Middlebury College: Myth of Coeducation

Up on the top-floor library of Gifford Hall eight boys were at case in sweaters and shirts open at the neck. But five of them were "blowing up a storm." A trumpet, trombone, guitar, piano, and drums were whooping up some loud Dixieland jazz. Two fellows were listening and watching; another was studying. Across the street the girls dorms were quiet, their occupants studying.

The road that separates the girls from the boys and the rest of the Middlebury campus is not as wide as the Common between Radcliffe and Harvard, but it might just as well be. Academically and socially it is a chasm.

But despite music among the books and the coeducational split, Middlebury College compares strikingly with Harvard and Radcliffe, and the comparison reveals the advantages and disadvantages of a big-city educational plant.

The scholastic averages of two-thirds of all the girls at Middlebury fall within 93.8 and 80.4 points. Out of the 502 girls and 693 boys in the undergraduate body, there are 162 women on the Dean's List and 58 men. This is practically a three to one ratio, and in a small community it has powerful effects.

Part of the problem can be traced to the atmosphere on both sides of the Middlebury campus. It begins with the fact that girls who apply to Middlebury apply to it as a first choice. Many are turned down who are accepted at Radcliffe, Wellesley, Vassar, Smith, and Bryn Mawr. But boys apply as their second or third choice, and if they end up there, it is generally because they were turned down elsewhere.

And when the female freshman arrives at Middlebury, looking for and expecting to find enjoyable learning under coeducation, she finds a highly regimented campus social life. She must be in her dormitory by eight o'clock every night, unless she signs out until ten. Only on Saturday nights can she sign out till twelve thirty. Evening athletic contests at the school are the exception.

Women cannot be in the boys' dormitories at any time under any circumstances. This throws the load of indoor socializing onto the fraternities, but here Middlebury College law has strengthened Vermont State law to a severity that outdoes the deplorable situation in Massachusetts.

Like most small colleges, Middlebury is fraternity-dominated. The Interfraternity Council controls the fraternities, with the Dean of Men advising. "We've been well pleased by the workings of it," the administration reports, and there has been little interference, though the right to interfere is maintained. Because of the Vermont law against drinking under 21 and because of strong objection to College rowdyism by the village townspeople, the Council has ruled that there is to be no drinking in public view. It must be taken inside the fraternities.

This is not a severe request; considering town feeling, it is a wise one. But while the boys are perfectly happy to have their parties in the fraternities, the girls are not. College regulations forbid its girls to drink, and it is difficult to break this regulation on campus. This has led to the double punch bowl problem and 14-mile trips across the State line to freer New York.

Girls Are Further Restricted

If the proper chaperones are picked for fraternity functions (women cannot be in the fraternities unless there are chaperones present), the punch bowl downstairs will be pure. The one upstairs won't. The Middlebury women have forced this. They prefer it to two separate dispensaries downstairs, one for Middlebury women, one for others. Imported dates are under no drinking restrictions.

The sororities do not alleviate the situation since they are merely rooms in an office building in the town. If a girl wants entertainment, she must go one state west or 100 miles up to Montreal. But this is complicated by the transportation problem. There is no general exodus of students over the weekend at Middlebury because there are no longer trains in or out.

The result is that cars are plentiful among the men. They are not allowed to the women until after the Spring vacation of their senior year. Each car must be registered with the school, and discovered borrowing brings a revocation of driving rights. Girls are thereby forbidden to drive on two counts, which means that if a male enters a condition in which he cannot conduct his date or vehicle home from what is, for him, a legal drinking bout, the couple, by College regulation, is stranded.

The last alternative the girl has, if she can get the transportation, is the overnight on a weekend. For this reason the bulletin board at the Student Union is always covered with ride requests from girls. To take a weekend, however, a girl must first obtain permission from the Dean of Women. This comes after the girl has presented a completed form from her parents, filled out at the start of the year, for permissions of all types: "Are you willing to have your daughter . . ."

The Dean of Women, Elizabeth B. Kelly, is a warm, realistic woman who approaches her problem in a highly practical way. She came to Middlebury after World War II, during which she had to protect 21 girls from over a thousand men on a base in New Guinea. Noting that a diploma is only so good as a school's reputation, she says, "We of my sex want the privileges of a double standard without any of the responsibilities."

But the Women Are Supreme

But while the Middlebury girl cannot drive, drink, wear dungarees except in the dorms or to, from, and at labs or an active sport, or sun-bathe in a lastex bathing suit (any other type is permissible), she has won faculty respect.

