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• 1 media/seniorwomenteaparty7may1959.jpg 2017-03-10T08:00:38-08:00 Living on Campus (pre-1962) 26 Guidelines, rules, celebrations, and more to how life was conducted for KCW students image_header 2017-05-03T09:22:52-07:00

  Being a female student at Centre College was a vastly different experience than being a male student for a variety of reasons.  One very clear reason is that female students still lived and operated on KCW's campus, which Centre referred to as the Lexington Avenue Campus (due to its location a few blocks away from Centre's campus).  This meant that students had a quite strong degree of separation in their daily lives, for everything from classes and sports to social life and extracurricular activities.  

  Before 1962 women lived primarily in dorm rooms located in West & East Halls; buildings had parlors containing seating areas, pianos, and more.  A hostess ran a sign in/out system, keeping track of all student activity in the building.  A resident nurse took care of medical needs, and a weekly maid service was also provided, so women were encouraged to make their bed and stay tidy so the maid could better clean the room's furniture and floors.

  The Women's Department and Centre (male students) also had separate student handbooks which outlined the rules each department was expected to follow.  In the 40s, most of these rules were typical dorm-life rules around observing and respecting quiet hours; no showering/bathing, no talking, no typewriter use, and just no noise after a certain hour every night -- typically 10:30pm or 11:00pm.  The parlor pianos were also banned during quiet hours and girls were instead encouraged to quietly play radios instead.

  Some universal rules, observed by both men and women, tended to revolve around daily life.   Meals had required attendance and times, and the library had rules in place to ensure smooth operation and appropriate sound levels.  Dorms had a closing time, and being late for this closing time had social penalties, especially if students did not call ahead to let the hostess know they were going to be late. Dorm room care was similar to what it is now: don't pin or paste things to the bare walls, don't damage the furniture, etc.  Smoking rules were lax so long as students used ash trays and metal waste-baskets but alcohol rules were very strict.  Starting in 1950, the handbook stated that, "Any student found guilty of drinking, conveying, giving, or having liquor in his possession may be dismissed from college," reflecting the conservative and religiously based viewpoint the college took on at this time.

  For women, rules about social engagements were the most elaborated upon, with a complex system in place that limited all types of social engagements: distinguished between walking dates, evening dates, and more.  Freshmen had the harshest rules; they were allowed only three social engagements per week, required study hours from 7:00pm to 10:00pm, and a 10:30pm curfew every day.  You could gain additional social engagements through class seniority and good grades: having straight As would allow any student to gain unlimited social engagements.  The key difference in dorm/campus life for women and men is found in the signing in/out system.  The system was meant to keep track of students and ensure that no matter what social events or activities women choose to participate in they would be back in their dorm room by a certain hour, but they often ended up being overly harsh.  Rules from 1947 listed below:

   

  1. Whenever you leave the campus except to attend a regular class on the men's campus, sign out in the register in your hall.  As soon as you return, sign in.  
  2. If you have a date in the parlour in the evening, sign the register.  The hostess at the desk will explain how to sign.
  3. If you leave the campus for more than five hours in Danville during the day, mark 'day leave' by your name in the register.  You get a limited number of such day leaves each month.
  4. If you wish to leave Danville during the day for any distance of more than ten miles, you must make arrangements in the office of the Dean of Women twenty-four hours in advance.  These absences are also called day leaves, and the number is limited.  
  5. If you wish to take an overnight absence from the dormitory (absences permitted only on Friday or Saturday nights), make arrangements in the office of the Dean of Women twenty-four hours in advance.  These absences are called week-end leaves, and the number is limited. 
  6. In addition to making arrangements described in 4 and 5, sign the register in your own hall when you leave for a day leave or week-end.  Sign again as soon as you return.
  7. In all signing in and out in the hall register, give the exact time of departure and return.  Failure to sign the book accurately is considered a serious offense.

