Traditions That Make Trinity, Trinity

For more than 200 years, Trinity students have created traditions that connect generations of Bantams and make the College feel like home.

Your First Days as a Bantam

Your Trinity story begins with traditions that welcome you into the College community.

The First Walk: Your first steps—walking from the Borges Admissions Center towards the Long Walk at the start of Convocation and Matriculation—mark the beginning of your Trinity journey.
Convocation and Matriculation: A formal welcome to the Trinity community and the beginning of the academic year. Matriculation, the oldest continuously observed tradition, is the symbolic act of enrolling at the College.
The Matriculation Book: The book signifies the delegation of responsibility to the president for maintaining the educational activities for which Trinity was founded, and is one that you’ll sign as generations of Bantams did who came before you.
The Trinity Toast: A uniquely Trinity welcome featuring the historic Lemon Squeezer and a toast to the incoming class.

At Trinity, the campus itself becomes part of your experience—from your first walk across the Quad to your final walk down the Long Walk.

The Main Quad: The heart of Trinity’s campus and the setting for major moments like Convocation and Commencement.
The Long Walk: One of Trinity’s most recognizable spaces—and a place you’ll experience throughout your time at the College—is a stone walkway spanning the length of the Main Quad, beginning at Williams Memorial and ending at Cook Hall.
Fuller Arch at Northam Towers and Luther-Roosevelt Stone: A campus landmark with one of Trinity’s best-known traditions: walk around the stone as a first-year, then step on it when you graduate.
Downes Memorial Clock Tower and Plumb Memorial Carillon: Two landmarks that help define Trinity’s historic campus—and its soundscape—located at the north end of the Long Walk and in the Chapel.
The Statue of Bishop Brownell: A reminder of Trinity’s beginnings and its founder, standing at the heart of campus on the Main Quad.

From Convocation to Commencement, some Trinity traditions mark the moments you’ll remember long after graduation.

The Book: The Book—a tradition dating back to 1827—is held by every Trinity student at Commencement. At the College’s first Commencement in 1827, President Thomas Church Brownell had intended to have each student touch the Bible as he received his degree, but when he realized that he had brought only the bound volume of the order of exercises, he had each student touch that book instead.
The Key: A ceremonial key passed to a new president at their inauguration.
The Lemon Squeezer: A beloved Trinity tradition dating back to 1857, when a senior presented a wooden lemon squeezer to the Class of 1859 as recognition of the sophomores’ “aggregate excellence in scholarship” and “moral character,” but now plays a starring role in Convocation.
The Owen Morgan Mace and The Presidential Collar: Ceremonial symbols of Trinity’s presidency and academic tradition, the Mace stands for the president’s new executive power vested by the faculty and trustees—presented to Trinity in 1950 in memory of Owen Morgan, Class of 1906, and the Collar represents the president’s high office and authority and is worn at ceremonial occasions—presented to the College in 1953 by former president G. Keith Funston, Class of 1932.

Trinity isn’t just a 200-year-old institution with formal ceremonies—it has personality!

Songs of Trinity: From a cappella groups to campus ceremonies, music is part of Trinity life. Since the late 19th and early 20th centuries, students and faculty would write original lyrics to popular songs and traditional hymns and perform them at campus ceremonies, athletic events, and casual gatherings.
College Colors: Blue and gold are part of the Trinity identity you’ll see across campus, and chosen for the simple, practical reason that they “go well together.”
The Bantam: A small but mighty chicken, Trinity’s mascot can be traced back to a spirited speech that the Honorable Joseph Buffington, Class of 1875, gave at an 1899 Princeton Alumni Association dinner, describing Trinity as a proud, unfazed rooster: “he is glad to be here, is not a whit abashed at your hugeness, [and] is satisfied with himself and his own particular coop.” Trinity students, alumni, and the press soon thereafter started referring to Trinity athletic teams as the Bantams.
“’Neath the Elms”: Trinity’s alma mater has been part of college life for generations, celebrating the campus and community that Bantams call home. It was written by Trinity student Augustus P. Burgwin in 1882 and sung by the Trinity Pipes.