What are the norms, values, and social practices that define Linfield? Is there a special language or vocabulary that members of this community use? Are there special rituals or traditions that unite members of the community? What material artifacts or objects define Linfield as a culture? Are there any particular subcultures or countercultures on campus? See exercise 4.2 in the Korgen and White text and draw from the chapter to inform your response.
I think we have a unique culture. Being a liberal arts college we attract many types of people. Lots of students value there freedom to make choices. When our freedom is hindered someone usually speaks up and tries to change it. I'd say common practices for freshman and sophomore students is attending Dillin for food. It's a large part of your life while living in the dorms. We also love to watch our sports teams, espicially football. You can see this by the school spirt that is shown before, during and after the game. Most of us speak english, however, there are sub groups. We have many students from aboard that create there own clicks and speak there native language. Also, friend groups have there way of communicating that outsiders may not necessarly understand. Some Rituals that the school holds our convocation at the beginning of the school year, our graduation ceremonies, homecoming, and greek week. As far as material artifacts I feel as if our crest and our name defines our culture. Most students sport a Linfield sticker on there cars. Also, the buildings on campus. Other subcultures on campus would be Greek life, clubs, and sports teams. Int his communities you develop a family and people to look after you and take care of you.
ReplyDeleteThere are so many things that make Linfield the way it is. As you can see it can't be defined in one way. We are diverse, independent, academic, and socially inclined. It's the sub cultures that bring the whole Culture of Linfield together. It's this that gives us the norms, values and social practices.
One of the biggest symbols that represented Linfield for years was the Old Oak. It became this almost mystical icon on campus and there was a big raucous, both literally and figuratively, when it came down. Pioneer Tower also is a big part of Linfield lore. It was the original college, and is a very important historical piece of campus.
ReplyDeleteAs far as defining Linfield for its norms and values, I would say that we are unique for a variety of reasons. Unlike large state schools I feel that the campus here is very close and connected. There seems to be a value of sharing with your fellow wildcat. Most students are very warm and welcoming, and offer smiles and waves when walking through campus. There are a variety of traditions and rituals that make up the culture on campus. As Caitlin mentioned before, there is Rush week and Homecoming. There are also new traditions emerging with the help of active students on campus such as Diversity week and Green week. I feel that because of our small population, Linfield students are often more ambitious in their academic and extracurricular pursuits.
I haven't been around Linfield long enough to call my opinion an educated one by any means, although I would feel qualified to talk about a more general "campus environment." I think that college life (the campus environment) is a very interesting social phenomenon.
ReplyDeleteOn campus we have our very own special little world going on. In this world all of our essential needs are met by various forms of mass housing and feeding which are all prepaid either from our families thinning wallets, loans or work/study jobs. Another thing all of the campus members share is geographical proximity. All of the students live on, or around campus, and the faculty live fairly close as well. Having all of these things in common rationalizes our seemingly strange behavior, and can help explain our otherwise odd habits. To an “insider” all of our timed movements and ID card swiping seems perfectly normal, but from a muted aerial view, these happening would be regarded as very strange.
To me it seems that our community here at Linfield and on campus is defined and created by these circumstances that we share. All of our odd rituals and behaviors can be traced to these types of roots.
Being new to Linfield,I am not fully up to speed on the culture. However, being new has its advantages as I am given the opportunity to observe from a unique outside perspective. I have seen how students handle the Dillin situation and how students are expected to act at a football game. The language has certainly been something that I have had to adjust to quickly. Being directed towards FML or ICE has caused a few minor moments of panic before some person took pity on me and told me where to go. That custom at Linfield has been helpful. Most individuals have been more than willing to help out and always offer a smile or say "hello" as people walk past.I have noticed the focus on academics is much higher here as opposed to other college campusus. As far as sub-cultures go, I agree with Caitlin on how international students and groups of friends have their own unique way of communicating that would provide a challenge to any outsider. I would say yet another sub-culture would be place of residence. Each hall (as far as freshmen go) has its own sense of common unity. Everyone in those halls has similar struggles and therefore similar life experiences. As far as Linfield goes, it definately has its own culture that I am still working on fully understanding.
