Dartmouth College traditions
Encyclopedia
The traditions of Dartmouth College
, an American Ivy League college in Hanover
, New Hampshire
, are deeply entrenched in the student life of the institution and are well-known nationally. Dartmouth's website counts the College's "special traditions" among its "essential elements", and in his inauguration address, former College president James E. Wright
said that the school is "a place that is marked by strong traditions". Some of these traditions remain supported by the administration, while others are officially discouraged.
, and one weekend each term is set aside as a traditional celebratory event, known on campus as "big weekends" or "party weekends". In the fall, winter, spring, and summer respectively, these weekends are Homecoming (officially Dartmouth Night Weekend), Winter Carnival, Green Key, and Tubestock, the last of which has been canceled indefinitely and was replaced in 2006 by an event called Fieldstock.
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.
The College officially discourages a number of student traditions of varying degrees of antiquity. During the circling of the bonfire, upperclassmen encourage the freshmen to "touch the fire", an action legally considered trespassing and prohibited by police officials present. 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. Among the two or three students who sometimes run across the field, those who are arrested are charged with trespassing (the independent newspaper The Dartmouth Review
has set up a fund to automatically pay any fines associated with freshman who rush the field.) For the 2011 Homecoming game, however, over 40 members of the Class of 2015 rushed the field at homecoming without any action taken by Safety and Security or the Hanover Police Department.
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.
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."
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.
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. Through at least the late 1980s, it was a tradition for the number of tiers to equal the year of the first-year class, i.e., in 1985 the first-year class was the Class of 1988, and the bonfire was 88 tiers high. On or about the bonfire of the Class of 1990 the College put a cap on the height of the bonfire, as the increasingly tall structure was increasingly dangerous, and 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.
Winter Carnival is a long-standing tradition at Dartmouth College that was particularly famous during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s.
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.
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.
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.
Winter Carnival takes place each year on a weekend in February and include such events as ski competitions at the Dartmouth Skiway
and Oak Hill Ski Center; 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.
Numerous parties are thrown by the campus's fraternities and sororities, including the Alpha Chi Alpha
Beach Party, which has been held since 1975. In 1999, students cancelled their parties to protest other administration policies. In 2000, Psi Upsilon fraternity was forced by the Administration to ban 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.
A List of Carnival Themes Over the Years:
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". Unlike Homecoming and Winter Carnival, weekends which "have fairly clear purposes", Green Key has been described as "[having] no point"; The Dartmouth Review describes Green Key as a weekend "devoted to little more than revelry, partying, and hanging out". The three-day weekend is marked by an annual block party at Phi Delta Alpha fraternity and a lawn party at Alpha Delta fraternity.
A number of traditions associated with Green Key Weekend have disappeared over the years. During the 1960s, a trend of "outdoor sleep" was adopted, in which students would sleep on the golf course with their dates, leading to 69 arrests one year. 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 gauntlet 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 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"; in this tradition, students built wooden rafts and used rubber inner tubes to float down the Connecticut River
. 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, which requires that sophomore summer be spent in Hanover).
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. The Dartmouth Editorial Board quickly condemned the action and cited the rapid formation of "Save Tubestock" student committees.
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. Students organized an alternative event called "Fieldstock" to preserve "a class-unifying event and maybe even start it as a new tradition."
, DOC Trips is one of the largest pre-orientation programs in the country, involving over 90 percent of students in each incoming class. "Trips" has evolved significantly since its creation, 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.
Today, Trips takes place in the two weeks prior to the standard orientation week, and involves a three-night, four-day trip of hiking
, kayaking
, canoeing
, biking, rock climbing
, organic farming, or nature photography
, culminating in a tradition-filled night spent at the College-owned Moosilauke Ravine Lodge. Run entirely by current students, these trips feature crews on campus and at the Lodge who welcome the incoming students and teach many of the traditional College dances, songs, and legends. Between six and ten incoming students are led by two current students on their trip. Trips is designed to welcome the incoming students to the College and to introduce them to various campus traditions. Up to one-third of the eligible current students apply to be a trip leader or a support crew.
The DOC Trips program incorporates many traditions, including 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). The dance is believed to originate from The Putney School
, and is also performed at the YMCA Sandy Island Camp in Lake Winnipesaukee
.
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.
