| Traditions | |
- Campus Night: Campus Night marks the end of Douglass College freshman orientation. The night features a picnic, games, and an organization fair. The night originated in 1918 after Dean Douglass banned a fashion fad of tam hats. To make the ban less debatable, she held a picnic with a huge bonfire where students could toss their tams. From then on, students would make silly costumes and hats to burn in an anual bonfire. In recent years, Campus Night stopped the bonfire, but signifies the old event in speeches as students enjoy the night’s festivities.
- Cap and Skull: Cap and Skull was established in 1900 as a secret prestigious honorary society. During the spring semester, Cap and Skull posters are everywhere featuring the eerie slogan, “Cap and Skulls are watching you.” Candidates are initiated into the society during a secret nighttime ceremony every spring. Many Rutgers deans and famous alumni, such as Paul Robeson, have been members of Cap and Skull.
- Homecoming: Homecoming is a major day at Rutgers where students, faculty, and alumni celebrate school spirit through pep rallies, float making contests, and a pre-game party on the fields surrounding the stadium and the football game.
- Queens Gate: During Rutgers College’s freshman orientation weekend, new students march as a class through Queen’s Gate onto the Old Queen’s Campus. Rutgers tradition is that if you walk through the gates again before graduation, you will not graduate. To avoid walking through the gate, students are seen climbing over the surrounding short brick wall or walking completely out of the way to the next gate at the corner. Upon graduation, students walk out of the gate to signify their start into the real world.
- The Rumble: During Cook College’s freshman orientation weekend, Cook students partake in carnival games, potato sack races, and (most famously) all Cook students have to partake in one large Electric Slide. The different Cook dorms compete for the title of “Best Dorm” in a parade around the campus. A new program has just been developed to establish a network of faculty mentors for each floor of the freshman residence halls.
- Rutgers College Graduation: Rutgers College graduates literally make their mark on campus upon graduation. Since 1876, all graduating classes have their class year carved into one of the bricks at the base of the Old Queen’s College campus’ Kirkpatrick Chapel. The class brick is placed next to their “grandfather class” that had graduated 50 years earlier. They proceed to plant ivy at the base of Kirkpatrick Chapel to represent the roots graduates have made at Rutgers. Lastly, graduates break clay pipes on the cannon in front of Old Queen’s to symbolize that they have become adults, and to “break bad habits and youthful undergraduate dreams.”
- Sacred Path: It was tradition in the early 1900s to impose certain restrictions for the new incoming class. The Class of 1922 imposed two restrictions for the new class: they were not allowed to wear anything red and were not allowed to walk the path from George Street to College Hall for their entire first year. Today, the path is referred to as the Sacred Path. It is used today to signify the “moving up” of the classes. First-year students officially become sophomores when upperclass women escort them down this path.
- Unity Day: Unity Day is organized by the Black Student Union and has been traditionally held during the first Saturday in May. The outdoor event is Rutgers University’s largest gathering of African American and Latino students, staff, faculty, and alumni. In the past, the day has featured performances by ethnic fraternity and sorority organizations, dance groups, and locally or nationally known entertainers.
- William the Silent: A statue of William, Prince of Orange has stood at College Avenue’s Vorhees Mall since 1928. The statue was supposed to signify Rutgers’s old Dutch roots. Tradition says that William is supposed to whistle whenever a virgin walks by—legend says that since the statue was given to Rutgers he hasn’t made a sound.
|