This year’s Traditions Mistresses are Kendall Phillips and Annie Schinella, two Juniors who are passionate about Bryn Mawr’s Traditions and happy to do the work that brings them to life. Kendall is a Math and Art History double major originally from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Annie (also known as Suzanne) is an Art History major with an English minor from Alexandria, Virginia. The two sat down with the Bi-Co News to discuss their role as Traditions Mistresses.
Why did you decide to become Traditions Mistresses? What inspired you?
Kendall: I learned of what the Traditions [Mistresses] were before I even came to college, and I remember really looking up to them my first year.
Annie: They were so cool.
K: Honestly it was around freshman year when I was like ‘Wait, what if I actually did this?’ So, about January of this year, I asked Annie ‘Hey, this is a crazy idea but what if we ran for Traditions Mistresses?’ I think, when it came down to it, the reason I chose to do this is because I have a deep desire and a deep guiding force within me – not to sound cheesy – to leave things better than I found them, so this year I really want to try to get a lot of little things rolling and add a lot more of the Bryn Mawr spirit into Traditions.
A: For me, Traditions was the reason why I came here. I applied early decision because I loved the Traditions, I loved the experience, I loved the vibe on campus, and the other schools I was deciding between just didn’t have that. I wanted to be a part of this community and I wanted to be a part of these traditions that link you back to all the alumni, something that’s in common, to have this thing that is intrinsic to the Bryn Mawr experience. When I came here I was so excited about every single tradition and I had such a good time. I remember for lantern night, I lived on Brecon fourth and we were running our own smaller rehearsals to learn the song. We had that forwards and backwards – not that you can really tell the difference because it’s ancient Greek. I loved it, but it didn’t occur to me to pursue this until Kendall came and talked to me. Traditions have been one of her passion projects and every once in a while I’ll be sitting in class and Kendall will send me a screenshot of an old Bi-Co News article from the 40s talking about what Hell Week looked like back then and all of these other old, dead traditions that have just disappeared over time. I think it’s really cool how similar and how different they all are over time.
K: I probably annoy Allison Mills (the college archivist in Special Collections) a little too much with my constant requests to pull old yearbooks, newspapers, or songbooks. The songbooks are so cool.
A: They have little drawings that are hand-done by students and stuff.
K: A lot of them are in the new songbook, actually!
How has it been going so far?
A: It’s been good. It’s nice to have things like parade night go well and to hear first years saying it was great or to hear upperclassmen say it was really fun. A bunch of my friends said they had a great time and that we were really hype this year. It’s very fulfilling knowing that I played a part in making that happen. It can be busy sometimes, but at the end of the day, it’s nice to know that it’s going well.
K: I feel like Traditions is this whole other world that’s happening at Bryn Mawr, and there are so many things that you don’t know about Traditions until you are at the helm of it, like secret things going on and the amount of planning that goes into it, and how far in advance you’re working. We are kind of in the thick of it. You’d be surprised how far forward we’re already thinking, we’re already looking at contracts and whatnot. But, I remember leaving parade night and thinking ‘Holy shit, I did that. I had a part in that.’ It helps me feel a deeper connection to the school and the people around me in ways where I hope that I’m giving back and making other people enjoy their time at this school more.
A: In a more personal way, there’s also a very fun satisfaction that comes from reliving that freshman year experience of not knowing everything that’s going on but now it’s all my friends begging me to tell them about May Day and me being like ‘Well, you’ll find out. Sorry, can’t tell you.’ So it is kind of funny to put everyone around me in that same position of not knowing once again.
How are Lantern Night preparations going?
A: For the most part, pretty good. There are a lot of other things going on on campus at the moment like Owl’s Fest and the construction at Old Library and everything around it. It’s been a little hard to work around and plan around.
K: Otherwise, Lantern Night is this really old tradition and I always thought of it as rigid. One thing I didn’t realize is how much life those who are planning Traditions for the year give to Lantern Night, how much life the current community at Bryn Mawr gives to Lantern Night, and how much community involvement there is. I think out of all the traditions it’s the least individualistic in the sense that everyone is coming together.
A: Yeah, and the first years have their role, the sophomores have their role, upperclassmen… everybody has their way to help out, and the whole night, symbolically, is passing down all of this knowledge, all of this community and giving it to the first years. And it’s really interesting to see how we’re seeing the same thing happen behind the scenes. For a tradition that’s symbolically about welcoming people into the community, it’s been nice to see behind the scenes how much the community wants to welcome them in.
There’s been some tension with admin regarding Hell Week, have you been in conversation with them this year yet, or have any plans on how to handle it?
A: We certainly have some more informal plans between the two of us. This goes back to the whole balancing thing, it’s hard to balance what the students want, what we want, and what admin wants, and to understand where all three groups are coming from.
K: One of the things we ran on was keeping Hell Week safe but also preserved for future Mawrters. We have not yet had formal conversations with admin, but I know that we’ve been looking extensively at the data, and that’s our approach to prioritizing what will keep the community the safest over what admin might want to do.
A: I feel like there are a lot of systems in place at Bryn Mawr like the SGA and honor board that are there specifically by students and for students to keep everybody safe. To me personally, I think that it’s very important that we do have all of these self-governance systems in place and follow them as closely as we can. For the most part, it’s pretty tried and true looking at past records of safety incidents.
K: Traditions is ruled by self-government, it’s paid for by SGA dues, it’s run by students for students, and I think sometimes people can forget that.
“Our job straddles the past, present, and future.”
Bryn Mawr Traditions Mistresses, 2024-25
What surprised you about having the role of Traditions Mistress? Is there anything you would like the Bryn Mawr community to know about the role that they might not realize?
K: I was recently discussing this with a friend, and I think Traditions has a lot more fluidity than people expect. You view the college and Traditions as this age-old thing and this massive organization, but I think Traditions, the reason they continue on and the reason they’re important to people is because they act, to me, as the heart of the college to some extent. I feel like something we’re paying a lot of attention to is asking what traditions need to be for students now.
A: Yeah, they are living and breathing things. There are a lot of traditions that haven’t made it to today that started at some point and ended at some point. The ones that we have now, the smaller superstitions to the bigger traditions, have all aged with the Bryn Mawr community. There’s a little bit of a balancing act between following what’s written to the letter from past Traditions [Mistresses] to what we can do for this year for this group of people.
K: Our job straddles the past, present, and future. We are looking to the past for inspiration, like for some of the new things for the year like the new dorm mascots. That’s something that I brought back, technically in my role as dorm president. But there are also other little things like the drawings in the songbooks and the new parade night song for the first years. We’re making the current changes we need for this year but also aligning things so that it’ll work better in the future.
A: There are a lot of ideas we’ll have when talking with each other and with people at the college to try and get the ball rolling, but those ideas don’t end up being feasible. Part of me hopes that idea will be brought up next year or ten years down the line when the spaces work better for it. With every single thing that happens, there are another twenty backup plans that don’t.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
K: We want to hear back from other people. We want to hear your ideas, your thoughts, the things you want to see, the things you don’t want to see.
A: Traditions … adapts with the students, so if the students have any ideas they should send them our way because we want to hear them!
You can reach out to Kendall and Annie at kphillips4@brynmawr.edu and sschinella@brynmawr.edu with any questions, suggestions, or feedback. They would be happy to hear from you!
Lantern Night is Sunday, November 3rd at 8 pm.
