Century Tree

PLAY AUDIO

The Century Tree is a live oak over 100 years old, one of the first trees planted on the A&M campus.[1] The Aggie Traditions website explains that the Century Tree is also home to one of A&M’s most treasured traditions. The site of numerous marriage proposals, tradition suggests that a couple who walks under the tree together will eventually marry.[2] Like some other Aggie traditions (kissing—or “mugging down”—after touchdowns at football games), the tradition of romance associated with the Century Tree is heteronormative. Heteronormative discourses construct a masculine/feminine binary in which men and women are understood to be complementary and position heterosexuality as the norm rather than one sexual choice among many. University campuses—like all public spaces--are geographies of sexual space where sexual norms are produced and maintained; under the Century Tree, heterosexual romance blossoms but other romantic scripts remain outside of Aggie tradition.[3]

[1] “Century Tree.” http://www.tamu.edu/traditions/aggie-culture/century-tree/

[2] Ibid.

[3] Phil Hubbard, “Here, There, Everywhere: The Ubiquitous Geographies of Heteronormativity.” Geography Compass, 2/3, 2008: 640-658.