  These rules were strictly enforced and being late at any step -- no matter what the reason -- would result in loss of social engagement privileges for some time, the number of engagements lost increasing with every minute the female student was late.  There were additional rules and regulations whenever a male student was involved somehow.  Some rules from the men's handbook in 1948-49

  KCW social regulations

  1. Men may call for girls to take them out at any hour up to closing time, but if they wish to sit in the parlors or remain in the building, they should come only when there is a hostess on duty. ...  Men are expected to leave by 5:45pm ...
  2. Girls will know how many times a week they may have dates for the evening.  In additiona, all students may have walking dates any night from 7-8pm.  
  3. Men callers should let the desk hostesses call the girls downstairs.  

  The women's handbook from the same year provides rules for the same category (social customs).  "Men callers" as they were called were not expected to call before 3:30pm during the week and before 2:00pm on the weekend and were, on all days, expected to leave the KCW campus by 5:45pm, when all female students were expected to return to their campus and also "...not sit in cars on the campus."  Rule #6 in this section states that:

  6. It is not customary for men callers, either relatives or friends to go in the rooms above the first floor.  Special permission may be obtained in the office for men to carry heavy packages upstairs.

  Women were also not allowed to bring cars to campus, the only exception being made for women during the last six weeks of their senior year, whereas men were allowed vehicles at any time, having no handbook rules on car ownership or management.  Women were only allowed "to go motoring with men" if they had filed written parental permission with the Dean of Women, and even then were only allowed to travel with a ten-mile radius of Danville.  There were also guidelines for flying and swimming.  Women were only allowed to go swimming off-campus with written parental permission, and had to be in a group of at least three students: one life-saver and two women.  Flying rules were similar, with a woman requiring both the permission of the Dean of Women and written permission from parent or guardian before they were allowed to travel by plane.  This rule quickly went obsolete, however, and the last time it appeared was the 1948-49 school year.

  Greek life was a significant social aspect for men at Centre, but not one for women as there were no sororities on campus during this period.  Men had many fraternity options with many options being established at Centre during the mid-late 19th century; it would be until 1980 that the first sorority would open on campus.  Women were only allowed to go to fraternity houses when there was "official chaperonage" and if they had obtained permission to attend from the faculty-head of the hall they lived in.  This small amount of contact would have to suffice for quite some time.  Altogether, these rules paint a restrictive picture of a woman's life on campus.  All aspects of life were closely monitored and tracked, and illustrate a very conservative lifestyle for both men and women.  

  There were a variety of different social opportunities afforded to the women at the KCW campus. The men at Centre College were often invited to events held at the women's campus, while the women also occasionally made their way over to the Centre College campus for athletic events, namely, football games.

  There was one event in particular that was seen as the pinnacle of the social experience before the merger. The event was called the "Gym Reception", and served as the opening event each year. Due to the fact that rules and guidelines were much more strictly implemented in that era, there was no dancing allowed. Rather, the men and women would be monitored by chaperones (mostly composed of the older women and faculty wives) as they participated in playfully organized meet-and-greets with the opposite sex.

  "There'd be two chairs and the girls would sit in one, and the other chair which was put facing that, was reserved for the boys. There were so many more boys than there were girls..."
  - Mary Ashby Cheek

  Another one of the premiere social events that was offered to the KCW women was the May Day celebration. This event was held exclusively for the women at KCW and it consisted of renditions of Shakespearean plays, musical events, and dancing, to name a few. There would be around five hundred to six hundred spectators who would set up chairs and enjoy the entertainment. The social events of the May Day celebration would follow the weekend of commencement and precede the trustee meeting held at the end of the school year. Spectators and participants alike were enthusiastically invested in the celebration as a whole. Other events consisted of some large scale ones, like a Valentine's Day celebration, a Carnival celebration while some smaller scale events took place throughout the school year. Almost all of these large scale occasions had an accompanying 'court' that was elected by the student body each year; with a queen and a king leading. These traditions were long-standing, having started as far back as the early 20th century, continuing up through mid-late 20th century. Things like tea parties, formal dances, and other get-togethers were a regular occurrence on the KCW campus and were used to mark significant occasions such as freshmen arriving on campus, seniors graduating, and more.