"Women's Regulations": A Look at Centre's Antiquated Handbook Rules

Detail from the student handbook  table of contents with "women's regulations" hightlighted.

By Shelby Hammonds

When looking back on the history of being a Centre College student in the 1960s and early 1970s, the different written expectations of behavior between male and female students do not go unnoticed. This specific period was one of immense changes, given that Centre had only recently consolidated its male and female campuses into one coeducational campus in 1962 – and with that move must have come concern over how to manage the interactions between the newly residentially coed student body. The student handbooks from this period provide a window into examining how the College administration attempted to specify rules and regulations specifically regarding where women could and should be, and when. In the late 60s to early 70s, rules regarding the behavior of women on campus were evolving, and it is interesting to note the yearly handbooks’ correlation with these changes. With particular attention to rules surrounding dormitory life, examining the handbook rules – as well as the interviews from those who were willing to share stories of their college-hood days for this project – can be found as a place to analyze how Centre College saw women as compared to men in their ability to care for themselves and what they were capable of, and in what was expected of them, as well as in general highlighting stark double standards to eyes of the more modern reader.

Until the 1970-71 academic year, the Centre College student handbooks had specific gendered sections in the table of contents labeled “Men’s Regulations” and “Women’s Regulations.”[1],[2] Perhaps this would not have been of particular interest or alarm at the time. Perhaps it would have made sense given the structure of the college that would necessitate such specifications, given that the Executive Council of the College had both a Dean of Men and a Dean of Women, the women had a separate judiciary system, and that the Kentucky College for Women had prior rules and regulations that carried over when the campuses merged. In essence, structurally built into the fabric of the functioning of the College was a distinct difference in the managing of men’s and women’s affairs. Still, when more closely examining the differences in regulations with regard to dormitory rules, it becomes evident that the women’s rules were far more robust in monitoring the whereabouts of the female students.

A particularly noteworthy rule is that of the stipulation of women needing to be in their dormitory buildings by a certain time each evening. The handbooks from 1962 through the 1969-70 year all state within the subsection of “Women’s Rules” that female residents were expected and required to be in their dormitory buildings from 7:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m.[3] Women were allowed to sign in and out for campus engagements after 7:00, but the dorms would be locked at 11:30 p.m. on school nights – and there were many stipulations on how to attain “key privileges” to be able to enter the dorms after closing hours.[4], [5] Crit Luallen, a first-year in 1970-71, recalled, “In those days when I got there, it was very strict. There were curfews every night… And if you were one minute late, it got counted… And if you got so many demerits, you went before a judicial… it was like a dorm judiciary council where they would hear your case and decide what kind of punishment you should get. It was all very strict.”[6]How often a student could exercise key privileges changed by class standing, with freshmen, sophomore and junior women needing parental consent to participate.[7] When wanting to use the after-hours key privilege, students had to follow certain procedures of noting their destination and planned time of return.[8] Absences from the residence halls were to be taken seriously and be well-documented. Overnight absences from the women’s dorms were supposed to be approved in advance by the residential director and were to be “taken only in places where there is a chaperone acceptable to the College”[9]

It makes logistical sense for the dormitory doors to need to be locked, given the ‘60s and ‘70s were a few decades before the modern electronic swipe entry. However, it is of particular interest that female residents – all non-senior female residents – needed to provide parental consent in order to have the ability to use key privileges to be out after closing hours. Men’s housing, on the other hand, was open on a twenty-four-hour basis.[10] With the potential safety concerns of having a completely unlocked dorm building aside, it is interesting to consider this would mean that male students had a certain freedom to come and go from the dorms without parental consent. As all students on Centre’s campus were young adults, it must be noted that a student’s parents would have a say, a level of control over, the campus life of daughters – but that sons were to be trusted on their own. There is a theme of the College taking on a sort of pseudo-parental role with specific regard to the actions of female students. This seems to point to a difference in the level of capability in making one’s own decisions that was assumed between male and female students.

Aside from physically needing to be located in the dorms, there was a certain level of decorum that was, at least in theory, supposed to be maintained during dorm life – especially for first-year students. Through the implementation of “junior sponsors,” first-years were given guidance on how to maintain themselves in the dorms. Mary Seelbach, a first year around 1966 said, “the freshmen all had junior sponsors, they were students, and they could monitor things, and go tattletale with the house mother if you were misbehaving…”[11] Men did not have necessarily such an equivalent to “junior sponsors.” Though the junior sponsors were surely a great resource of mentorship, friendship, and guidance in the college experience, their position of authority to monitor the rules could also be applied to the parental role the school was shaping in various ways. 

