Social Life and Women on Centre's Campus

By Amber Edwards

Margaret Stroup, a graduate of the Centre College class of 1960, interviewed in March of 2021 stated:

The fraternities were the only social life. Occasionally, there was a school wide dance,
but otherwise there was only the fraternities to go to on Saturday night.

In 1819 Centre College opened as a men’s institution, fashioning itself to cater to men, and perpetuating a male-dominated social life. Later, in 1926, Danville’s Kentucky College for Women merged with Centre as the “women’s department,” but women did not physically join the men on campus until the 1960s. Despite the college’s gradual movements to become more inclusive of gender on campus, one area of campus life maintained a difficult for women to permeate – social life. Fraternities hold a long history on campus, establishing them as the dominant force in the social sphere of life at Centre. Prior to the introduction of sororities to Centre’s campus, social life for women specifically was limited to highly monitored school dances, events planned by the fraternities, or gatherings often held in the dorms on the opposite side of campus. The regulations and restrictions surrounding social life on campus reveal that, though fraternities have contributed greatly to Centre’s cherished culture, women have faced difficulty establishing space for themselves to direct their own social lives – illustrating the difficulty in challenging Centre’s roots as a male-only campus.

For this project, I will specifically be looking at the nature of social life on Centre’s campus from the time KCW moved into residence halls in the 1960s on the north side of campus to the introduction of sororities on campus in the 1980s, in order to illustrate the development of women-controlled spaces. While Greek institutions were critical or emphasizing leadership and philanthropy opportunities, the power structure around socializing favored fraternities and rendered campus life a male-dominated space.

Prior to the establishment of sororities, the women’s dorms acted as private spaces of homosocial interaction for women – a place that either prohibited or carefully monitored men. As a result, women built relationships outside of a male context. According to alum Jo Alexander (Diffey), she found her core friend group in her freshman dorms. As she later explained in the book 1964 All Over Again: Centre Girls Reunite, she saw it as a home with a supportive family structure. Older sister figures in the Junior sponsors lived with the freshmen and taught them the ways of campus life. House mothers enforced curfew and dating rules in the residence halls. Freshmen women enjoyed protections from campus spaces that didn’t cater to them. Fraternities were a prevalent space for dating and partying, both of which were public and visible experiences for women. Dorm life was the hub of women-led social life on campus in the early years of Centre. Outside of fraternity parties, campus-wide events like the first weekend party after the opening of football season - Training Breaker- , Homecoming, and dances, there was one instance of women taking control of the social scene before sororities. Gardenia Weekend was a traditional event organized by freshmen women where women invited men to be their dates rather than the other way around. Though unclear when this tradition stopped, an invitation to the 1984 Gardenia Formal reveals that the event remained an enjoyed campus event even past the introduction of sororities on campus (1981).

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Fraternities had a presence on campus that not only controlled the social environment but also became overbearing or harmful in some instances. Since they were the sole owners over sociability on campus, they created a male dominated space, one in which revolved around fraternities. In the 1960 Yearbook, Olde Centre, the pages on each of the fraternities notably highlight the social aspects of their presence on campus in the photos chosen and the descriptions written, alongside a smaller section regarding their leadership and philanthropy roles. Though a school sponsored text, the photos showcase the centrality of fraternities to Centre’s social life.

Aside from the control over socializing, the policing of women on campus came not only from the administration in regards to dress codes and expectations of how women were to present themselves, but also from fraternity men. In the early 60s, the DEKES rated the freshmen women in their dinner attire on their way into Cowan. Discussing parties in the late 70s, Susan West remembers “we as in the freshmen women, just felt like they were watching us and examining us and looking at us like a piece of meat, literally, coming in” revealing a sort of dominance men had over the space. Additionally, as Sharon Morisi notes, “fraternities could be wicked with freshman girls and um…somewhat predatory.” The trend often proved difficult to dismantle, as a Cento article from 1979 states that on a given night out “At least ¾ of the guys are out to pick up a girl, any girl, and get into bed with her. And the sad thing is that they have so little self-respect that they will tell all their ‘frat brothers’ about their real – or more often totally fictional – experiences in great detail.” Through these student-controlled publications, an image of fraternities on campus emerges. While they served as the hub of night life, some members also had unwelcome reputations of disrespecting women. Over time, women students made a case for more access to socializing for women outside of the fraternities, especially as Centre moved away from the outdated notions of curfews and restrictions for women.

