1/6/13 – Princeton Reunion Weekend (Day 2): the P-rade at Princeton

Woke early and after a lovely breakfast of porridge, yoghurt and a toasted bagel (we passed on the American cuisine of pancakes, waffles, ‘lucky charm’ cereal, bacon and scrambled eggs and coffee with creamer). While waiting to catch the shuttle bus into campus we had a nice chat with a family from Cincinnati who come down every year for Reunion even though only one member of the family (Dad – Class of 1973) is actually an alumnus.

When we got to campus we went straight to the ‘U’ Store to buy some kit for the ‘P-rade’ that was scheduled to take place later in the day and then walked on through this wonderful campus to Washington Road, down the hill to the lake and across to the rugby field.  

Once there on this glorious day, we were lucky enough to catch the dedication of Haggar Field House (the Princeton RFC’s first ever clubhouse) and then watched a women's and a men's game of alums v undergrads.

Peter made himself useful to the referee and served as an assistant referee for the men’s game. I served beers to the assistant referee at regular intervals as it was a hot day and the match officials apparently needed much hydration. After having a chat with the manager of the Princeton 1^st XV, Peter managed to extract an invitation for Wesley to play their first year (u/18’s) team and an offer to train there at any time in the future as well. Nice one Pete!

 

After a lovely walk back up the hill to campus we took our place near Cuyler Quad for the P-rade. This institution has to be seen to be believed. According to ‘The Princeton Companion’ the advent of Princeton reunions dates from shortly after the end of the Civil War. The 1890s (especially the University's 150th anniversary in 1896) saw increasing interest, although it was not until the 1950s that Reunions took on today's level of organization, particularly with respect to on-campus housing for returning alums.

The Alumni Parade, known today as the P-rade, is the capstone of the Reunions weekend. Held on Saturday afternoon, it is the last major event — save for the fireworks display (introduced in 1996 in celebration of the 250th year since the University's founding.) The 25th Reunion class heads the parade; they are led by the Princeton University Band, which plays traditional songs such as ‘Goin' Back to Nassau Hall’.

 

The P-rade then proceeds with members of each class from oldest to youngest, accompanied by spouses, children, family members, and even pets. Alumni of the Graduate School normally take the place of the 25th reunion in the sequence. In 2000 and 2001, to celebrate the centennial of the Graduate College, the Graduate School alumni marched immediately behind the 25th Reunion class. Each year, the University president honours the oldest returning alumnus by presenting him with a silver cane donated by the class of 1923.

 

The bearer of that cane from 2002 to 2005 was Leonard Ernst '25, and since 2006, the bearer has been fellow '25 graduate Malcolm Warnock, who was 107 at his most recent Reunion appearance in 2012. Warnock, and most older alumni, are usually chauffeured along the parade route in golf carts, but in 2001, the then-96-year-old Warnock impressed everyone by walking the last segment of the P-rade, waving his cane toward the loudly appreciative crowd.

 

Classes celebrating a major reunion (multiples of five -5th, 10th, and so on) often wear themed costumes. Costumes and themes are often completely unrelated to Princeton or the year the class graduated. Each senior class designs and distributes a decorated (and often personalized) canvas "beer jacket." Beer jackets are so named because they were originally worn to protect the wearers' clothing from beer.

Since 2002, the administration has renamed these as "Class Jackets" for politically correct reasons, but students continue to refer to them as "beer jackets." Modern incarnations are also designed with voluminous inner pockets to conceal and carry beer cans. The jackets also serve to distinguish seniors from other underclassmen, a custom that dates to the days when seniors were afforded special privileges.

For the 5th, 10th, 15th and 20th Reunions, each class designs a new costume. Over the years, costumes have included cowboys, tigers, Dutch clog-wearers, Chinese "coolies," the Roman Legion, Arab Shieks, Scottish Highlanders, astronauts, toreadors, soldiers, the French Foreign Legion, mountain-climbers, clowns, sailors, ANZACs, beetles, chefs, firemen, pirates, Apaches, prison convicts, toga-clad Romans, and a 50-person-long "centipede." This year there was a Chinese dragon with the head of a tiger.

The classes are arranged in chronological order on both sides of the entire route, so that each class first cheers its elders as they pass and then falls in line behind them to march past those younger. As older classes march by in the P-rade, younger classes greet them by shouting an old, traditional Princeton cheer called a locomotive. The format of the cheer (for the Class of 2008, for example) is "Hip! Hip! Rah! Rah! Rah! Tiger! Tiger! Tiger! Sis! Sis! Sis! Boom! Boom! Boom! Ah! Oh-Eight! Oh-Eight! Oh-Eight!".

The older class then traditionally returns the locomotive cheer to the younger class. This is a variant on one of the oldest college cheers, the "Princeton Locomotive," dating to the late 1870s or early 1880s. The P-rade ends as the current graduating class (the Class of 2013 this year) race onto Poe Field under the review of the President of the University, and are then formally welcomed as alumni/ae.

After the P-rade one moves over to one of the many so called ‘dining clubs’ (in truth these are more like ‘drinking clubs’ for under-age undergrads … but let’s not go there) on Prospect Ave for a snack and a few (more) beers before the fireworks and evening social events began. ‘Dining Clubs’ were invented because the dining rooms were not permitted to serve alcohol.

The young men in question (and it was only men because originally Princeton was an all-male college) came up with this brilliant solution to the problem and everything had gone ‘swimmingly well’ after that until disaster struck. As a result of a 1979 lawsuit by Sally Frank against one of the clubs (the Tiger’s Inn) Princeton's eating clubs were required to go co-educational in 1991, after Tiger Inn's appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court was dismissed.

 

It was only in 1969 that Princeton University formally admitted women as undergraduates. In 1887 the university had founded, maintained and staffed a sister college, Evelyn College for Women, in the town of Princeton on Evelyn and Nassau streets. Unfortunately it lost money and was closed after roughly a decade of operation. After abortive discussions with Sarah Lawrence College to relocate the women's college to Princeton and merge it with the University in 1967, the administration decided to admit women and turned to the issue of transforming the school's operations and facilities into a female-friendly campus.

The administration had barely finished these plans in April 1969 when the admissions office began mailing out its acceptance letters. Its five-year coeducation plan provided $7.8 million for the development of new facilities that would eventually house and educate 650 women students at Princeton by 1974. Ultimately, 148 women, consisting of 100 freshmen and 48 transfer students into other years, entered Princeton on September 6, 1969 amidst much media attention.

 

Princeton had enrolled its first female graduate student, Sabra Follett Meserve, as a PhD candidate in Turkish history in 1961. A handful of undergraduate women had studied at Princeton from 1963 on, spending their junior year there to study "critical languages" in which Princeton's offerings surpassed those of their home institutions.

They were considered regular students for their year on campus, but were not candidates for a Princeton degree. Things have changed since then and we were very proud of our friend Nancy as she led the P-rade and subsequently took her place on stage and in Princeton history.

An outdoor orchestra concert and an evening fireworks display set to music, first held to celebrate the university's 250th anniversary in 1996, but repeated every year since by popular demand, is held on the Saturday evening of Reunions. This can be seen as a closing ceremony of Reunions; however, the Reunions parties do not officially end until 2 a.m. that night, and low-key brunches are often held Sunday morning, at which point Reunions Weekend fades into Commencement Weekend. Unofficially, after the tents close, the party moves to the eating clubs on Prospect Avenue and will go until sunrise, especially Saturday night. All in all a pretty good night really!