Last week, The Hornet Tribune staff observed as a multitude of new freshmen and transfer students were introduced to Alabama State University. Shortly after arriving on campus, they were asked to attend a “Rites of Passage” ceremony in the Dunn-Oliver Acadome.
A rite of passage should be a serious ceremony or ritual of passage which occurs when an individual or group leaves one group to enter another. It involves a significant change of status in society.
In the case of this university, new first-year and transfer students are inducted into Hornet Nation before they understand what it means to become a Hornet.
Should a process that should be one of the most serious processes that a first-year student or transfer student experience, be achieved in one week? Can a student actually learn the things that they need to know about the university in one week?
Other HBCUs that have “Rites of Passage” ceremonies ensure that the students understand how serious the ceremony is and the purpose of the ceremony. Their “Rites of Passage” last for one semester or for some, one year. Students have to be knowledgeable about the university before any rites can be passed.
Rites of passage procedures usually have three phases: separation, liminality and incorporation.
In the first phase, students recognize that they are no longer high school students, they are now enrolled at the university and as students enrolled, they WANT to become legitimate Hornets. For example, the cutting of the hair for a person who has just joined the U.S. Army. He or she is “cutting away” the former self: The civilian to become enlisted.
This staff is not supporting anyone cutting their hair as this is considered a form of “hazing,” and hazing is illegal, but this should be a mental attitude that all entering freshmen and transfer students should possess.
The liminal phase is the period between stages, during which one has left one place or state but has not yet entered or joined the next. There should be at least a one-semester liminal phase before a student can call himself/herself a legitimate Hornet.
During this second phase, first-year and transfer students should be required to learn the names of all of the buildings on campus, learn a thorough history of the university, learn the alma mater upon demand, learn certain songs that the Mighty Marching Hornets play every year, and there actually should be a university creed that everyone should be required to learn.
Once this phase is achieved fellow students begin to understand how the university falls in the canals of history and they can begin to cultivate the necessary love and pride that they should have in the institution. A process of this nature allows them to become more engaged alumni.
In the third phase, reaggregation or incorporation, the student enters a ‘sacred bond’ where O’ Mother Dear becomes very important, and despite its faults, the love and the pride will always conquer whatever deficencies the university may encounter.
The third phase also ensures that O’ Mother Dear is always around to help others. That means giving back to the university that helped them to achieve their status of life and making it a mission to help others.
Having completed the rites and assumed their “new” identity as Hornets, one re-enters the university with a new status – they are legitimate Hornets.