held the Guinness record for the "tallest snowman". The sculpture in 2004 reflected the famous character The Cat in the Hat, in honor of the 100th birthday of Dartmouth alumnus and creator of the character, Dr. Seuss. The Dartmouth Skiway is located about twenty minutes north of Dartmouth College in Lyme, New Hampshire. ... A cappella music is vocal music or singing without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. ... Snow sculpture is a sculpture form comparable to ice sculpture in that most of it is now practiced outdoors, and often in full view of spectators, thus giving it kinship to performance art in the eyes of some. ... Suresh Joachim, minutes away from breaking the ironing world record at 55 hours and 5 minutes, at Shoppers World, Brampton. ... The Cat in the Hat is a fictional cat created by Dr. Seuss. ...

Numerous parties are thrown by the campus's fraternities and sororities. In 1999, students cancelled their parties to protest other administration policies. In 2000, Psi Upsilon fraternity cancelled its annual "Keg Jump" event, marking the end of a 19-year tradition in which brothers attempted to jump over a line of kegs on ice skates.^[14][15]

Green Key Weekend

Green Key Weekend was originally a junior promenade dance prepared by the Green Key Society, a junior service organization that plays various roles in Homecoming, Orientation, and Commencement. However, today, the Society "plays a minor role in the weekend of traditions and debauchery".^[16] Unlike Homecoming and Winter Carnival, weekends which "have fairly clear purposes", Green Key has been described as "[having] no point";^[3] The Dartmouth Review describes Green Key as a weekend "devoted to little more than revelry, partying, and hanging out".^[17] The three-day weekend is marked by an annual block party at Phi Delta Alpha fraternity and a lawn party at Alpha Delta fraternity.^[18] Αlpha Chi Αlpha, 2005. ... Αlpha Chi Αlpha, 2005. ...

A number of traditions associated with Green Key Weekend have disappeared over the years. During the 1960s, a trend out "outdoor sleep" was adopted, in which students would sleep on the golf course with their dates, leading to 69 arrests one year.^[19] This tradition was ended by police and College officials in 1965. Other traditions ending in the 1960s include the "Wetdown", in which newly-elected members of the student government were beaten with belts as they ran through a gantlet spread across the Green. The increasing violence of this tradition caused it to be replaced with the "infamous" chariot race. According to The Dartmouth:

The tradition of the chariot race was ended in 1984.

Tubestock and Fieldstock

Tubestock was an unofficial tradition, never endorsed by the College, that occurred each summer for about two decades prior to 2006, when it was canceled due to new town and state laws. Typical of the other weekends, Tubestock was "a weekend of big drinking";^[6] in this tradition, students built wooden rafts and used rubber inner tubes to float down the Connecticut River.^[21] A unique element in Tubestock is that it is usually only sophomores who are present in Hanover for classes over the summer (due to the scheduling plan known as the D-Plan that sophomore summer be spent in Hanover). The Connecticut River as seen from the French King Bridge in western Massachusetts. ...

In March 2006, the Town of Hanover prepared to enforce its requirement that any event on the Connecticut River present a permit. In the past, Tubestock has technically been illegal, but since no entity officially sanctioned the event, no one could be held responsible; under the proposed legislation, individuals participating could be arrested for illegally congregating on a state waterway.^[22] The Dartmouth Editorial Board quickly condemned the action and cited the rapid formation of "Save Tubestock" student committees.^[23]

The Dartmouth reported on July 11, 2006 that a final town meeting had permanently put an end to Tubestock for those who did not wish to be arrested.^[24] Students organized an alternative event called "Fieldstock" to preserve "a class-unifying event and maybe even start it as a new tradition."^[25] July 11 is the 192nd day (193rd in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 173 days remaining. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ...

Freshman Trips

Established in 1935 to promote interest in the Dartmouth Outing Club, the tradition of freshman outing trips is among the largest pre-orientation programs in the country, involving almost 90 percent of students in each incoming class. The Trips evolved since their inception, becoming steadily more popular and intricate. During the 1960s, under the support of Dartmouth President John Sloan Dickey, the College renovated the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge, made the Lodge the final destination for all Trips, and brought participation up to two-thirds of the incoming class. The Dartmouth Outing Club (DOC) is the oldest and largest collegiate outing club in the United States. ... John Sloan Dickey (4 November 1907 – 9 February 1991) was an American diplomat, scholar, and intellectual. ... Moosilauke Ravine Lodge is a cabin complex on the side of Mount Moosilauke. ...

Today, the Trips take place in the two weeks prior to the standard orientation week, and involve a three-night, four-day trip of hiking, cycling, kayaking, or even nature photography, culminating in a tradition-filled night spent at the College-owned Moosilauke Ravine Lodge. Run almost entirely by current students, these trips feature Crews on campus and at the Lodge who, dressed in eccentric clothing, teach many of the traditional College dances, songs, and legends. Around eight incoming students are led by two current students on their trip. The trips are designed to welcome the incoming freshmen to the College and to introduce them to various campus traditions. Up to one-third of the eligible current students apply to either lead trips or to serve on the Hanover or Lodge crews. Two hikers in the Mount Hood National Forest Eagle Creek hiking Hiking is a form of walking, undertaken with the specific purpose of exploring and enjoying the scenery. ... Police officer on a bicycle Cycling is a recreation, a sport and a means of transport across land. ... Kayaking is the use of a kayak for moving across water. ... HAHA, Ive deleted all KISS MY ASS>< ...