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 dignitaries' platform at the reading of his or her name to receive a diploma.
has been an annual spring celebration since 1973, organized by the student group Native Americans at Dartmouth. The two-day gathering is marked by traditional dancing, crafts, music and art. The Pow-Wow draws 1,500 people to Hanover each year, and is the second largest event of its kind in the Northeast.
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.
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. In 2003 the fence was relocated from two parallel 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.
, described by one campus newspaper as "virtual prerequisites for graduating from the College" and "an essential part of the whole experience".
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. "Midnight Golf", another Green Key tradition, involved nude golf games with visiting females prior to coeducation. 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, and in 1993, the varsity cross-country team was reprimanded for streaking across the Green on a Friday afternoon. More recently, Sigma Delta
sorority has been credited with starting a streaking club, formalizing a practice in the Greek house that was already "notorious for its streaking activities".. Various other formal or informal streaking groups are occasionally formed as friends decide to organize their practice.
, 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", rendering streaking illegal. However, Vermont
prohibits only "open and gross lewdness and lascivious behavior", meaning that conventional streaking is entirely legal. This difference in legality complicates streaking events such as the Ledyard Challenge, which has components in both states.
to the Vermont side, and return by running naked to the same spot via the Ledyard Bridge
. According to The Dartmouth
, this practice is "an age-old tradition" and "no small number of students has done it".
According to the Valley News, the tradition of the Ledyard Challenge began as follows:
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.
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.
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
, an American Ivy League college in Hanover
Hanover, New Hampshire
Hanover is a town along the Connecticut River in Grafton County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 11,260 at the 2010 census. CNN and Money magazine rated Hanover the sixth best place to live in America in 2011, and the second best in 2007....
, New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
, are deeply entrenched in the student life of the institution and are well-known nationally. Dartmouth's website counts the College's "special traditions" among its "essential elements", and in his inauguration address, former College president James E. Wright
James Wright (historian)
James Edward Wright is a historian who serves on the faculty of Dartmouth College, an Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, from 1969 to present, and was that institution's president from 1998 to 2009.- Works :...
said that the school is "a place that is marked by strong traditions". Some of these traditions remain supported by the administration, while others are officially discouraged.
Weekends
Dartmouth functions on a quarter systemAcademic term
An academic term is a division of an academic year, the time during which a school, college or university holds classes. These divisions may be called terms...
, and one weekend each term is set aside as a traditional celebratory event, known on campus as "big weekends" or "party weekends". In the fall, winter, spring, and summer respectively, these weekends are Homecoming (officially Dartmouth Night Weekend), Winter Carnival, Green Key, and Tubestock, the last of which has been canceled indefinitely and was replaced in 2006 by an event called Fieldstock.
Homecoming and Dartmouth Night
Homecoming
Homecoming is the tradition of welcoming back alumni of a school. It most commonly refers to a tradition in many universities, colleges and high schools in North America...
" 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.
The College officially discourages a number of student traditions of varying degrees of antiquity. During the circling of the bonfire, upperclassmen encourage the freshmen to "touch the fire", an action legally considered trespassing and prohibited by police officials present. 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. Among the two or three students who sometimes run across the field, those who are arrested are charged with trespassing (the independent newspaper The Dartmouth Review
The Dartmouth Review
The Dartmouth Review is a conservative, independent, bi-weekly newspaper at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire . It was founded in 1980 by disenchanted staffers—including Gregory Fossedal, Gordon Haff, Ben Hart, and Keeney Jones—from the college's daily newspaper, The Dartmouth. It...
has set up a fund to automatically pay any fines associated with freshman who rush the field.) For the 2011 Homecoming game, however, over 40 members of the Class of 2015 rushed the field at homecoming without any action taken by Safety and Security or the Hanover Police Department.
History
President William Jewett TuckerWilliam Jewett Tucker
The Rev. William Jewett Tucker served as the 9th President of Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, United States, from 1893 to 1909.- Dartmouth presidency :...
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.
The Dartmouth
The Dartmouth is the daily student newspaper at Dartmouth College. Founded in 1799, it is America's oldest college newspaper. It is published by The Dartmouth, Inc., an independent, nonprofit corporation chartered in the state of New Hampshire.-History:...
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."
