Butler University student traditions—like jumping into Star Fountain, playing Campus Golf and joining Dawg Pound—will be highlighted in a book put together by Butler University Student Foundation.
The book will be given to incoming freshmen as an easy way to see all of Butler’s traditions and will be passed on from class to class, freshman Karina Hamamouche said.
“I think it’s a really great way to welcome freshmen into the community so that they have an idea of those cultural things that we have here at Butler,” she said.
Senior Jenn Brinn, president of BUSF, said the book will help incoming students know what makes Butler great.
“I think it is going to be exciting to hand that to an incoming freshman,” she said. “For them to get the idea right away that ‘Wow, I’m part of something bigger than just me’ is going to be cool.”
Jill Wheelock, a sophomore physical education major, submitted a tradition for the book. She said she hopes the book will keep exciting ideas alive.
“Traditions tie us to the ones before us who have experienced and loved the same things that we do,” she said.
“They also tie us to the future, keeping us connected to the ones who care about our tradition.”
The idea for a tradition book, which will come out for next year’s freshman class, came out of discussions with other student foundations at different universities. She said that some books were more like student handbooks, some were guidebooks to the campus area and some were more like traditional yearbooks.
“We want to combine all of those components and make sure that we have where everyone goes around here, the must-knows of campus and the area,” she said. “We also wanted to compile the traditions from alumni, from students, from faculty and staff and hopefully some people from the community too.”
Brinn said she has heard traditions from alumni that she would never have known about without this project.
“I think there are so many lost traditions of Butler that it’s important to make sure they get passed down from year to year,” she said.
Hamamouche agreed.
“When we started this project, I didn’t really know what kind of traditions were out there and what kind of things Butler had going on,” she said.
The book might act as a guidebook for freshmen, a checklist of what to do to be a part of the Butler legacy, Hamamouche said.
“It will kind of encourage them to participate in all of these tasks before they graduate,” Hamamouche said.
The book will also be interactive, Brinn said.
“It’s going to be cool because we are going to have parts in there where you can add a picture of you doing the tradition,” she said. “We are also going to have some journal sections where you can add your own
traditions.”
