Comments
Thank you for this presentation, it was very inteesting from so many angles, including a gender experience!
You speak of experience as an event that takes place both individually and collectively at the same time, and you show nicely the collective side of the affair. Yet the examples you give, are not so much single events but rather sequences of events or even gradual processes. Do you think this gradual process has an affect on the collective side of experience, maybe even adding to the importance of the collective, since it forces more and prolonged interaction?
Hi Raisa and thank you for your comment!
You make an excellent point in highlighting the processual nature of the experience of graduation and I fully agree with you on that regard, the commencement ceremony was in my view indeed a culmination of a gradual process, and the process and its culmination cannot be separated from one another. As graduation with all the ceremonies and events linked to it marked the breaking up of and separating from the collective on an individual level (i.e. the class the students had been part of for four years), the steps leading to the commencement surely increased the meaning of the collective as the students were actively sharing the thoughts and feelings that were associated with the approaching separation, and this way they also shaped the narratives linked to the collective experience together. Also, in the many events that led up to the commencement, the graduating class was in close contact with the lower classes of the college, which of course also shaped the collective experience. The freshmen, sophomores, and juniors both represented the larger college community that the graduating seniors were leaving as well as functioned as the younger and supposedly more immature group against whom the seniors highlighted their own seniority. So the steps leading up to the commencement were also a key part of the collective experience.
Apologies for my late reply, I have been on the road for the past few days!
Many thanks for your interesting “vintage” presentation! As gendered experiences are at the core of your research, I would like to know how the attempts to create a space for female education in a male-dominated environment such as Harvard have (or have not) affected the establishment of specifically “female/feminine” structures and expressions of study life? From your presentation, both ceremonies, clothes, songs etc. seem to me to mimic existing male attributions rather than adapting them. Was there any discussion about this among the Radcliffe students?
Anna Derksen
14.3.2022 15:44
Hi Anna and thank you for your highly relevant question!
To answer it first shortly, I have not discovered much discussion on the topic among Radcliffe students in the context of commencement, but there were some variations on the traditions between Radcliffe and Harvard. However, on a broader scale in the student life of Radcliffe, the female students did add their own variations to many of the structures and expressions that were for the most part adopted from Harvard.
Then more in length: in the context of commencement, the structure and order of the ceremonies of graduation were quite similar in both institutions. On the days of the baccalaureate sermon and commencement ceremony the structures of the events were quite the same, whereas the class day carried more variations between the colleges and individual graduating classes. On class day at the turn of the century, Harvard had quite a rowdy and sometimes alcohol-filled celebration called ‘tree exercises’, where the graduating class danced and rampaged around a specific tree on the Harvard Yard with their guests as an audience. At Radcliffe the proceedings on class day consisted of some musical performances, food, and the graduating class receiving their guests individually in different rooms at Radcliffe Yard.
These simple differences highlight the possibilities and limitations set by the gendered educational ideals. Displays of bodily vigor were acceptable for and even encouraged among male students, whereas the quieter and more conventional reception at Radcliffe modeled the social life experienced by elite women at large. Radcliffe women had to avoid contesting the cultural notions of appropriate femininity, since for many, the higher education of women was already a contestation of sorts. In my view, this was a recurring imperative at Radcliffe. The constant process of setting the boundaries of educated femininity as well as the simultaneous attempt to stretch these boundaries further will be an important theme in my dissertation and in my view, it is visible in the ceremonies I analyzed in this presentation as well.
The student life, then, was in many ways a manifestation of this. From the sports they played to the social life taking place in the clubs and dormitories, the female students and the college administration added the feminine variations to it all. Athletics and especially athletic uniforms were a great example of this, for the changing regulations on what kind of costume could be worn and in which spaces in addition to modified rules in certain sports were quite notable sites of negotiating the appropriate demonstrations of educated femininity. The students were not always happy with the rules set to guide their behavior and they did rebel against them: in 1906 when the students were not allowed to applaud and cheer for their class basketball teams, they chose to sing instead.
Hope my answer is satisfactory and I’m happy to continue the conversation further!
Aino Kirjonen
15.3.2022 02:36