Michael R. Giaimo
I usually use my columns as an opportunity to educate the ignorant, feed the malnourished, save the world - in short, inflate an overblown ego by jamming my partisan ideals down an unsuspecting reader's throat. But this week, as the specter of (and a 1-4 start) looms over our heads like a black cloud, I would like to use this column to discuss a concept that we hear about all the time, especially this week: Homecoming. But do we really understand its purpose?
Is homecoming simply a time when university alumni make an annual pro forma visit to their alma mater? A time for the entire university to put on its best attire to astound alumni and elicit the type of nostalgia that rekindles the spirit that brought them to the university in the first place? A time when fraternity and sorority actives polish their houses and suites in the hopes of impressing alumni of their respective organizations and solicit giving?
Certainly, by definition all of the above questions can be answered in the affirmative, and they are all important aspects of homecoming - but if we search deep enough we discover that homecoming has a broader, special meaning and isn't simply motivation for idle conversation with someone from another time and seemingly another place.
It's a term we throw around a lot and something that we're told to look forward to with eager anticipation, but do we really understand what homecoming means and what it is designed to promote?
Obviously, the literal meaning of the word is a return of someone to their home. We often refer to a war veteran's homecoming, or the homecoming of a relative. But in contemporary parlance it has come to heavily connote a college ritual, rooted more in festive activity and less on the actual return to a "home," metaphysical or tangible.
Homecoming has been the theme of countless masterpieces of classical literature and theater. The depiction of a character's yearning to return home - to something familiar, something close to one's heart, something that he longs to recapture. I think this is what homecoming truly is: a return to an embodiment of feelings, emotions and memories that were part of the college experience. As students, our love for the university can be manifested through the actual homecoming pageantry, but for most alumni it can only be recaptured through nostalgia. Perhaps a walk through an old fraternity house, conversation with a former roommate, or the allure and fanaticism of UT football.
Homecoming should be a synthesis of the pageantry and the metaphysical/physical return "home." There should be more interaction between alumni and students. No matter the gender, the color, the ethnicity, there is one unifying characteristic that generations of students at the university have shared in its 200 years of existence: an education at the University of Tennessee. We have shared similar feelings, similar emotions, similar hopes and similar aspirations.
Let homecoming serve as a reunification of that collective spirit that homogenizes all those who are involved with the university- past, present, and future.
The homecoming activities that have been buzzing around Fraternity Park this past week, as well as Melrose fraternity row, and dormitories display well the kind of university spirit that should be manifested on homecoming. It is a group of individuals from diverse backgrounds with diverse plans, all working for a collective goal - to show an appreciation of their university, for their "home." As students vigorously work to complete banners, floats, lawn displays, or whatever, that serves as a manifestation of school spirit. Maybe without knowing, they display the essence of homecoming - to unite, to appreciate, and to honor those who tread before us, the alumni.
"Home" doesn't necessarily mean a building, a shelter, or a football stadium. "Home" can be a state of mind - maybe it's the memory of a feeling of relief and excitement as the diploma was conferred at graduation, or agony of climbing of the steps of the Hill at 8 a.m. every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for an entire semester, or it's the sound of silence as you studied beneath a tree in a corner of campus, insular to the bustling around you. Whatever fondness or anguish you feel, it all goes into creating the memories of your home. This truly has been, or will be, home to most of us for at least four years.
Billy Joel once wrote and performed the song "You're My Home." It captures the nucleus of my discussion. "Home" is something more than the place where you've hung your hat for four (or in most cases five and six) years, it's the totality of the environment that you were subjected to - feelings, memories, and friendships. As we see many of the alumni traversing the campus this weekend, realize that will be you sooner than you think. And also realize that homecoming is more than a designated party time (although that is part of it). It is a time to honor those who came before us and the commonalities between us.
Copyright 1994 by The Daily Beacon. All rights reserved.
This story was published on Friday, September 30, 1994
Volume 67, Number 27
The story was printed on page 4.
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