Among the traditions taught to students on the freshman trips are the singing of the "Alma Mater" and the dancing of the "Salty Dog Rag" to a song of the same name by Red Foley (mp3). While at the Ravine Lodge, students eat green eggs and ham in honor of alumnus Dr. Seuss, class of 1925.^[26] Men of Dartmouth, written by Richard Hovey (class of 1885), was the alma mater of Dartmouth College. ... Clyde Julian Red Foley ( June 17, 1910 - September 19, 1968) was a country music singer. ... Green Eggs and Ham (ISBN 0-394-80016-8) is a childrens book by Dr. Seuss. ... Theodor Seuss Geisel (March 2, 1904 – September 24, 1991) was a famous American writer and cartoonist best known for his classic childrens books under the pen name Dr. Seuss, including The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. ...

Commencement

Dartmouth's annual Commencement or graduation ceremony is its oldest tradition, dating to 1771. It has been held in some form each year since then, which makes it the oldest continuously-held commencement in the U.S. (the six institutions that have held more such ceremonies all were disrupted during the American Revolution). Except for a rare move to a rain location and the period from about 1932 to 1952, when Commencement took place in the Bema, the ceremony has always been held on the Green or in one of the spaces adjacent to it. See also Academic dress Categories: Education | Academia ... John Trumbulls Declaration of Independence, showing the five-man committee in charge of drafting the Declaration in 1776 as it presents its work to the Second Continental Congress The American Revolution refers to the period during the last half of the 18th century in which the Thirteen Colonies that...

Commencement begins with the Class of 1879 Trumpeters playing fanfares from Baker Tower. Then the bells begin to ring. The graduating class walks in a procession up East Wheelock Street to the Green, where for more than 100 years they have formed a gantlet through which the faculty pass on their way to the front of the ceremony. A faculty member brings the Dartmouth Cup, a large piece of eighteenth-century silver given by Lord Dartmouth in 1969. The 50th Reunion Class is honored, and each student crosses the temporary dignitaries' platform (modeled directly on the concrete platform and temporary awning built at the end of the Bema) at the reading of his or her name to receive a diploma.

Class Day

The day before Commencement, the seniors walk in procession to the Bema, a natural amphitheater in College Park. After a humorous history of the class and other speeches, the class walks up the hill to the stump of the Old Pine, where they hold a farewell ceremony. Students began conducting such ceremonies at the Old Pine in the 1830s, according to alumni of that period. For more than 140 years, the ceremony included the smoking of what were designated "peace pipes"; the offensiveness of the practice of smashing the pipes on the pine, introduced in the 1880s, caused the seniors to omit the smoking element in the early 1990s.

Dartmouth Pow-Wow

The Dartmouth Pow-Wow.

The Dartmouth Pow-Wow has been an annual spring celebration since 1973, organized by the student group Native Americans at Dartmouth. The two-day ceremony is marked by traditional dancing, crafts, music and art.^[27] The Pow-Wow draws 1,500 people to Hanover each year, and is the second largest event of its kind in the Northeast.^[28] Image File history File links Dartmouth_Pow-Wow. ... Image File history File links Dartmouth_Pow-Wow. ... This article is about a Native American gathering. ...

The Green

Although many of the traditions involving the Green have faded, some remain. Among these are some of the sacredness of the "Senior Fence" and the annual Christmas Tree placed in the center of the Green.

Part of the first parcel of land owned by Dartmouth College, the Green was originally a dense forest of tall trees. President Eleazar Wheelock ordered that most of these trees be chopped down, which they were over the course of two years, but stumps were not removed. For sixty years following, it was a tradition that the senior class would remove one stump from the Green.^[29] The Reverend Eleazar Wheelock (April 22, 1711 – April 24, 1779) was an American Congregational minister, orator, educator, and founder of Dartmouth College. ...

Senior Fence

During the early 19th century, townspeople grazed cattle on the Green, although it was owned by the College. To protest the townspeople's failure to remove their cattle at night, students regularly would herd the animals into the basement of Dartmouth Hall and hold them hostage. Not until 1836, when the school and some individual citizens funded a fence, did anyone have a sure means of keeping cattle off the Green. The removal of the fence in 1893 prompted students to request that a portion of it be left as a "Senior Fence." Underclassmen were prohibited from sitting on it, with consequences that might include being dumped in a water trough or otherwise humiliated. Over Green Key Weekend, the seniors would pass on their rights to the Fence to the junior class.^[30] In 2003 the fence was relocated from two paralell sections of fence on the east side of the Green to its current location at the southwest corner. The administration decided to use the fence in this way in order to prevent students from cutting across the corner of the Green and wearing away the grass. Although the humiliation of undergraduates is no longer enforced, the fence is still held in some regard by the senior class.^[31][32]

Streaking

At Dartmouth, there are a variety of traditions and practices associated with streaking, described by one campus newspaper as "virtual prerequisites for graduating from the College" and "an essential part of the whole experience".^[33] A participant of the Bay to Breakers. ...

