Tag Archives: undie run

Undie Run at Chapman University (College Traditions)

Text

Collector: “Do you participate in any specific rituals or festivals?”

Informant: “At Chapman, we have Undie Run the Wednesday night before finals week. Everyone meets up in the Piazza in like, just underwear or a bathing suit, like no clothes. I think it’s at like 12 o’clock, or 10– I don’t know I didn’t do it last semester—and everyone just runs around campus and the outskirts, and in the circle. It’s just Chapman students and there’s some faculty to supervise.”

Collector: “Why does this tradition take place?”

Informant: “To get drunk and let loose before finals. People drink at a pregame, not during the run.” 

Context

The informant is a female undergraduate student at Chapman University. The Piazza is a circular courtyard at the center of campus where many students gather for special events.

Analysis

This college tradition provides insight into American student culture and what they define as “letting go”– Indulging in alcohol, stripping into undergarments, and doing wild activities with comrades. The practice of the tradition signifies that these expressions are not appropriate for everyday life. This activity takes place at Midnight, a liminal time between day and night, almost like a magic hour where students don’t have to present themselves as polished and collegiate. A rebellious version of themselves can run wild at night but not in the day.

UC Davis “Undie Run”

Nationality: American
Age: 24
Occupation: Actuary
Residence: San Diego, CA
Performance Date: 4/27/20
Primary Language: English

Background: The informant is an American UC Davis 2018 alumni who currently works as an actuary in San Diego, CA. He learned the tradition while attending university in Davis, CA, but never partook in it himself. 

Context: The following piece was collected in a brief, casual over-the-phone interview.

Piece: 

Informant: “So around finals, usually like the Wednesday of finals week every semester there was an ‘undie run.’ So everyone uh, if you were going to donate your clothes would just strip off whatever clothes you were going to donate, leave them there, and then just run around the campus in your underwear.” 

Collector: “Wait so there’s like a clothing drive?”

Informant: “Uh, there was at some portions er like at some of them like as I was going there it seemed like it was becoming less and less popular.”

Collector: “But people still took off their clothes and ran around in their underwear?”

Informant: “Yeah in like a big group, a big mob. They’d run through all the dorms, all the like cafeterias so you’d be like out getting cookies and there’d be a bunch of people just acting like drunk idiots.”

Collector: “Would they be drunk?”

Informant: “I’m sure some people were drunk but not most of them.”

Collector: “Was it during the day or at night?”

Informant “Mostly at night. Anyone who wants to go can it’s like a Facebook event.” 

Analysis: I have heard of a similar tradition at USC in which seniors run across campus half-naked and swim in each of the fountains before graduation. This tradition differs in that it is open to all UC Davis students and occurs more than once in an academic year. Finals week is a transitory period in which the results from a semester’s worth of classes is still largely undetermined. It is usually a very stressful time for students, so the undie run provides a brief liberation from traditional social expectations. It’s important that it happens in a group so that the act becomes more publicly acceptable. If it were just one individual, it is possible that they would get arrested for public nudity, whereas a larger group performance assures the unlikelihood that law enforcement would be able to punish every individual. It would be interesting to examine more colleges across the country to see how many have an underwear run tradition.