ReplyDeleteSome additional questions to think about and comment on if you want:
ReplyDelete~What are the functions at Linfield of the values, norms, rituals, artifacts, traditions, subcultures, countercultures (manifest or latent)?
~Or from more of a Marxist approach, what are some conflicts created by these things?
~What would Linfield look like if we didn't have these things?
~Are there larger cultural norms, etc. that affect the norms, etc. at Linfield? Are we a subculture?
~Does college serve to socialize students further, or are you done being socialized by the time you reach college? (Are you ever done being socialized by society?)
I think Linfield as a culture is very shut off from the rest of the world. We see this in our language - we speak of the "Linfield bubble" and make stereotypes about the ""townies" that stroll through campus on a daily basis and steal our bikes (not on a daily basis). When we do venture into the greater McMinnville community, it is for a stroll down 3rd Street to get ice cream, pizza, or Thai Country; a beer run; or a late-night Muchas adventure. Our interactions with the larger Mac community are, for the most part, limited to a merchant/customer relationship.
ReplyDeleteYou rarely hear about Linfield students having friends or relationships with people who do not attend the college but live here. There are not very many of us that work in the community, especially not at a job that was not advertised at school.
Why is this? Why do we so rarely venture off of our small area that makes up campus to explore greater Mac and the people that make up the community? Is it because we are to intent on studying? Is it because we don't think we can find connections with people who are not attending Linfield? Is it because we write off Mac as being small and rural? Is it because we figure we have enough friends on campus that we don't need any more? Is it a combination of all or some of these?
I, for one, think it's a combo of all (except for maybe the studying one). For me personally, I love to talk to people so whenever I'm downtown I usually talk to "townies". I also work at Roth's, so that exposes me to a sub-group of the Mac community. But despite that, I only have a couple of townie friends and I don't see them that often. Once I am on campus, I am usually so involved with my activities here, it is hard to break myself away to go explore off campus. It's an interesting phenomenon, the Linfield Bubble, and I wonder if it happens to all schools, or just small private schools or if it's unique to Linfield? What do you all think?
Sarah, you bring up a lot of good points about why Linfield students don't venture outside of the Linfield community. I agree that a lot of the Linfield students feel that they have enough friends here, and that they dont feel the need to go out and connect with the McMinnville community. I think it could be because a lot of us have busy schedules and dont have the time to try and go out to make new friends out in that community. For me, my studying is important, and I spend a lot of time studying. Then when I am not studying I have extracurricular activities that I do, and with my free time I want to spend it with the friends I have here, because that is comfortable for me. I have the feeling that this is how it is for a lot of people, they feel comfortable with the Linfield community. But that's too bad because there are things to explore out in other communities other than just Linfield's.
ReplyDeleteI think that as a community Linfield College is not very open to others. We are kind of enclosed in our campus and don't really seem to want to get involved in much activities. We are not very diverse either it was a very different change coming from a very diverse and big high school, Linfield seemed to just have a very different environment. People seem to just have a group of friends and not really try to make new friendships. We also just try to find "comfort" with people with our same interests and we sometimes are not so open minded and we don't try to explore other interests or other opportunities.
ReplyDeleteI think Sarah makes an excellent point. I look around campus and everyone is very comfortable being here and what-not, but once you step off campus you can see how secluded the college is from the rest of McMinnville. I know that some people from around town don't even really know that Linfield is here and it's a little sad because it means that we aren't making an impact on the community and letting others know we are here. I don't really know if this happens at all private colleges, or if its the fact that Linfield-or even the town- is pretty small. If it was because of the fact that Mac is smaller, then you would think that Linfield would a greater part of the community. Back to the point about the culture here at Linfield, I think that we have a pretty close community and I definitely think that the Greeks have a big role on campus.