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
Earl of Dartmouth
Earl of Dartmouth is a title in the Peerage of Great Britain. It was created in 1711 for William Legge, 2nd Baron Dartmouth. The Legge family descended from Edward Legge, Vice-President of Munster. His eldest son William Legge was a Royalist army officer and close associate of Prince Rupert of the...
visited the campus on Dartmouth Night with New Hampshire politician and author Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill (novelist)
Winston Churchill was an American novelist.-Biography:Churchill was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Edward Spalding and Emma Bell Churchill. He attended Smith Academy in Missouri and the United States Naval Academy, where he graduated in 1894...
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.
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. Through at least the late 1980s, it was a tradition for the number of tiers to equal the year of the first-year class, i.e., in 1985 the first-year class was the Class of 1988, and the bonfire was 88 tiers high. On or about the bonfire of the Class of 1990 the College put a cap on the height of the bonfire, as the increasingly tall structure was increasingly dangerous, and following the bonfire accident
Aggie Bonfire
Aggie Bonfire was a long-standing tradition at Texas A&M University as part of the college rivalry with the University of Texas at Austin. For 90 years, Texas A&M students—known as Aggies—built and burned a bonfire on campus each autumn...
at Texas A&M
Texas A&M University
Texas A&M University is a coeducational public research university located in College Station, Texas . It is the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System. The sixth-largest university in the United States, A&M's enrollment for Fall 2011 was over 50,000 for the first time in school...
in 1999, the school hired professionals to do some of the building; nevertheless the night still remains a highlight of the school year.
Winter Carnival
The Dartmouth Outing Club
Dartmouth Outing Club
The Dartmouth Outing Club is the oldest and largest collegiate outing club in the United States. Proposed in 1909 by Dartmouth College student Fred Harris to "stimulate interest in out-of-door winter sports", the club soon grew to encompass the College's year-round outdoor recreation and has had...
, 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.
Carnival was the subject of the frothy 1939 motion picture comedy Winter Carnival, starring Ann Sheridan
Ann Sheridan
-Life and career:Born Clara Lou Sheridan in Denton, Texas on February 21, 1915, she was a student at the University of North Texas when her sister sent a photograph of her to Paramount Pictures. She subsequently entered and won a beauty contest, with part of her prize being a bit part in a...
, 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.
The movie is remembered mostly for its extracinematic associations; F. Scott Fitzgerald
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost...
and Dartmouth alumnus Budd Schulberg
Budd Schulberg
Budd Schulberg was an American screenwriter, television producer, novelist and sports writer. He was known for his 1941 novel, What Makes Sammy Run?, his 1947 novel The Harder They Fall, his 1954 Academy-award-winning screenplay for On the Waterfront, and his 1957 screenplay for A Face in the...
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.
Winter Carnival takes place each year on a weekend in February and include such events as ski competitions at the Dartmouth Skiway
Dartmouth Skiway
The Dartmouth Skiway is a ski area located about twenty minutes north of Dartmouth College in Lyme, New Hampshire. It has thirty trails from easiest to most difficult on over 100 acres of skiable area....
and Oak Hill Ski Center; a polar bear swim; a cappella
A cappella
A cappella music is specifically solo or group singing without instrumental sound, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. It is the opposite of cantata, which is accompanied singing. A cappella was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato...
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
Snow sculpture
Snow sculpture is a sculpture form comparable to sand sculpture or 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. The materials and the tools differ widely, but often include hand...
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
The Cat in the Hat
The Cat in the Hat is a children's book by Dr. Seuss and perhaps the most famous, featuring a tall, anthropomorphic, mischievous cat, wearing a tall, red and white-striped hat and a red bow tie. He also carries a pale blue umbrella...
, in honor of the 100th birthday of Dartmouth alumnus and creator of the character, Dr. Seuss.
Numerous parties are thrown by the campus's fraternities and sororities, including the Alpha Chi Alpha
Alpha Chi Alpha
Alpha Chi Alpha is a fraternity at the American Ivy League university of Dartmouth College. Alpha Chi Alpha is a member of Dartmouth's Greek system, which currently has fourteen fraternities, nine sororities and three co-ed undergraduate houses that fall under the umbrella of the Greek...
Beach Party, which has been held since 1975. In 1999, students cancelled their parties to protest other administration policies. In 2000, Psi Upsilon fraternity was forced by the Administration to ban 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.