Sororities did not take the same role as fraternities. Their addition was a gradual change to Centre’s social culture, particularly as there was a sizable opposition to the ‘colonization’ of sororities at Centre College. In the 60s and 70s, many students found the lack of sororities on campus attractive and a factor in their decision to choose Centre College. As Dr. Angela Lipsitz said in her interview: “I was attracted to Centre, also, because there were not sororities because I just did not want to deal with that […] I just thought I just don’t want anything to do with that, giving – you know – people a chance to decide if I’m able to associate with them or something” reflecting a concern raised during the process of sororities coming to campus that they would disrupt the comradery among women students and create cliques.  In 1979, representatives from Kappa Kappa Gamma visited the college to meet with students and answer questions before establishing chapters of KKG, Theta, and Tri Delta. Despite hesitation from those who opposed sororities for various reasons, the representatives noted that:

Women have been totally dependent on fraternities for their social life. […] Most of the members coming to the open houses were juniors; they indicated that they had been on campus long enough to know that there were no social options for women, and they were convinced that women’s Greek groups would offer a substantial number of students a positive alternative.

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In the 1980-1981 school year, three sororities came to Centre’s campus, opening a new women-only space. This new sense of autonomy not only opened many of the same doors that fraternities did for men through leadership roles and philanthropic opportunities, but they also notably restructured the social sphere of campus. Lea Johnson, a founding member of Kappa Alpha Theta, saw no negatives in the introduction of sororities on campus saying that it “really changed the dynamics of the whole social scene, which I think was a really positive thing, because we were then able to dictate what we wanted to do socially, and it wasn’t all dependent on the fraternities.” By organizing structures that support women on campus, space was made in the institution of the college for women, a distinction that made a marked difference on Centre’s campus. While sororities reshaped Centre’s social life, the roots of the college as a male-dominated sphere lingered. Even though spaces emerged for women, socializing remained centered around the fraternities. On one hand, institutional change such as the addition of sororities should resolve the discrepancy of control over spaces; however, not every woman is interested in sororities and the college has a long history as a male-dominated space that takes time to uproot. The colonization of campus was an important first step in a series of many to provide inclusivity in sociability at Centre.

Though sororities provided new opportunities to women on campus, social life remained dominated by fraternities, reflecting the patriarchal structures that the college was built upon. The dependency on fraternities for a college social scene did not end with the addition of sororities on campus, and perhaps it was not meant to. Despite the questionable reputation fraternities in general have gained over the years, Centre’s included, they do provide the college experiences of wild nights you won’t soon forget to the memories of your college years alongside the leadership opportunities and philanthropy events. In the years since the addition of sororities on campus, Centre has blossomed into a campus with much more extra-curricular and social opportunities than it once was, and – if you choose not to – no student has to partake in Greek life by affiliation or socialization even.

Bibliography

Alexander, Jo. interview by Amber R. Edwards, March 27, 2021, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.

“A Sermon on manners and morals (mostly bad),” Centre College Cento, October 12, 1979, Centre College Institutional Repository Collection, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky, accessed April 27, 2021. https://ccirc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/historic/id/825/rec/265

Boeck, Greg and Lindy. 1964 All Over Again Centre Girls Reunite (Place of publication not identified: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2017).

“Invitation to Gardenia Formal,” 1984. Centre College Special Collections, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.

Johnson, Lea. interview by Porter Anderson, March 4, 2021, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.

LaCharite, Gini. “Report of visit to Centre College November 6,7 1979.” Centre College Special Collections, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky, accessed April 22, 2021.

Lipsitz, Angela. interview by Amber R. Edwards, February 27, 2021, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.

Morisi, Sharon. interview by Caroline Lancaster, March 10, 2021, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.

“Olde Centre 1960,” Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky, accessed April 13, 2021, https://centre.omeka.net/items/show/1188.

“Olde Centre 1960,” Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky, accessed April 13, 2021, https://centre.omeka.net/items/show/1188. 104

Stroup, Margaret. interview by Nina M. Brown, March 5, 2021, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.

West, Susan. interview by Shelby Hammonds, February 26, 2021, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.