Longwood is a special place; the spirit here cannot be topped. Everyone here is very connected to each other, and we just play off each other’s energy. The students here have so much love for Longwood. This university is very unique about the ways we express the love we have for our school. We express it in our traditions, but with recent technology advances, we have modernized ways of expressing it as well.
The homepage of Longwood’s website has a section for Longwood's favorite tweets. It’s a way for anyone to express their love about Longwood using new technology. All you have to do is tweet what you love about
the school in 140 characters or less and use the tagline: @longwoodu. Then, check back on the homepage to see if the school retweeted what you said.
For example, Shelley Heaney tweeted, “I just wanna thank all the maintenance people on @ longwoodu's campus. It's always so beautiful and they do an amazing job!” Bryan Roethel tweeted @ longwoodu I loved it here as a student! Love it even more as staff!
Also, you can go to the website http://175.longwood.edu/our-past/ and post a video of how you became a student at Longwood. This website is set up specifically to celebrate the 175th year anniversary of Longwood.
We do have our traditions that were set before some of us even got here. The G.A.M.E. is one of those traditions; although it is a newer one. For most seniors, their freshman year was the same year the very first G.A.M.E. took place. The G.A.M.E. is treated as if it's been here for a lot longer than it has been. Some other well-known Longwood traditions include Oktoberfest, Color Wars, Spring Weekend, CHI Walks and finding CHI droppings.
Oktoberfest is a weekend full of free concerts and good times. Color Wars, which kicks off Oktoberfest weekend, is an event where students are in a state of organized chaos, split in two class ranks (Red Class and Green Class), and then we get to throw paint at each other. Spring Weekend is a student run event. There's good food and more free concerts, along with another Longwood tradition: Oozeball.
CHI is a secret organization on campus. They give out CHI Commendations to students who participate and show their pride for the university at the end of the year CHI Burning. Being a part of CHI is a wonderful honor, and no one knows the members until the burning.
Princeps, another secret organization, has members floating around on campus. Members of Princeps are usually those who have achieved academic or leadership success.
Another tradition here at Longwood is stepping on the painted black crowns that are all over the campus sidewalks; they represent Princeps.
Beware of the painted Rotundas, though, for stepping on them brings bad luck and is seen as crushing school spirit as well as the spirit of CHI.
Sophomore Amelia Cohen shared what she feels about the community at Longwood, saying, “We Lancers feed off of the positive air about the campus. We call this place home. A place where we belong, our first college choice, where we feel safe, wanted, educated, where we can grow into adults.”
