Text: A. told me about a Scripps College tradition where the doors that look like the main entrance to Denison Library only open twice a year. They open during freshmen orientation, where you walk through the front of the library and sign your name and hometown in a book that has all of your peers and classmates in it. Then you walk out through the library and out through the side onto the lawn wher eyou just connect more with your peers and your endless new space for your college life. And you don’t walk through the doors again until your graduation day where you’re in your green robe. You walk in through the side of the library out to the front and then onto the lawn to graduate.

Context: It’s meant to be a very nice metaphor that when you get to Scripps, you walk into the library and gain all this knowledge over your four years and then when it’s time to leave your library, you go into the real world. It’s symbolic how Scripps provides you with all these opportunities and knowledge while you’re there and when it’s your time to leave you take this knowledge and spread it!

Analysis: This is a rite of passage for Scripps students and symbolizes their college experience through institutional folklore. The opening of the doors is turned sacred and the fact that the experience happens at the beginning and the end of the college experience, like bookends, makes this ritual symbolic of personal transformation. It only happens in liminal spaces, where you cross over from different phases of life. Additionally, the signing of the book lets students forever be a part of the community and a shared experience. The meaning is constantly evolving with each new class.