A List of Carnival Themes Over the Years:
- North Side Story 1962
- Winter Wanderlust 1966
- A Midwinter Night’s Dream 1967
- Klondike Kaleidoscope 1968
- Land of Fire & Ice 1969
- Sometimes in Winter… 1970
- Ooh…Meanwhile Back at the Dartmouth Winter Carnival 1970
- Fun for the Whole Family 1971
- The Winterland of Oz 1972
- Through a Frosted Looking Glass 1973
- The Winterful World of Disney 1974
- Valhalla – Beyond the North Winds 1975
- A Snow-Spangled Salute 1976
- The Spirit of Wintergreen 1977
- The Greatest Snow on Earth 1978
- The Great Cold Rush 1979
- Winter Takes All 1980
- Hanover Hears a Who 1981
- Adventures on the High Freeze 1982
- The Rise and Fall of the Frozen Empire 1983
- Camelot Frozen in Time 1984
- A Diamond in the Rough 1985
- Where the Wild Things Are 1986
- Blizzard on Bourbon Street 1987
- Winter Games of Old: Gods and Goddesses and Gold
- Break Out of Hibernation 1989
- It’s a Grimm Winter 1990
- Atlantice: A Winter Under the Sea 1991
- How the Grinch Stole Carnival 1992
- Sun, Surf, and Snow 1993
- When Hanover Freezes Over…All Carnival Breaks Loose 1994
- Call of the Wild 1995
- ‘Round the Girdled Earth They Roamed: A Prehistoric Carnival 1996
- ‘Twas a Cold and Snowy Knight: A Medieval Carnival 1997
- The Roaring −20°s 1998
- Gone to the Dogs 1999
- Lest the Cold Traditions Fail 2000
- 2001: An Ice Odyssey 2001
- There’s Snow Place Like Home 2002
- One Carnival to Rule Them All 2003
- Oh, The Places It Snows: A Seussentennial 2004
- A Dartmouth Neverland 2005
- Mischief in the Snow 2006
- Down the Rabbit Hole 2007
- 20,000 Leagues Under the Snow 2008
- Summiting a Century: 100 Years of the DOC 2009
- I Came, I Saw, I Carnivaled 2010
- Carnival of the Century 2011
Green Key Weekend
A number of traditions associated with Green Key Weekend have disappeared over the years. During the 1960s, a trend of "outdoor sleep" was adopted, in which students would sleep on the golf course with their dates, leading to 69 arrests one year. 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 gauntlet 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
Connecticut River
The Connecticut River is the largest and longest river in New England, and also an American Heritage River. It flows roughly south, starting from the Fourth Connecticut Lake in New Hampshire. After flowing through the remaining Connecticut Lakes and Lake Francis, it defines the border between the...
. 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, which requires that sophomore summer be spent in Hanover).
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. The Dartmouth Editorial Board quickly condemned the action and cited the rapid formation of "Save Tubestock" student committees.
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. Students organized an alternative event called "Fieldstock" to preserve "a class-unifying event and maybe even start it as a new tradition."
DOC First-Year (Freshman) Trips
Established in 1935 to promote interest in the Dartmouth Outing ClubDartmouth Outing Club
The Dartmouth Outing Club is the oldest and largest collegiate outing club in the United States. Proposed in 1909 by Dartmouth College student Fred Harris to "stimulate interest in out-of-door winter sports", the club soon grew to encompass the College's year-round outdoor recreation and has had...
, DOC Trips is one of the largest pre-orientation programs in the country, involving over 90 percent of students in each incoming class. "Trips" has evolved significantly since its creation, becoming steadily more popular and intricate. During the 1960s, under the support of Dartmouth President John Sloan Dickey
John Sloan Dickey
John Sloan Dickey was an American diplomat, scholar, and intellectual. Dickey served as President of Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, from 1945 to 1970, and helped revitalize the Ivy League institution....
, the College renovated the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge
Moosilauke Ravine Lodge
thumb|The Lodge, the main building of the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge complexMoosilauke Ravine Lodge is a cabin complex on the side of Mount Moosilauke in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The main lodge structure, built on the site of old horse stables, was completed in 1938 under the direction of...
, made the Lodge the final destination for all Trips, and brought participation up to two-thirds of the incoming class.
Today, Trips takes place in the two weeks prior to the standard orientation week, and involves a three-night, four-day trip of hiking
Hiking
Hiking is an outdoor activity which consists of walking in natural environments, often in mountainous or other scenic terrain. People often hike on hiking trails. It is such a popular activity that there are numerous hiking organizations worldwide. The health benefits of different types of hiking...
