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Swoboda, Marian J.; Roberts, Audrey J. / They came to learn, they came to teach, they came to stay
(1980)
Langill, Ellen D.
Chapter 2: Women at Wisconsin: 1909-1939, pp. 11-30
Page 13
ward (1907-1911), strengthened the tradition of women's self-government on the campus by opening WSGA offices in Lathrop Hall and establishing the Women's Court to adjudicate disciplinary matters. In addition, the dean of women supervised residence hall "mistresses," approved off-campus housing, and served as academic and personal counselor for all women students. Between 1911 and 1918, Dean Lois Kimball Mathews worked ex- tensively with vocational guidance and began the co-op housing movement, which allowed women to save room and board costs by working together in communal houses. Mathews published a book in 1915, The Dean of Women, based on her experiences at Madison; the first guidebook of its kind, the book was widely used on campuses across the country. In addition, she persuaded the university to create the office of dean of men, instead of assuming that the dean of the college would automatically serve the university men.'0 By the 1914-15 school year, Mathews reported that the housing situation had been improved with the addition of the co-op houses. Of the 1424 under- graduate women who boarded in Madison, 152 lived in Chadbourne Hall, 116 in Barnard Hall (a newer women's dorm), 172 in sorority houses, 492 in lodging houses and 725 with relatives or friends.1' However, Mathews was disturbed by the splintered housing situation which prevented cohesion among women students. She argued for more women's dormitories open to out-of-state girls since the "Wisconsin-only" policy of Chadbourne and Bar- nard kept in-state students isolated from "the more cosmopolitan friendships of out-of-state and foreign girls."'12 To help alleviate this splintering and to unite women students, Mathews allocated many duties to the WSGA which operated as a council composed of two elected representatives from each women's housing unit on campus. The council voted on policies governing women students, subject to faculty veto, and planned "mixer" activities to bring women students together. The WSGA clearly stated its purpose in a 1915-16 student handbook: "to further, in ev- ery way, the spirit of unity of the women of the university."'13 The purview of the WSGA included rules regarding hours, social codes such as behavior in Lathrop's parlors, and all other aspects of conduct - except academic prob- lems and honor codes. Each housing unit could draw up its own rules, regarding use of its parlor, quiet hours, and lights out, but all were required to forbid male visitation to rooms, smoking, drinking, and gambling.'4 Each house had a committee to enforce these rules with the help of the house mistress, an older woman or graduate student. No coeducational parties were permitted except on Friday and Saturday evenings and all had to be well-chaperoned by persons on an "approved list." Women had to keep 10:30 hours on weeknights and 12:30 on weekends; parties had to end at midnight. Women were forbidden to leave town without the written permission of their parents, except for school vaca- tions and holidays.'5 Thus female students were protected by a strong univer- sity tradition of in Ioco parentis; that it was a well-accepted tradition is at- tested to by the role of the WSGA in the formulation and enforcement of these rules. The Women's Judiciary Committee met to try offenders and mete out punishments (also subject to overruling by the dean of women). In addition, the dean of women met with a council of all women's clubs on campus. Representatives from the Pan-Hellenic Association, the literary and dramatic 13
Copyright 1980 Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System| For information on re-use, see http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/Copyright