Dartmouth's annual Homecoming celebration -- which usually takes place during mid-October -- was pushed back this year for one reason: to accommodate a better football game.
Football games are scheduled almost a decade in advance by the Athletics Office, but Homecoming is scheduled by Alumni Relations.
Director of Alumni Relations David Orr said his office tries to build Homecoming around "what appears to be the most important Ivy League game."
Associate Director of Athletics Josie Harper said both offices try to coordinate a good match for the Homecoming game -- "either Yale or Harvard, generally speaking" -- although the final decision has more to do with scheduling dates than who is a good team to play.
Harvard University was a good choice because Harvard is the closest Ivy to Dartmouth and "we have the best chance to have an exciting atmosphere and a good crowd," Harper said.
Orr said choosing the date for this year's Homecoming was rather simple.
"Look at the games we played," he said. The first four were away and the only prior home game against an Ivy League school was on October 4th, which is "too early."
"You don't want to have Homecoming against Lehigh," he said.
But choosing a good Ivy League opponent is complicated by the dates available. Orr said games cannot be scheduled for either September or early October because Homecoming would be too close to the beginning of the school year.
"The students involved in getting ready for Homecoming need at least three or four weeks" to get ready, Orr said.
In 1995, the College played Colgate University for Homecoming because the timing involved in playing another Ivy League school would have either placed Homecoming too early or delayed it until November 10th. This elicited a negative response from many students, according to The Dartmouth.
Next year, Dartmouth will be playing Yale University and Homecoming will take place around the middle of October.
"Next year Yale and Harvard are both here, [but] it's going to be Yale because it has the best date," Orr said.
In the year 1999, the College will play Cornell University around the same time.
Orr said in the next 12 years, Homecoming will never be this late again, but added that the late date does not keep alumni from returning for the festivities.
Rebecca Dirksen '00 said the only problem with the delay in Homecoming is that "it's too frickin' cold."
But she added, "It's probably good that it's cold, the freshmen can warm up and run around the bonfire."
Meghan Hewit '00 said "if I was an alumnus, I wouldn't want to come up and look at all the dead trees. I'd want to see pretty colors."
"Freshmen feel too comfortable now, and they should feel scared about running around the bonfire," Hewit said. "Because it's the only hazing we're going to get to do at Dartmouth."