This leads to an honor system. Only in a class that is predominantly female will the instructors walk out of the room during exams or quizzes. Furthermore, the Middlebury girl is expected to and does enforce her strict parietal rules on herself. She is completely on her honor as far as signing out, signing in on time, and penalizing herself for late minutes. She confines herself to the dorm in accordance with an established penalty system, and if her infraction is sufficiently severe, she reports herself to the president of her dormitory.

With the girls under close restrictions, even if they are self-administered, and the boys fairly free, they lead quite different lives. This is complicated by the fact that Middlebury is a small town with few diversions. For this reason, the undergraduate male life centers around the fraternity.

All freshmen at Middlebury must live in College dormitories, but rushing for the fraternities starts early in the Fall. The sororities do not rush until the Spring. Boys find much to do, and all the freedom they want to do it in. The girls are put under restrictions and forced to study. In time the men realize what they are at the school for and settle down; the senior and junior men on the mid-year's Dean's List outnumber the freshmen and sophomores on it, four to three. The freshman and sophomore girls had the exact same number of honors as the senior and junior women.

Location Problem

Sophomore men at Middlebury have the worst academic averages, which is a reflection of the fraternity-sorority system as much as of the freedom-restriction differential. A little more than half the boys and half the girls join societies; the whole undergraduate body can't be taken. But the fraternities have houses on campus. The sororities do not, and this creates two separate atmospheres.

After the officers, sophomores are given the first right to live in the fraternities. Seniors fill up the remaining space, and juniors are left to the College dormitories. A fraternity member may eat at his frat or in the College, dining halls with the neutrals, or non-fraternity men.

The sororities provide neither living nor dining facilities, though meetings are held regularly and banquets once or twice during the year. Because the fraternities and sororities differ in what they offer, they differ in importance. A boy is identified to the Middlebury community immediately by the fraternity he is in, but a girl's sorority makes no difference to either girls or boys. In fact, it doesn't matter in the least if she isn't in one.

A Middlebury man's world centers on the frat. If you are a member of one, you are accepted by all. A fraternity party is never closed to members of other brotherhoods. The frat offers its brethren intramural sports, a bar to drink away the academic difference between themselves and the Middlebury women, and a dining hall with a separate chef to provide three meals a day and a ten o'clock snack at night. A student can have breakfast in his frat until ten thirty; he can't get into College breakfast after 7:10.

This fraternity--sorority difference causes or is reflected in another academic situation. The scholastic average of all sorority women at mid-year's was 83.37. The average of all women together was 83.20, and of neutral women, 83.06. On the male side of the street neutral men led with 78.02. The total men's average was 76.27, while the fraternities lagged at the bottom with a grade average of 75.80.

There is little that the small town of Middlebury can do to increase the degree of coeducation in the College. There are two movie theaters, but on other than Saturday nights dating couples must catch an early show. There is some mid-week dating to campus activities, but it is a far cry from what the ten to one ratio of Harvard men to Radcliffe girls produces in the vicinity of metropolitan Boston's diversions.

The result is that the Middlebury female, feeling superior to the boys across the street, wants to get away on week-ends, and her favorite direction is Hanover, New Hampshire. The height of achievement for a Middlebury class is to be pinned to a Dartmouth lad.

This produces a combination of inferiority and disinterest among the Middlebury men. Many consider themselves beneath the women, beyond hope of interesting them, and so they don't even try. Girls and boys sit in separate clusters in the classrooms unless seats are assigned according to the alphabet. Except for a small rush when new movies come to town, boys and girls go stag.

But neither is Middlebury living on the sides of a schism. There is no great oppressive shadow hanging over all. This problem is being eliminated, because girls and boys coming to Middlebury looking for coeducation are finding less than exists at Harvard and Radcliffe.

The height of coeducation at Middlebury is achieved during the ten to ten-thirty break in classes for chapel services. Attendance is required only once during the week (and on every other Sunday), so almost all students use this time to grab some breakfast at the frats or at the "Stu U."

The Student Union is a pre-fabricated building that houses student organization's meeting rooms and offices, mail boxes, a supply store, a lounge, the College print shop, and a soda and hamburg bar. But the students who snack at the latter are more likely to be stag than dating.

The Pan-Hellenic Conference of the sororities, however, is working to establish a house for them on campus so that there can be more fraternity-sorority life. The student government is bringing the two parts of the school together, and there is perfect cooperation in all activities. The device of co-chair-5Thursday afternoon in the Gifford Hall library. The Student Union, the girls' dormitories, and the rest of the campus are quiet.