The first known occurrence of streaking occurred in 1924 or 1931 (varying accounts have been published) and was performed by a non-Dartmouth student named Lulu Mcwoosh, who rode a bicycle nude around the campus before church services, causing the annual Green Key Weekend to be canceled.^[33][19][34] "Midnight Golf", another Green Key tradition, involved nude golf games with visiting females prior to coeducation.^[35] During his Commencement address to the Dartmouth class of 2004, Jeffrey R. Immelt '78 admitted to stealing a Christmas tree from the Hanover Inn while streaking in 1974,^[36] and in 1993, the varsity cross-country team was reprimanded for streaking across the Green on a Friday afternoon.^[33] More recently, Sigma Delta sorority has been credited with starting a streaking club,^[37] formalizing a practice in the Greek house that was already "notorious for its streaking activities".^[33]. Various other formal or informal streaking groups are occasionally formed as friends decide to organize their practice.^[38] Jeffrey R. Immelt (born February 19, 1956, Cincinnati, OH) is the current chairman of the board and chief executive officer of General Electric. ... This article lacks information on the importance of the subject matter. ...

Legality

In the state of New Hampshire, one is guilty of a public indecency misdemeanor if one "exposes his or her genitals...under circumstances which he or she should know will likely cause affront or alarm",^[39] rendering streaking illegal.^[40] However, Vermont prohibits only "open and gross lewdness and lascivious behavior"^[41], meaning that conventional streaking is entirely legal.^[33] This difference in legality complicates streaking events such as the Ledyard Challenge. This article does not cite its references or sources. ... Official language(s) None[1] Capital Montpelier Largest city Burlington Area  Ranked 45th  - Total 9,620 sq mi (24,923 km²)  - Width 80 miles (130 km)  - Length 160 miles (260 km)  - % water 3. ...

Ledyard Challenge

The Ledyard Challenge is a streaking event in which students attempt to swim from the Ledyard Canoe Club on the New Hampshire banks of the Connecticut River to the Vermont side, and return by running naked to the same spot via the Ledyard Bridge.^[42] According to The Dartmouth, this practice is "an age-old tradition"^[38] and "no small number of students has done it".^[43] The Connecticut River as seen from the French King Bridge in western Massachusetts. ... The Dartmouth (informally known as The D) is Americas oldest college newspaper, published independently at Dartmouth College (although its offices are located on campus). ...

According to the Valley News, the tradition of the Ledyard Challenge began as follows:

As the legend goes, portrayed in a 1998 Ledyard Canoe Club newsletter, the Ledyard Challenge began under a full moon in the early 1990s, when four students swam naked across the Connecticut River. The students scurried back across the bridge and toward their clubhouse, but campus police caught two of them before they reached the safety of their clothes.^[40]

On August 12, 2005, a Bulgarian exchange student from Trinity College at the Tuck School of Business named Valentin Valkov drowned in the Connecticut River, presumably attempting the Ledyard Challenge.^[44][42] August 12 is the 224th day of the year (225th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Trinity College at Hartford, Connecticut Trinity College is a private liberal arts college in Hartford, Connecticut. ... The Amos Tuck School of Business Administration was founded in 1900 at Dartmouth College, in Hanover, New Hampshire and the oldest graduate school of business in the world. ...

Blue Light Challenge

The Blue Light Challenge is another streaking tradition in which students strip and run around campus, pressing the emergency button on all of the campus's thirty-one Code Blue phones while attempting to evade campus security.^[43][45]

Miscellaneous

• Students rub the nose of a statue of Warner Bentley for good luck.^[46][47] It has been speculated that this tradition grew from an older tradition in which students rubbed the nose of a bust of Craven Laylock, an 1896 graduate.^[48]
• Students throw tennis balls on the rink after the first Dartmouth goal in ice hockey competitions with Princeton University.^[49][47][50] In an effort to discourage this tradition, Safety & Security officials frisk students entering the game, and the ECAC hockey league assesses a two-minute minor penalty to the home team if balls are thrown.^[51]
• The "Dartmouth Seven" is a list of seven public campus locations at which some students endeavor to have sex before graduating. Though sometimes disputed, these locations are: 1) the Green 2) the BEMA 3) the Stacks 4) the Football Field 5) the President's Lawn 6) Dartmouth Hall 7) the Top of the Hop (some people say the 7th is actually the graveyard)^[43][52]

A Wilson tennis ball. ... Ice hockey, known simply as hockey in areas where it is more common than field hockey, is a team sport played on ice. ... Princeton University is a coeducational private university located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States of America. ...

References