The Triangle

Issue date: 4/25/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Karl Kuchs Rainer Burrow sits in the bus spot outside of Nesbitt Hall. This stop was a senior gift, one of the traditions that the Traditions Committee is hoping to restore.

Over the next year, the newly-formed Drexel Traditions Program plans to revive old traditions, allowing students and alumni to come together and hold traditions such as class gift campaigns and homecoming events, according to Tatum Isenberger, assistant director of the Annual Fund.

With the guidance of Isenberger, the Traditions Program includes six executive council members: Rainer Burrow, Jacob Rozran, Madelaina D'Anella-Mercanti, Charis Jones, Shams Naim and Ari Winkleman.

"The executive council has reached out to students and alumni alike in order to determine what traditions will reconnect them to the university," D'Anella-Mercanti, a junior finance major, said. "In doing this, the traditions at Drexel will be student developed, student led and unique."

In order to research some of the lost traditions, the executive council members went through the archives of the school, looked at old yearbooks, talked with alumni and read past issues of The Triangle, according to Burrow, the president of Traditions Program and a junior majoring in mechanical engineering.

"Every time I talk to someone, I ask them 'What does Drexel mean to you?' Many people do not immediately respond," Isenberger said.

Naim added, "The one thing that is great about the Traditions Program is that it gives students the opportunity to build programs and activities with many other organizations and departments that will actively come together and make Drexel a unique university, while promoting its mission, purpose and uniqueness." In June, the program will host a Bon Voyage event for graduating seniors.

"The president of the University was MacAlister at that time, so all the students would petition to MacAlister to have the day off to go down to the shipyard to watch the ships set sail," Burrow said.

According to Burrow, the idea was first brought up in 1895.

The 20 or so students went down Cramps Shipyard in Philadelphia and brought orange and silver flags, Drexel's school colors at the time, to wave while the ships set sail.

Continued...

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