Departmental holiday parties continue, create traditions

It's their opportunity to be dorky. It's their opportunity to exploit their eccentricities and idiosyncrasies for the purpose of entertainment. This "their" of which I speak lacks an antecedent to promote tension and narrative drive in a journalistic piece, but, if you insist on knowing, "their" stands for "the academic departments," and the indefinite pronoun "it" rings the bells of the holiday parties they hold.

The English department seems to be the most eager for a party this year, largely as a result of Professor T.P. Roche's initiative. A Renaissance specialist in Spenser and Shakespeare, Roche's penchant for the things of yore seems to manifest itself in his desire to bring back a limerick contest. "We want people to see that faculty actually laugh," Roche said.

Roche, who has been a professor since 1960, feels that the holiday parties are "less important than they used to be" and he sees a clear reason why. "There's not even beer and wine. That takes the spontaneity out of things," Roche said.

This year's limerick contest derives from his memory of an annual limerick contest for Columbus Day. In the tradition of limericks about a certain person from Nantucket, these poems were supposed to begin, "There once was a man named Columbus." But Columbus has become less hero and more exploiter in the popular view; he's c'est pas chic, as it were.

Although new discoveries have been made, and fads fade, Roche initiated a new contest for this year. He is soliciting limericks from students and faculty alike to write about a certain Mr. Fleatch.

The gathering, to be held in the Hines Library in the basement of McCosh Hall, will feature limericks about this epic Fleatch, who, as the story goes, left the faculty of Princeton allegedly because he did not receive tenure.

The Slavic department, led by Caryl Emerson, looks to paint the town red with Thursday's party in the "Hyphen," the section connecting East Pyne and Chancellor Green. Folk songs and ethnic food should be expected. And as if pre-gaming hadn't gone far enough with events before the presidential debates, there was even a sign promoting a pre-gaming party for the Slavic holiday party in a Russian classroom. Perhaps, with the Slavic department generously offering to cover 80% of the funds for students to travel to Russia this summer, such assistance in improving alcohol tolerance will be necessary.

Russian classes, graduate students and teachers in the Slavic department will be singing songs dealing with folky aspects of the holiday season.

The Russian 101 classes, led by former Brown Derby member Professor Frank McClellan, will sing a Russian folk song that translates roughly to "In the forest, a fir tree was born." If one mentions the word for fir tree in Russia, little children will come running gleefully toward you from the streets, according to McClellan.

French Professor David Bellos has pride in his own department's musical abilities. "There have indeed been musical interludes at French department parties in the past" Bellos said.

"The one I remember best —because I organized it — was the Princeton Marching Band...playing the Marseillaise at very high tuba volume on the lawn of Palmer House...We also had very impressive a cappella singing at a winter party in Fine House some years back," he said. Perhaps picking a fight with or mocking the language department of a country not too far away from his beloved France, Bellos said, "I've not heard what our colleagues in German do, but I think we would have heard if they hired yodellers or alpenhorns."

It seems that some competition exists in the holiday party circuit.

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"We are lucky to have excellent musicians among our students, and they have also performed at some of our parties. This year, as you may guess, since this is a department of French and Italian, we are planning to have very good food. I should add that all those who come and join in the festivities remain the best recipe for success," Marie-Helene Huet, a professor of French, said.

Head of the economics department Gene Grossman spoke not of oligopolies when talking of the holiday parties, but rather of the supply of humor and demand for fun in the economics department.

"We do have a departmental skit party organized by our Graduate Economics Club (GEC) and open to grad students, departmental staff who work close to the graduate program, faculty and their respective spouses," Grossman said. "It was held last Thursday evening in the Field Center. It began with drinks and a dinner of Japanese food. As is our tradition, there followed a series of 'skits,' one by the first-year grad students, one by the second-year students, one by the 'post-generals' students (dissertation writers) and one by the faculty. All are intended to make fun of the faculty, the profession and the program. They are all done and taken in good cheer, and, although amateurish to be sure, some parts are really funny — at least to insiders." As we can imagine, it was probably one of those things for which you'd have to be there.

Apropos of the history of the skits in the economics department, Grossman cited origins from a left-brain oriented school in Cambridge, Massachusetts replete with socially incompetent students.

"I believe, but am not sure, that the tradition of skits by grad students and faculty in economics hails from MIT," Grossman said. "At least, such a tradition existed at MIT when I was a student there in the late 1970's...and, I'm told, well before that. When I arrived at Princeton in 1980, the tradition was already here. At that time, more than half of the faculty had received their degree at MIT, and somewhere along the line the tradition was imported."

But as you admire the holiday cheer of many departments, pity the weak and uncreative and, while you're at it, the shafted. "The thing that has changed for the engineering school is that we have moved our holiday party to early February. There are so many parties at this time of year, and none then, that we thought this would be appreciated by everyone—as it seems to be," said Dean of the Engineering School Maria Klawe.

As the parties continue to increase in innovation, John McPhee, who usually does research for writing during the fall semester, explained with sardonic wit his experiences with the departmental holiday festivities. "I usually have been away for the holiday parties, and when I haven't, I had too good a time to remember them," he said.