Smashing Clay Pipes at Rutgers University

[briarfriar]

A rite of passage revived at Rutgers University: commencement hour smashing of clay pipes!
Click here for video.
Jay

 

[jerwynn]

Disgraceful, wastrel barbarians!! I noticed the "pipes" looked more like measuring cups though... but still.

 

[papipeguy]

The disturbing part is that a school needs a Dean of Student Engagement. You need a PhD now to baby sit.

 

[condorlover1]

I think they should just nail all the new students to a wall as a right of initiation! :rofl:

 

[mso489]

I have an inlaw who is a student at Rutgers. Maybe he can slip past this ritual. Sharp kid, inclined freshman year to major in statistics, which might limit his job competition. I knew a Ph.D. statistician in medical research who could turn aside a whole room full of scientists when he pinned down the data analysis. He was soft spoken but really knew his statistical analysis, and whole rooms full of experts would fall silent and cease and desist once he'd spoken. Interesting to see. He was kind of the absentminded professor; you couldn't get him to say hello if you tripped him in the hall -- his brain was doing its calculations.

 

[coda]

I am currently a Graduate student at Rutgers University-Camden. I did not plan on walking, but if I were, and if this tradition was in place at my branch of the University, I would smoke the pipe, and then pocket it...

 

[virginiacob]

Those clay "pipes" definitely are ceremonial and don't look like you could actually smoke them. I know the professor in the video said that they found a potter that could make them, but they looked like they were still more raw clay than ceramic to me. They may have been fired, but if they were, they must have been fired at a very low temperature. I wouldn't expect that there would be as much dust with a true bisque fired clay pipe which would be more ceramic in nature. I expect that they may have done that on purpose as it could be a little dangerous for the graduates to be smashing actual bisque fired clay pipes as the shards from those could be fairly sharp and make for some dangerous projectiles as they bounced off the cannon.

 

[bryguysc]

Ah, the tradition smashing of the clay ladles!

 

[blueeyedogre]

I saw a TV news spot about that on the news one night...... I guess the pipes were made by a local pottery factory as inexpensively as possible and to call them pipes would say they were pipe shaped and far from a smokeing product. They showed a couple of them in the broadcast and they looked more like a small clay horn, unglazed and roughly finished, then any smoking pipe I've ever seen.

 

[anthonyrosenthal74]

Those weren't pipes. Looked more like ladles, or measuring cups.

 

[mso489]

Apparently people don't remember what a tobacco pipe looks like anymore. I think this is like breaking wine glasses at weddings, just a happy ritual, no reflection or disparagement of wine-drinking, which most people do happily and to excess at weddings.

 

[skaukatt]

Jay, they are definitely NOT invited to our annual BBQ!!! LOL!!!

 

[fnord]

Coda:
If you'd make the walk I'd be honored to send you a used clay pipe to smash and a good one to pocket.
One of my kiddos graduated from the University of Kansas last year and made that very important walk, down the hill, through the WWI dedicated Campanile, to peel off before the mass graduation ceremony and join us back home for a well deserved gathering of family and friends.
Bub, he's going to have those moments for the rest of his life. I'd like for you to have the same.
PM sent.
Fnord

 

[pappymac]

It should be noted that no Real Clay Pipes were harmed during the recording of the video.
From what I understand the smashing of the Clay Pipes was an old tradition where the graduates would smoke the clay pipes one last time before graduation and then smash them. That would lead me to assume it was a ceremonial moving on to "better" things like briar or meerschaum pipes now that they had graduated and could get productive jobs.
What is in the video is symbolic of that time only. Let's face it, the youth of today are not like the youth at the turn of the 19th century. I doubt many of those graduating will rush to defend this country if an actual war was declared.