Word: clapper
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Perhaps the best-known of these traditions is the annual bell-clapper escapade. Every fall as early as possible the freshman class is allowed to steal the clapper of the hell in Nassau Hall's tower in order to prevent it from tolling the hours of classes. If there is no bell, then there are no classes...
...carry off the prize first. The University doesn't mind the theft once a year, although the proctors and campus cops keep a sharp eye out and apprehend anyone they can who acts even faintly suspicious near the tower. To elude the watchful constabulary and get the clapper is every Tiger cub's dream...
...great is the enthusiasm for the theft that many classes have been known to foster several separate and independent groups who have not only stolen the first clapper, but its replacements...
Dean of the College Francis R. B. Godolphin frowns on multiple thefts, however, and after the clapper has disappeared once, he brings disciplinary action. "The clappers are too expensive to replace," Godolphin says, "and although they are allowed to keep the first one if they aren't caught, from then on the freshmen can't do any more legal stealing...
This year the bellclapper escapade gained national notoriety when the members of the Denver Harvard Club briefed the Denver members of the class of 1955 in the best and most efficient way of pilfering the clapper. Apparently the Colorado alumni were anxious to renew their undergraduate days by hanging the clapper in their own clubhouse if their sons were successful in stealing...