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The Princeton Reunions are an annual college reunion event held every year on the weekend before commencement at Princeton University. Known simply as "Reunions", this event brings back to campus upwards of 25,000 alumni and guests for a four-day celebration featuring large outdoor tents, elaborate costumes, sporting events, alumni and faculty presentations, fireworks, and bands from rock to swing.
A Princeton Companion [1] places the advent of Princeton reunions 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, 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 Going 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 honors 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 in 2001 and from 2006 to 2012, the bearer was fellow '25 graduate Malcolm Warnock, who was 107 at his final Reunion appearance in 2012. [2] Ernst, Warnock, and most older alumni are typically chauffeured along the parade route by 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 an appreciative crowd. In 2016, cane recipient Joseph Schein '37 (who has since received the cane 6 more times), walked the entire route with the cane at age 101. [3] [4] In 2023, at age 108, Schein once again led the procession (this time via golf cart), receiving the cane as the oldest alumni in Princeton's history. [5]
Classes celebrating a major reunion (multiples of five—5th, 10th, and so on) often wear themed costumes, which have ranged from Roman legionnaires to firefighters and Uncle Sam lookalikes. Costumes and themes are often completely unrelated to Princeton or the year the class graduated. [6]
Frequently, classes will hire musical groups, such as the Mummers, local high school marching bands, and a calliope, to lead them through the parade.
The P-Rade begins on Nassau Street, enters the campus through FitzRandolph Gate in front of Nassau Hall, then proceeds through Cannon Green. Until the early 1990s, the route continued across McCosh Walk, through 1879 Arch, down Prospect Avenue, and finished on the baseball field. However, because of escalating public liability and insurance costs, the University moved the P-Rade route to stay only on the private property of the University. Some think the University also felt that too many alumni would stop off at their eating clubs on Prospect Avenue before finishing the P-Rade, and so it changed (and shortened) the route so that it does not leave campus. Currently, after crossing Cannon Green, the P-Rade proceeds down Elm Drive through the center of campus, and onto Poe Field. The Classes are arranged on both sides of the entire route, so that each cheers its elders, then falls in line to march past those younger. The P-rade ends as the graduating seniors race onto Poe Field under review of the President of the University, and are then formally welcomed as alumni/ae.
An outdoor orchestra concert and an elaborate 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 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.
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Thomas Peebles was the father of American cheerleading and the first college football coach at the University of Minnesota, in 1883. Peebles coached the team in three games in that early season. They lost two and won one.
The Royal Military College of Canada Bands is the official group of bands of the Royal Military College of Canada. The group is composed of four sections: the brass and reed, the pipes and drums, highland dancers, and choristers. Total band membership consists of 105 Officer Cadets from the college. Officer Cadets in the band practice three days a week in the morning on top of attending their individual full-time university programs.
The traditions of Washington & Jefferson College are a key aspect of the culture of Washington & Jefferson College. One of the oldest traditions at Washington & Jefferson College were the "Freshman Rules", a system of rules and restrictions on freshmen. Failure by freshmen to follow these rules would subject them to beatings by upperclassmen or other punishments doled out by the "Freshman Court". During the 1870s and 1880s, the students engaged in organized athletic competitions, pitting the freshman versus sophomore classes in the "Olympic Games" that involved elaborate opening ceremonies and the smoking of a Pipe of Peace." Another form of physical contest between the freshman and sophomore classes were the annual "color rush," where the teams fought over control over strips of fabric, the "pole rush," where the teams battled to raise a flag up a flagpole, and the "cane rush" where the teams fought over control over a ceremonial cane. These contests generally devolved into outright gang violence.
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The Princeton Christian Fellowship (PCF), formerly the Princeton Evangelical Fellowship (PEF), is a nondenominational Christian ministry at Princeton University whose purpose is "to help undergraduate and graduate students ... grow as believers and followers of Jesus Christ ... [and] to let the rest of the University community know the full message of Christianity so that others can come to believe and have faith in Jesus Christ." Founded in 1931 by Dr. Donald B. Fullerton, a member of the Princeton University Class of 1913, the PCF is one of the oldest campus ministries of its type, predating the founding of Cru and Intervarsity by a decade or more. PCF is one of the largest student organizations at Princeton University, and is currently led by the Rev. Chris Sallade, a member of the Princeton Class of 1994.
FitzRandolph Gate is a wrought-iron structure that serves as the official entrance of Princeton University, standing in front of Nassau Hall on Nassau Street in Princeton, New Jersey. The gate was funded by a bequest of Augustus Van Wickle in honor of his great-grandfather, Nathaniel FitzRandolph, who had donated to the university the land on which Nassau Hall sits. The gate was completed in 1905 and was designed by McKim, Mead & White. The gate remained closed and locked apart from graduation and the P-rade until 1970, when that graduating class ensured that it would always remain open, "in a symbol of the University's openness to the local and worldwide community."
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