Put your fork down: This crier will make you laugh

Tuesday evening, Matt Frawley donned a toga, walked through the doors of the Mathey College dining hall and climbed onto a table smack dab in the middle of all of the dinnertime action.

“Good evening, Mathey-ites and Mathey-ite wannabes,” Frawley proclaimed, “I am your Mathey Crier, bringing you all of the news not fit for the ‘Prince.’ ”

At this point, the whole dining hall was quiet, anticipating Frawley’s subsequent speech, which included a top 10 list of things to do before Winter Break and a dramatic reading of “You’re a Mean One, Mister Grinch.”

Frawley is the director of student life at Mathey College, a position that he has held since the creation of the residential college program five years ago.

As the director of student life, Frawley’s job requires that he complete such tasks as handling discipline and crisis issues, supervising the residential college advisers, serving as an adviser to the college council and programming social events.

Otherwise, the duties of the position are open to personal interpretation. Thus, when Frawley was faced with the challenge of giving the Mathey community a reason to come together over dinner on Tuesday nights, Frawley said he thought of the olden days and how towns came together to get their news: gathering around the town crier.

Each Tuesday between 6:30 and 6:40, Frawley grabs his toga and begins his Mathey cry with the same attention-calling shout.

Afterward, Frawley calls out one of the Mathey RCAs or newsworthy Mathey students.

“One year, these guys had a stripper pole in their room, so I mentioned it. Everyone knew about it, so the very fact that it got a mention in the Mathey Crier’s cry became a big deal,” Frawley said.

Following that, Frawley reads a top 10 list, usually specific to Princeton. Past topics have included “Top 10 Signs You’re Stressing Too Much About Midterms” and “Top 10 Worst Jobs.”

To end, Frawley takes a popular song and reads it as a serious oration. He said his favorites have been “Bad Romance,” “Milkshake” and “Baby Got Back,” though for the last two, he coughed through the inappropriate parts in order to keep it clean.

Following the speech, Frawley descends from the table, applauded by his audience, and all returns to normal in the dining hall.

Get the best of ‘the Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

“It becomes something where everybody is there and talks about it, and it’s funny. It’s a nice communal event,” Frawley said.

While writing and performing a weekly speech like the Mathey Cry may seem like a huge time commitment, Frawley still finds time in his busy schedule to take on other personas.

One year, the other colleges’ directors of student life gave Frawley the “Eager Beaver” Award, honoring his enthusiasm for the job.

When it came time to plan for representatives from Mathey College to pick up prefrosh during Princeton Preview, Frawley broke out a full sized beaver outfit and created the character of the Eager Beaver.

During Preview in 2009, the Eager Beaver joined students wearing Preview Captain T-shirts, capes and sunglasses in welcoming the prefrosh who were staying with hosts in Mathey College.

Because of their energy, the next year a contest for the college that does the best job welcoming freshmen was born. Since the contest’s inception, the residential colleges have utilized balloons, vuvuzelas, golf carts and the Princeton University Band in order to welcome prospective students.

In April 2011, Mathey tried to get togas, bellydancers and a live camel.

Frawley said they had already reserved a camel when the environmental compliance office said they could not have one on campus. Instead, Frawley said Mathey obtained a two-person camel suit and named it “Preston the environmentally compliant but not real camel.”

Frawley said he hopes that students continue to take ownership of welcoming the prospective students, perhaps one year with elaborate floats.

“It builds community,” Frawley said, “I like the idea of students investing in silly, fun projects that are things they’re going to talk about at Reunions.”

About what he hopes students are getting out of their college experience, Frawley says: “Princeton’s difficult, I get that, but I think you manage it better by doing a bunch of things, one of those can be being silly every once in a while. If I can model that behavior and make people laugh and have a good time, I think that is a worthy pursuit.”