, kayaking
Kayaking
Kayaking is the use of a kayak for moving across water. Kayaking and canoeing are also known as paddling. Kayaking is distinguished from canoeing by the sitting position of the paddler and the number of blades on the paddle...
, canoeing
Canoeing
Canoeing is an outdoor activity that involves a special kind of canoe.Open canoes may be 'poled' , sailed, 'lined and tracked' or even 'gunnel-bobbed'....
, biking, rock climbing
Rock climbing
Rock climbing also lightly called 'The Gravity Game', is a sport in which participants climb up, down or across natural rock formations or artificial rock walls. The goal is to reach the summit of a formation or the endpoint of a pre-defined route without falling...
, organic farming, or nature photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
, culminating in a tradition-filled night spent at the College-owned Moosilauke Ravine Lodge. Run entirely by current students, these trips feature crews on campus and at the Lodge who welcome the incoming students and teach many of the traditional College dances, songs, and legends. Between six and ten incoming students are led by two current students on their trip. Trips is designed to welcome the incoming students to the College and to introduce them to various campus traditions. Up to one-third of the eligible current students apply to be a trip leader or a support crew.
The DOC Trips program incorporates many traditions, including the singing of the "Alma Mater" and the dancing of the "Salty Dog Rag" to a song of the same name by Red Foley
Red Foley
Clyde Julian Foley , better known as Red Foley, was an American singer, musician, and radio and TV personality who made a major contribution to the growth of country music after World War II....
(mp3). The dance is believed to originate from The Putney School
The Putney School
The Putney School is an independent high school in Putney, Vermont. It was founded in 1935 by Carmelita Hinton. It is a co-educational, college-preparatory boarding school, with a day-student component, located outside of Brattleboro, Vermont. Emily Jones is the director...
, and is also performed at the YMCA Sandy Island Camp in Lake Winnipesaukee
Lake Winnipesaukee
Lake Winnipesaukee is the largest lake in the U.S. state of New Hampshire. It is approximately long and from wide , covering — when Paugus Bay is included—with a maximum depth of ....
.
Commencement
Dartmouth's annual Commencement or graduationGraduation
Graduation is the action of receiving or conferring an academic degree or the ceremony that is sometimes associated, where students become Graduates. Before the graduation, candidates are referred to as Graduands. The date of graduation is often called degree day. The graduation itself is also...
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
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
). 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.
Commencement begins with the Class of 1879 Trumpeters playing fanfares from Baker Tower
Baker Memorial Library
Fisher Ames Baker Memorial Library is the main library at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. The fresco, The Epic of American Civilization, was painted by José Clemente Orozco in the lower level of Baker Library...
. 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 dignitaries' platform 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-WowPow-wow
A pow-wow is a gathering of North America's Native people. The word derives from the Narragansett word powwaw, meaning "spiritual leader". A modern pow-wow is a specific type of event where both Native American and non-Native American people meet to dance, sing, socialize, and honor American...
has been an annual spring celebration since 1973, organized by the student group Native Americans at Dartmouth. The two-day gathering is marked by traditional dancing, crafts, music and art. The Pow-Wow draws 1,500 people to Hanover each year, and is the second largest event of its kind in the Northeast.
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
Eleazar Wheelock
Eleazar Wheelock was an American Congregational minister, orator, educator, and founder of Dartmouth College....
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.
Senior Fence
Streaking
At Dartmouth, there are a variety of traditions and practices associated with streakingStreaking
Streaking is the act of running nude through a public place.-History:On 5 July 1799, a Friday evening at 7 o'clock, a naked man was arrested at the Mansion House, London, and sent to the Poultry Compter...
, described by one campus newspaper as "virtual prerequisites for graduating from the College" and "an essential part of the whole experience".
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. "Midnight Golf", another Green Key tradition, involved nude golf games with visiting females prior to coeducation. During his Commencement address to the Dartmouth class of 2004,
Jeffrey R. Immelt
Jeffrey R. Immelt
Jeffrey Robert "Jeff" Immelt is an American business executive. He is currently the chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the U.S.-based conglomerate General Electric. He was selected by GE's Board of Directors in 2000 to replace Jack Welch following his retirement...