ReplyDeleteIn class today we talked about a "Linfield Bubble". I had never really heard of the term before, but once we started talking about it, it really starts to make sense. Since the first couple weeks of my freshman year, I noticed a differnce between the town of mac and the linfield community. I dont really feel as much a part of the mac community as I do the linfield community. To me, it actually does seem like two completly separate parts. Like we said in class, one doesnt need to venture out to the town, pretty much everything is on campus. If you dont venture out often you may feel that this is all of mac, when really its only a small part of the mac community.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Jessica. I have never heard of the "Linfield Bubble" before, but it did start to make sense. Linfield is separate from McMinnville, they don't seem to really connect much. I see kids on campus every now and then that are much younger than us and i see myself asking why they are on a college campus, but then i remember that we are literally in the middle of McMinnville. We are a part of this community, but only to a certain extent. There are some groups on campus that venture out into the community to help like Circle K and Habitat for Humanity.
ReplyDeleteWe have basically everything we need right here on campus, i don't really see this at other schools I have visited. This just furthers our "Linfield bubble." I also think that our campus is extremely influenced by the liberal arts aspect of our education. This provides us with a diverse student body all interested in a variety of things. I think one of our values is that of a proper education..and like someone said in class, we don't take advantage of it because of the price and sacrifices many have had to make in order to obtain it.
I think that Linfield has a very strong culture. I think being a small school, students are able to express themselves and be heard a lot more than if they were at a larger school. I believe there are many subcultures here. Being an athlete I know that that is a huge subculture. When your an athlete, you tend to surround yourself with your teammates as well as other students that are into athletics. I think the same goes for students that are in clubs, sorieties and frats. Students here are very relaxed and show that in the clothing we wear and the way we carry ourselves. Coming from a Community college that was in a city I do not feel there is alot of diversity here but I do think that the school does a very good job in trying to be diverse. (if that makes sense)
ReplyDeleteMany of the values here at Linfield are the same as other colleges (especially private colleges). Though there are some differencing specific to Linfield College. We have slang words for places here, such as 'The Ob' or 'Mac' or 'The Fish bowl' or ect. We also have Homecoming, which is not only centered around football, but a coming 'home' of past graduates (getting to be involved again in greek life, if they were in the past; getting to reconnect with old classmates). Linfield also has symbols such as the Old Oak and the Wild Cat that help define Linfield.
ReplyDeleteOh Linfield community is quite interesting! Some of the norms we have on campus are athletics, homecoming, Greek week, and many more other events on campus that are kind of expected from the students to attend just because it going to be the cover story the next day. However, it all kind of depends what social group you want to be a part of. For example, I know that Greek week isn’t just for though involved in the Greek organizations, but the majority of the people who do participate are a part of that environment already. Similar, to what other college have, we have the Linfield Handbook. There, students can find the rules and regulations how they are expected to behave in both classrooms and residence halls. Aside, from the handbook each professor hands out a syllabus that gives the student an idea of what behavior is expected from them. The list of norms can go on and on because the people at Linfield are full of life!
ReplyDeleteThe values at Linfield are academics and athletics. Academics at Linfield are very important both to become a part of the Linfield culture and staying a part of the community. A sub theme of academics is balance. Since Linfield is a liberal arts school we try not to focus ourselves on just on science or mathematics, but a more balance and well rounded education. We are very open minded and for the most part very liberal people. Other than academics, we are very into the sports thing. Most of us who attend Linfield are a part of a sports team and those who aren’t athletes (like me) tend to be the fans out in the crowds!
The language and symbols are quite wild and cat like … we have words like Wildcat, Catty Shack, Cat Dome, F.M.L., O’Reily, Melrose, Pio, Walker, and Dillin etc. Symbols on campus include … our mascot: the wildcat, the old oak, the open book with our mission statement etc.
Even within the Linfield there is subcultures and countercultures such as Greek life, international students, football players, soccer players, etc. It’s all of this and more that make Linfield so unique and full of colors! You have to be a part of it to completely understand all its uniqueness and craziness!