From Hazing to Dis-O

Kimberly A. Bellerose

Mount Holyoke College students spend the majority of their time on academic work.  From essays and lab reports to exams, there appears to be no time left for anything else. Mount Holyoke is notorious for its tough academics and high quality education.  However, this is not the only thing that students remember about Mount Holyoke.  Years after graduation, the thing that will bring them back to the college is the traditions.  The numerous traditions at the college act as a cohesive glue that binds the students to each other and the institution.  In order to understand how these traditions have carried on through the years, it is necessary to “trac[e] historically the manner in which they have gradually taken shape” (Durkheim 3).  It is also necessary to view the commemorative symbols connected to these events. 

In reading Mary Elizabeth Browning’s letters to her mother and father, the amount of time spent on academics is quite clear.  In numerous letters dating from September 17, 1947 to October 8, 1947 Mary explains her classes and responsibilities in great detail.  Common phrases appear within her letters, such as, “We have quite a bit of homework”, “I certainly have an awful lot of work this weekend” and “I’ve been kept very busy since classes started” (9/20/47, 9/28/47, 9/23/47).  In contrast, in a letter she wrote circa November 1947, Mary never mentions her classes.  Instead, she dedicates her entire letter to describe one of Mount Holyoke’s long-lived traditions, Hazing Day.

According to the 1952 Mount Holyoke News, “Hazing Day is a method of breaking down the barriers between the classes [...]” (Mount Holyoke News 7).  The tradition was used to create friendships and connections between the freshmen and the seniors.  In the 1950’s this tradition was a one-day event.  The seniors would make the freshman “[...] dress up in completely crazy costumes [...] and do anything [their] particular Senior want[ed] [them] to do” (the Freshman Handbook 34).  On that day, the freshmen could find themselves becoming anything between teacups to “drips” and “drizzles”. 

In a letter dated circa November 9, 1947, Mary explains her experience of Hazing Day to her mother.  Mary and some of her freshman friends had to make their own costumes for the event.  They spent almost six hours on a school night putting together cardboard costumes of “12” cubes of sugar, propeller, rudders, tea cup, and saucer” (Browning ca. 11/9/47).  The following day Mary woke up early to meet her senior to get instructions for the day.  She was given a course of direction to follow while singing, reciting a poem, and “at the same time swoop, spin, nose dive, etc.” (Browning ca. 11/9/47).  When the day was over, her senior invited her to the movies.  Overall, it was a pleasant experience for Mary.  She had fun and became acquainted with an upperclassman.

In the time between Mary Browning’s Mount Holyoke and today, certain changes have occurred that affected the tradition.  In 1985, hazing was prohibited in the state of Massachusetts.  As a result, Mount Holyoke’s Hazing Day became known as Disorientation, or Dis-O.  It also changed into a weeklong event in which the first-years voluntarily sign up in order to participate.

Jackie, a first-year, explains her Dis-O experience as fun and memorable.  She was “able to meet new people” and become “good friends with a senior” (Jackie 2/19/04).  She was pulled out of her room late one Sunday night in November.  In the living room of her dorm, all the first-years were lined up in pairs of two and wrapped together in saran wrap.  While singing a song their seniors wrote for them and with the name of their dorm written on their forehead, they all inched forward towards Kendade.  In the atrium of Kendade, the first-years from every dorm were required to sing their songs to each other.  At the end of the evening, they all had cake together while the first-years were auctioned off to the seniors.  Jackie and the other first-years were given funny shirts to wear and various duties to perform for the rest of the week.  At the end of the week, a party closed the event.

Mount Holyoke stands apart from other academic institutions because of their large amount of traditions.  These traditions have helped shape and have also been shaped by the environment of the college.  Over time traditions may change by modifying, disappearing or sometimes reappearing from the past.  Though this happens, their life endures because of collective memory.  ““[C]ollective memory is essentially a reconstruction of the past [that] adapts the image of historical facts to the beliefs and spiritual needs of the present”” (Schwartz 5).   It is based in history and commemoration.  It is possible for members of the Mount Holyoke community to research details of the past with handbooks and course books as well as read the experiences and sentiments of an individual.  As a result, the traditions are reinforced and remain strong from generation to generation. 

When the students look back on traditional events they partook in, they will be reminded not only of the sequence of events but of the feelings and ideas behind them.  Although the details of this particular tradition have changed, for instance, from having to wear cardboard teacup costumes to being saran wrapped to fellow classmates, the ideas behind it have remained the same over time. “At the foundation of all systems of belief and all cults, there must necessarily be a certain number of fundamental representations and modes of ritual conduct that, despite the diversity of forms that the one and the other may have taken on, have the same objective meaning everywhere and everywhere fulfill the same functions” (Durkheim 4).  In the 1950’s the purpose of Hazing Day was to “acquir[e] a fuller and deeper meaning of college fellowship and traditions as a whole” (Mount Holyoke News 7).  The same idea holds true for Disorientation of 2004.  The college continues to keep the traditions alive.

Bibliography

Durkheim, Emile. [1912] 1995. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. Karen E. Fields. (trans). New York: Free Press, pp. 1-18, esp., pp. 8-15. 

Mary Elizabeth Browning Letter, Mary Elizabeth Browning to her Mother, ca. November 9, 1947. Archives and Special Collections, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA 

Mary Elizabeth Browning Letter, Mary Elizabeth Browning to her Mother and Daddy, September 20, 1947. Archives and Special Collections, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA 

Mary Elizabeth Browning Letter, Mary Elizabeth Browning to her Mother, September 28, 1947. Archives and Special Collections, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA 

Ruszala, Jackie.  Personal Interview.  19 February.  2004. 

Schwartz, Barry. 2000. “Tow Faces of Collective Memory”. pp 1-25 in Abraham Lincoln and the Forge of Collective Memory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 

Student Traditions Information: Hazing, Mount Holyoke News October 17, 1952, Archives and Special Collections, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA 

Student Traditions Information: Hazing, the Freshman Handbook 1951, Archives and Special Collections, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA 

Student Information: Hazing Policy, Student Handbook 2003-2004, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA