Just as the sizable crowd on Founders Green was beginning to grow restless, a loud gasp echoed from somewhere toward the back. The students turned around. For a moment, all you could hear was their hushed shock. Then, laughter. Haverford senior and campus celebrity, Ben Fligelman, was being carried up the long walkway from VCAM to Founders, arms crossed dramatically, as if entombed in a coffin.
On Monday, Sept. 22, Fligelman hosted the fifth of his biannual Hat Changing ceremonies, which celebrate the changing of the seasons. Fligelman, now co-president of Haverford’s Students Council, is well known by students for his distinctive style of dress: typically a vintage suit and tie and always a hat.
Fligelman says he has always been a hat wearer. He favors a newsboy cap in the winter and a wide-brimmed, straw Panama hat in the summer. On the days of the fall and spring equinoxes, Fligelman gathers his friends and any onlookers who care to watch and delivers a speech before officially changing from the summer hat to the winter hat.
This ceremony was inspired by the historical practice of taunting anyone who continued to wear a straw hat past the acceptable date. In 1922, this led to the Straw Hat Riot in New York City.
“I’ve never been worried about people throwing rocks at me, but it’s good to keep with the seasonal traditions,” said Fligelman.
The first Fligelman Hat Changing Ceremony took place on September 22, 2023, in Fligelman’s sophomore year. He was in the habit of changing hats seasonally while in high school, and in college he realized that this personal tradition could be an opportunity to put on a show for others, while also attempting to say something touching or important in his speech.
Ben Fligelman said, “Somebody once told me that they thought the allure of the hat ceremony is that they knew that I would do it even if nobody came. And I think that’s true. I think there’s a real joy I get from myself in it. But I also feel kind of a responsibility to people. I don’t know if I would be doing right by people if I just changed my hat in private.”
“But I also feel kind of a responsibility to people. I don’t know if I would be doing right by people if I just changed my hat in private.”
BEN FLIGELMAN
The tradition of the Hat Changing Ceremony exists in the space between spectacle and the personal. While the performance is a source of entertainment for many attendees, it’s not just entertainment either. In his speeches, Fligelman sets out to explain some idea or message he considers to be, in his words, “Capital-T True,” and doesn’t shy away from obscure references to art, literature, or religious texts in the illustration of his point. This year, Fligelman quoted St. Paul (“Let us not fall asleep as others do, but rather let us keep wide awake and be sober”) and read from the end of the Henrik Ibsen play Brand.
I spoke to Fligelman three hours before the ceremony. When I asked him about his speech-writing process, he answered, “It’s gonna happen after this meeting. Yeah, I try to write the speech immediately before.”
Fligelman’s speech is his way of making sense of a theme or idea he’s been considering as the season changes. This year, the theme was love. For Fligelman, that also incorporates our desire to be good people and do the right thing.
There was also a theme of resurrection present. All of Fligelman’s flyers (designed by friend Iris Kim, BMC ’26) advertised “Fligelman Dead” in the style of a newspaper front page and “Resurrection coming soon…”
“My hope for that element of the ceremony is,” Fligelman explained, “that it reminds us that when we wake up, we sort of see what’s real.”
During the ceremony, as Fligelman layered the quotes with his own interpretation, the crowd responded with grunts of agreement or murmurs of surprise. The audience served as a kind of reflection, punctuating his speech with verbal support.
Regardless of whether or not the students in attendance had a deep understanding of the texts Fligelman made reference to, his enthusiasm inspired them.
Closing out his remarks, Fligelman called out: “That is the symbolic power of resurrection. It is an event of love. We experience it together. And as Mitski says, ‘I love everybody because I love you!”
He flung his old straw hat into the crowd and put on his winter cap. The crowd cheered as Fligelman ran in circles with his arms spread, making sure to high-five everyone. Someone had thrown him a single white rose, and Fligelman picked it up and waved it above his head. The petals broke from the stem and showered down on him.
