(tranquil music)
- A university is more than its formal curriculum.
It's also the set of experiences
that students create for themselves.
And it's those experiences
and traditions that give texture to a university experience.
- At Ohio State, we have a lot of great traditions,
and many of these traditions have stood the test of time.
- It comes by a group of people getting together
and brainstorming and having common ideas
and common interests and common love.
And all of a sudden,
something that becomes a passing thought becomes,
50 years later, a tradition that goes on
and on and on forever.
- What makes Ohio State Ohio State is its traditions,
and that's what makes this such a great community to be in.
- People wanna be a Buckeye.
It's an amazing thing to be part of Buckeye Nation.
♪ I wanna go back to Ohio State ♪
♪ To old Columbus town ♪
♪ To the stadium to hear the band ♪
♪ By far the finest in the land ♪
♪ I wanna go back to Ohio State ♪
- A lot of the traditions at Ohio State
were born in the late 19th, early part of the 20th century.
And they came largely from the activity of students.
♪ We're here to do or die, I-O ♪
For instance, literary societies
to read and discuss literature.
And also given where the university
and where society was at the time,
it was a literary society just for men,
but then women developed their own literary society.
And that was the way in which a lot of what we think of
as campus or university traditions,
they were born from these kinds of student activities.
♪ Ohio, Ohio ♪
(marching band music)
- [Austin] The football games are just huge traditions.
- It's hard to ignore thousands of people showing up
around the city to cheer on the Buckeyes.
The tradition of Script Ohio,
that's a huge part of the game-day tradition in itself.
- It's one of our fine traditions.
Everybody wants to be the dot in Ohio.
- The first band member to dot the eye was a trumpeter.
And I think it was four games in
or the fourth time they did it,
that's when a sousaphonist was the first to dot the eye,
and of course that it the tradition.
- [Imran] I'm still blown away every time I see it,
the talent of the marching band creating Script Ohio,
creating their incredible halftime shows.
- No one ever leaves the stadium
because they wanna be a part of this experience,
and that experience is something
that cuts across generations.
(bells chiming)
- One of my favorite buildings
on the Ohio State campus is Orton Hall.
The building was built with this beautiful bell tower,
which was empty.
And the bell tower remained empty for 20 years.
It was actually the class of 1906
that wanted to leave as their class gift
money to purchase bells to put into the bell tower.
And so they started a chimes fund,
and they collected money from their class.
Several successive graduating classes had
as their class gift money to the chimes fund.
And so by 1915, they had enough money
to purchase 12 bells to place in the bell tower.
- It's one of those traditions
that has transcended time, space.
I think it's a tradition that brings a lot of pageantry
and is bringing people together around this theme.
- Orton Chimes complete the oval.
It's what I associate with a sort of collegiate experience.
(upbeat rock music)
- The war of the ropes began in the spring of 1975.
There was a challenge that Park five put out
to some other residents about a tug of war to floors.
- [Gordon] And it included as much ceremony
and pomp and circumstance as we could muster.
- Brought us together as a floor.
We had a coach.
We had a team.
We were a unity.
- There was some competition
and rivalry between five and 10 for a long time,
like 40 years.
- After we were out of school for a few years,
and we started our first reunions,
we talked about creating a foundation,
making an endowment to the university
to fund a tug of war every year.
We only had two conditions.
Whoever won had to spend the money on the floor,
and number two, to receive it after winning,
they just had to do a community service project as a floor.
- We all thought what a great experience we've had
and how important it's been to our lives.
What if we took that back to these students
so that they could attempt
to achieve the same kind of relationship?
I've been back to many of the the tug of wars,
and you can see the enthusiasm,
and you can see floors where the cause
of preparing for this,
it's helped develop relationships beyond where they were.
- It's nice having that competition,
but I think seeing what has happened
with the alumni is really inspiring.
And so hopefully I can take
what they've taught me from this experience
and continue on to keep those relationships
with my residents for as many years as we can.
- I think that this tradition
lets students like myself connect with alumni
in a way that we've never been able to before
because we all have something in common.
We're all residents of Park Stradley Hall.
♪ Have the years to rule ♪ (upbeat music)
- Traditions will persist
and new traditions will form
as long as the collegiate experience is understood
as a distinct time of life or a distinct period of life.
- You can see our traditions
and our histories everywhere you go.
In many ways, they tell us who we are, where we come from,
but sometimes we have to evaluate them.
Sometimes our traditions limit us.
We began to put ourselves in a box.
But sometimes tradition, when we evaluate it,
we recognize that we're more than just the things
that we hold dear.
- As our university attracts more
of what we call nontraditional students,
new traditions will form.
- [James] Now with social media
and the innovations that students bring,
we see traditions sometimes emerge
from individuals that traditionally
may not have had any hand in those traditions.
- I think today the traditions are changing
with the different things that we're able to do
as current students at Ohio State
compared to what's been possible.
We're starting new traditions.
We're doing brand new things. (audience cheers)
- Buckeyethon is a student-run organization
that has a mission of fighting childhood cancer
since about 2001.
The dance marathon started without about 100 students
in a gymnasium around campus
just dancing and fundraising for the kids.
They raised around $30,000 that year.
And now we look at it 18, 19 years later,
and we're raising over $1.7 million a year.
There are about 120 general body members who are students
who are behind the scenes making the dance marathon,
and everything related to Buckeyethon happen.
In addition to that, we end up having
over 5,000 other students who register
to be a part of this movement
who wanna come to the dance marathon.
And from that, we end up getting around 30,000 donors
who are donating to our cause.
So there ends up being thousands and thousands
of students, parents, family, friends
who are ultimately a part of this tradition and movement.
When I think about tradition,
I think about ways that people come together.
That can be an OSU football game.
It can be the Buckeyethon dance marathon.
But at the end of the day when I think about tradition,
I think about people together.
- At Ohio State Mansfield,
one of our most important initiatives
is to help our students feel more like Buckeyes.
For the last five or six years,
we've had our own homecoming court,
and it's been really fun to watch as the students,
they just love this experience that they get.
And it's not just about the six students
on the homecoming court.
It's about the other activities we have on campus
that bring together a lot of students.
We had events all week before the homecoming game.
- I feel like it's brought me closer
to the campus, actually.
I feel like I'm more connected with it
by going through the process of homecoming
and being on a court
and getting to know the court members as well.
- It's a positive experience for me
because I'm putting myself out there in leadership roles.
And I'm representing the Ohio State University at Mansfield.
(upbeat music)
- [David] I'm really struck by
how many students want to attend Ohio State
because they want to be a Buckeye.
And I think what it boils down to is
to immerse themselves in our traditions,
to go to a football game, to go to a Skull Session,
to listen to the band, to feel Script Ohio,
to hear the Orton Chimes.
- [Catherine] Exposing students to those kinds
of traditions that generations
of Buckeyes before them have participated in
just makes them feel part of that family
and helps them to immediately build some allegiance
to our university.
- I could be anywhere in the world,
and someone might say O-H if they see
that I have Buckeye gear on.
And that's a unique connection
that you don't find anywhere else.
- It shows that the institution is more
than bricks and mortar.
It's attitude.
It's a disposition.
It's a way of life that you bring when you're a part
of the Buckeye experience. (audience clapping)
(gentle, upbeat music)