返校节游行
返校节游行
By Allison Schuver, from an interview with Penny Prewitt Cunningham (class of '36)
Each football season, 首页coming was held with cross town rival Howard College (now Samford). An enormous parade was held downtown the day of the game. Each school had floats constructed by campus groups such as Greek organizations. Students were featured on the floats, often in costume and acting out small skits. Most floats were decorated with crepe paper that had to be ordered from out-of-town months in advance, but some were decorated with fresh flowers. 需要几个月的准备工作.
Some floats were pulled by cars and others by horses. On one occasion, a float was pulled by 学生 because of car trouble. Another year, a small pony was featured in the parade. It was well-known around the city because of its day job—pulling a shoe shine cart. The “shoe shine pony” was scheduled to pull a float in the parade, 但是负荷太大了, 所以学生们把它拉了出来.
评论
《黑豹在橄榄球场上, Ben Lewellyn and Peter Star write of the “mammoth” parade that preceded the “Magic City Classic” between 澳门新葡京官网 and Howard. The previous year's winner would occupy the first half of the parade, 失败者排在最后. “Sometimes called the ‘South's Tournament of Roses,' the parade was sponsored by the Junior Chamber of Commerce to encourage sportsmanship and camaraderie between the two schools.” A laudable intent--but if stories of the rivalry are true, the parade did more to aggravate than to assuage ill will. 也许这是最好的. 毕竟, traditions are about building community, often by defining one's own group against another. Photos of these parades reveal a willingness to attack, 漫画, and lampoon the rival school at all levels: its president, 教师, 学生, 和吉祥物.
It was long customary at many schools for negative attention to be directed at freshmen as well as the rival team. Folklorist Simon Bronner notes several traditions meant to demean new 学生, such as requiring them to walk the parade route in their pajamas. But unflattering attention such as this was also considered a means of welcoming the new 学生 into the community. Bronner writes, “[t]he parade showcases student creativity and humor. 新生, 特别是, 穿着奇装异服游行, and provide self-mocking floats” (Piled Higher and Deeper 87). 为了结束节日, “首页coming often featured a bonfire into which freshmen flung their beanies and thus attained full-fledged student status” (86).
Bronner attributes the rise of college 首页coming traditions to the ever-increasing distance between a college and its alumni that resulted from increased geographic mobility. “Spreading quickly during the mobile 1920s, the activities of 首页coming were designed to heighten the ‘spirit' of the college and remind one of the values of the college haven. 为学生, 首页coming is an extension of the rituals begun before classes started; for alumni, 这是旧关系的更新”(86)。.
Recent trends concerning college 首页comings are recorded in the pages of The Chronicle of Higher Education. Colleges around the country have seen decreased interest in 首页coming festivities, perhaps due to changing student demographics, with more 学生 working and fewer fitting the mold of “traditional” student (4/27/07). Those traditions that remain often become points of contention. In 1994, the Chronicle noted a trend in “unconventional candidates” for the crown (11/9/94). A spate of men campaigning for 首页coming queen has prompted some schools to select, 而不是选择, a 首页coming court (10/16/98); others have simply rewritten the rules to specify that the queen must be a woman (11/19/99). 2001年, a University of Pittsburgh student distributed pictures of herself topless as part of her campaign to be elected 首页coming queen (12/07/01).
对民间, the unofficial 首页coming activities excite the most interest, so challenges to old traditions are merely opportunities to create new ones. Of particular interest to this website are the customary activities that are maintained and passed down by the 学生, 无论是否有行政支持. The parade route is set by college and city officials, but recurring thematic elements on the floats are part of the folk-life of the college. The place and time of the bonfire are set, but what gets flung into the flames is determined by custom and sustained by the will of the group. 然而, a word of caution regarding the institutionalization of folk processes: In 1912, a group of 学生 at South Dakota State dressed as hobos to escort their rival team onto campus, giving birth to a century-spanning “hobo day” tradition. 我们要小心许愿.
问题
- Did the rivalry with Howard continue after 1939?
- Did rivalries form with other schools?
- What replaced the parade in the hearts of 澳门新葡京官网 学生?
- Was there ever a ritual in which freshmen could discard their beanies?
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