A common theme that was associated with the rules regarding the hours female students must be in their dorms was that they were about protection. “Women were protected… the doors were locked and you had to be in… You were monitored. Protected,”[12] recalled Mary Clyde Hardin, a student who both resided at the Kentucky College for Women’s campus and experienced the move to Centre’s campus in ’62. As previously mentioned, it is important to observe that the student handbooks did not have such subsections for male students regarding their comings and goings from the dormitory buildings. There is explicit language that states this discrepancy, cited here from the 1970-71 handbook, “Men’s housing is open on a twenty-four-hour basis, while women’s residences are closed and locked within stipulated hours for the common protection of residents.”[13] Another example of a safety rule that was only mentioned in the handbook with respect to women’s residential life and leaving campus, cited here from the 1969-70 handbook which says, “The exact destination should be given if possible so that a student may be located for an emergency,”[14] With regard to students’ campus comings and goings, there was no such sentiment regarding safety given for men. Crit Luallen reflected on the women-specific campus rules saying they were in “an effort to treat the women in more lady-like-wise, you know, the sort of traditional protective of women rules.”[15] As aforementioned, there was this theme of protection of women. In examining why such provisions would have been in place, it can be inferred that women were needing protection from men – and yet, the mechanisms of protection are to manage the female bodies, when and where they may be, who must know where they are. Additionally, with the campus being newly residentially coed in the ‘60s, it can also be inferred that these rules dictating when and where women were supposed to be could have come from a fear of what men and women might do, if there were allowed to be together unregulated. Mary Clyde Hardin experienced being on the all-female residential campus, and described a feeling of loss of freedom when the female students made the move to Centre’s campus. When asked if their move to Centre’s campus affected the men, she replied, “It probably wasn’t much different for them. We just lost a lot of freedom.”[16] Now that men and women were on the same campus, the rules put the responsibility of staying “protected” onto the women. In the presence of men, it was the women who became policed.

The era of strict curfews at Centre and overt “Women’s Regulations” has since passed. Many women who were interviewed for this project who attended Centre between the late ‘60s and into the early ‘70s noted how this period was one of many social changes at Centre. Mary Seelbach described going from living under strict curfews as a freshman to “an open dorm” as a senior by saying, “it amazes me how fast the changes had been.”[17] Crit Luallen, class of 1974, who was previously quoted specifically in discussing the strictness of dorm curfews remembered, “By the time I left, all that was out the window, and you know, the curfews were gone… There were no men allowed above the lobby level when I came… By the time I left, you know, men were allowed to come and visit in the rooms… It was a time of change, you know, this is the early 70s.” A number of interviewees cited this time as an era of social upheaval, as a time in which changes were imminent. This coinciding time of the ongoing Vietnam War, the feminist movement, and other social changes, whether explicitly or not affected Centre’s administrative action. As Mary Seelbach put it, “the administration… was smart enough to realize that big changes were coming, and they worked with it.” In a January 1970 article from the Cento, a move by the College to give students more self-governance in the dorms is described – “The College apparently has come to the point where it is willing to say to students that they have the right to exercise their own judgment in the regulation of their lives.”[18] Though the freedoms we are afforded in dorm life at Centre today were miles away, social changes were happening and students were leading the way in fighting for more equitable dormitory rules.

Footnotes

[1]Student Handbook, 1969-70Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Danville, Kentucky.

[2] “Student Handbook, 1970-1971” Centre College Archives and Special Collections, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky

[3] Student Handbook, 1969-70” Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Danville, Kentucky.

[4] Ibid.

[5] “Student Handbook, 1971-1972,” Centre College Archives and Special Collections, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.

[6] Crit Luallen Interview, Interviewed by Gus Crow, March 11, 2021, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.

[7] “Student Handbook, 1971-1972.”

[8] “Student Handbook, 1970-1971,” Centre College Archives and Special Collections, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.

[9]  Ibid.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Mary Seelbach Interview, Interviewed by Daniella Hudgins, March 9, 2021, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky

[12] Mary Clyde Hardin Interview, Interview by Ava Allen, March 8, 2021, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.

[13] “Student Handbook, 1971-1972,” Centre College Archives and Special Collections, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky

[14] Student Handbook, 1969-70,” Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Danville, Kentucky        

[15] Crit Luallen Interview, Interviewed by Gus Crow, March 11, 2021.

[16] Mary Clyde Hardin Interview, Interview by Ava Allen, March 8, 2021.

[17] Mary Seelbach Interview, Interviewed by Daniella Hudgins, March 9, 2021.

[18]Dorm Self-Rule Concept is Changed: Commentary,” Centre College Cento, January 23, 1970, Centre College  Institutional Repository Collection, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky, accessed May 14, 2021.

Bibliography

Crit Luallen Interview, Interviewed by Gus Crow, March 11, 2021, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.

Dorm Self-Rule Concept is Changed: Commentary,” Centre College Cento, January 23, 1970, Centre College Institutional Repository Collection, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky, accessed May 14, 2021. 

Mary Clyde Hardin Interview, Interview by Ava Allen, March 8, 2021, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.

Mary Seelbach Interview, Interviewed by Daniella Hudgins, March 9, 2021, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky

Student Handbook, 1969-70Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Danville, Kentucky, accessed May 14, 2021.

Student Handbook, 1970-1971” Centre College Archives and Special Collections, Grace Doherty   Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky

“Student Handbook, 1971-1972,” Centre College Archives and Special Collections, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.