This Cornell Ritual Is One Of The Weirdest College Traditions

Publish date: 2024-03-22

Per an article from Cornell University's Medium account, the College of Engineering considered several float themes, including a penguin, a cobra, and a knight on horseback. Eventually, they settled on a phoenix to engage in friendly competition with the College of Architecture's dragon. The College of Architecture officially sanctioned Dragon Day in 1993, and the tradition has become interwoven with many aspects of Cornell life, including a machine shop introductory course with creating Dragon Day sculptures as the final project. However, there was also a darker side of Dragon Day that developed over the years. 

As reported by The Cornell Daily Sun, between the 1950s and the 1980s the rivalry between the architecture and engineering students got more intense, and would often erupt into violent brawls that would shut down Dragon Day festivities. In the late 1980s, the university hired Brian Beeners as Dragon Day advisor. According to Beeners, "They gave me this role as peacekeeper so I could help regulate it and dumb down the violence that was occurring." Under Beeners' leadership, "By communicating with the engineers and replacing violence with fun alternatives like water balloons, we were able to make Dragon Day safe and fun again." Further changes included banning the open burning of non-wood materials in 2009 — which ended the celebration's traditional bonfires — and prohibiting certain pranks.

Despite the dilution of certain aspects of Dragon Day, the tradition remains beloved. Student Sahir Choudhury from the class of 2021 told the Daily Sun, "You could say that in short, for me, Dragon Day was the reason why I chose Cornell over other architecture schools."

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