About Bison Week Day of Destiny
About this Event
DAY OF DESTINY
Sunday, August 10, 2025
They left home as children of parents, with only potential and promise to sustain their intellectual hunger. Today, they will be fully embraced as a member of Howard’s Ancestral Herd as they are bestowed a power forged through struggle and triumph, bequeathed by generations of Bison both living and transcendent into the light. Throughout the course of this day, new students are reborn into Bison, allowing ignorance, indecision, insecurity, and apathy to die and be replaced with a rejuvenating life source of knowledge, confidence, boldness, and inquisitiveness.
Sunrise: Call to Chapel
As the sun rises, they are “called to Chapel” to convoke the faith of their forebearers in their journey of personal transformation.
Dusk: The Short Walk
At dusk, new students take “The Short Walk” from the Yard to Green Stadium. Though being accepted to Howard is a prestigious accomplishment based on adolescent achievement, it is nowhere near as demanding as obtaining a degree from Howard. “The Short Walk” represents the relative facile process of graduating high school and entering college as a freshman. It is the inverse of “The Long Walk” graduating seniors will take from Greene Stadium to The Yard for their Commencement, representing the arduous journey of self-discovery, sacrificial growth, and unyielding proficiency required to become a Howard graduate. As the reverse of “The Long Walk,” the “The Short Walk” is designed to ensure that new students begin with a sense of humility and recognition of the hard work it will take to complete their course of study. In order to complete “The Long Walk,” they will need to be reborn as Bison.
As students take The Short Walk, they will see the footprints of those who have come before them, both figuratively and literally.
Sunset: Pinning Ceremony
As the sun sets over campus, the naïve student peacefully passes way as a scholar emerges. As the spirit of the scholar rises in each student, they are presented with a pin. The pin serves as a talisman which draws the collective knowledge, courage, and forces of will of Bison from across generations and places them at the command of the new Bison as they make their mark on the world.
