Tradition.

Tonight is the senior Pub Step, formerly known as Pub Crawl. The Class of 2015 will hit the town to revel in the near completion of their time here at Duke. A night of bar hopping and companionship, this senior year tradition is in its tenth year. The tradition has brought students together for ten years to explore the night life of Durham and reminisce on good times in their collegiate years; it is one of the few traditions that Duke students can look forward to.

As far as traditions go, Duke has very large scale events like LDOC and tenting in Krzyzewskiville that run deep throughout the student body. Either stemming from a need to lift the weight of the semester off the shoulders of the student body or from a sports rivalry that goes back decades, the traditions are university sanctioned events. This is similar to events like Princeton’s Communiversity, where the campus opens to the community around it for a day of celebration featuring food and performances.

However, there are not too many events that stem from campus folklore, urban legends, or even just general debauchery. One example is the primal scream at Columbia University and other institutions like Harvard, UCLA and Stanford. At midnight on the Sunday of finals week, students open their windows and scream as loudly as possible to release the pent up frustration of the week. Also, there is a general lack of streaking on campus—whether or not that is an issue is up to the individual reading.

The lack of Duke traditions can be tied to the youth of the University. Many of the longstanding traditions at these other institutions stem from the centuries of history that are behind them. Things that we have noticed that are starting to catch on, and which may become long standing traditions in the future, are Academic Homecoming and cultural performances like Awaaz and Lunar New Year. Unofficial graduation requirements, such as tunneling and climbing Baldwin Auditorium, are closer to the random bouts of collective campus activities that are student centered and innovated. There are many traditions that are present on campus and exist within specific groups, but there are not many that are campus-wide or not specific to a certain campus culture such as athletics or greek life. What would creating a campus tradition look like? Perhaps hopping onto the primal scream tradition, attempting to engage more with the community like Princeton, or breaking away from our peer institutions and doing something entirely different that is a Duke original, whatever that may be.