'78 admitted to stealing a Christmas tree from the Hanover Inn while streaking in 1974, and in 1993, the varsity cross-country team was reprimanded for streaking across the Green on a Friday afternoon. More recently, Sigma Delta
Sigma Delta
Sigma Delta is a local sorority at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. First established on the campus in 1972, Sigma Delta, known as "Sigma Delt" by students, as a chapter of the national sorority Sigma Kappa. Dartmouth's Sigma Kappa chapter was the first sorority to be...
sorority has been credited with starting a streaking club, formalizing a practice in the Greek house that was already "notorious for its streaking activities".. Various other formal or informal streaking groups are occasionally formed as friends decide to organize their practice.
Legality
In the state of New HampshireNew Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
, one is guilty of a public indecency
Public indecency
Public indecency refers to conduct undertaken in a non-private or publicly-viewable location, which are deemed indecent in nature, such as indecent exposure and sexual intercourse or masturbation in public view. Such activity is often illegal...
misdemeanor if one "exposes his or her genitals...under circumstances which he or she should know will likely cause affront or alarm", rendering streaking illegal. However, Vermont
Vermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
prohibits only "open and gross lewdness and lascivious behavior", meaning that conventional streaking is entirely legal. This difference in legality complicates streaking events such as the Ledyard Challenge, which has components in both states.
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 RiverConnecticut River
The Connecticut River is the largest and longest river in New England, and also an American Heritage River. It flows roughly south, starting from the Fourth Connecticut Lake in New Hampshire. After flowing through the remaining Connecticut Lakes and Lake Francis, it defines the border between the...
to the Vermont side, and return by running naked to the same spot via the Ledyard Bridge
Ledyard Bridge
The Ledyard Bridge crosses the Connecticut River to connect Hanover, New Hampshire to Norwich, Vermont. It is the third bridge at this crossing to bear the name of the adventurer John Ledyard.-History:...
. According to The Dartmouth
The Dartmouth
The Dartmouth is the daily student newspaper at Dartmouth College. Founded in 1799, it is America's oldest college newspaper. It is published by The Dartmouth, Inc., an independent, nonprofit corporation chartered in the state of New Hampshire.-History:...
, this practice is "an age-old tradition" and "no small number of students has done it".
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.
On August 12, 2005, a Bulgarian exchange student from Trinity College
Trinity College (Connecticut)
Trinity College is a private, liberal arts college in Hartford, Connecticut. Founded in 1823, it is the second-oldest college in the state of Connecticut after Yale University. The college enrolls 2,300 students and has been coeducational since 1969. Trinity offers 38 majors and 26 minors, and has...
at the Tuck School of Business
Tuck School of Business
The Amos Tuck School of Business Administration is the graduate business school of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, in the United States...
named Valentin Valkov drowned in the Connecticut River, presumably attempting the Ledyard Challenge.
Blue Light Challenge
Miscellaneous
- Students rub the nose of a statue of Warner Bentley in the Hopkins Center for the ArtsHopkins Center for the ArtsHopkins Center for the Creative and Performing Arts at Dartmouth College is located at 2 East Wheelock Street in Hanover, New Hampshire. The center, which was designed by Wallace K. Harrison and foreshadows his later design of Manhattan’s Lincoln Center, is the college’s cultural hub. It is home...
for good luck. 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. - Students throw tennis ballTennis ballA tennis ball is a ball designed for the sport of tennis,approximately 6.7 cm in diameter. Tennis balls are generally bright green, but in recreational play can be virtually any color. Tennis balls are covered in a fibrous fluffy felt which modifies their aerodynamic properties...
s on the rink after the first Dartmouth goal in ice hockeyIce hockeyIce hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...
competitions with Princeton UniversityPrinceton UniversityPrinceton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
. 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. - Students gather on the GreenThe Green (Dartmouth College)The Green is a grass-covered field and common space at the center of Dartmouth College, an Ivy League university located in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. It was among the first parcels of land obtained by the College upon its founding in 1769, and is the only creation of the 18th century...
on the night of the winter's first snowfall for a school-wide snowball fightSnowball fightA snowball fight is a physical game in which balls of snow are thrown with the intention of hitting somebody else. The game is similar to dodgeball in its major factors, though typically less organized. This activity is primarily played during months when there is sufficient snowfall.Today, the...
.