RGA Meeting Re-Examines Rules Change

The Radcliffe Government Association, with many Radcliffe officials including President Bunting attending, met in Holmes Hall yesterday at the bi-annual Cedar Hill Conference to discuss the reasons why neither RGA nor the rules system was working quite smoothly. The conference closed on a positive note:

"We should leave here convinced that we're not going to leer and snicker about these rules any longer," said Gail E. Thain '64, president of Whitman Hall. "The circus atmosphere around the rules, plus the snide comments and over-dramatized conflict that accompanied the rules last Spring has made it impossible to enforce the rules now."

Dorms Vary in Severity

A November poll of dormitory presidents showed that two major problems were the large number of latenesses and the wide variation among the dorms in the severity of their penalties.

L. Emilie Schrader '64 recommended as a possible solution that the present sign-out system be modified. Her own informal statistics obtained from sign-out books around the college indicate that the present system of punishing lateness does not insure the safety of girls out for the evening.

In dormitories having strict penalties, girls tend to sign out far beyond the hour they actually return, leaving themselves a two or three-hour leeway. "Obviously," Miss Schrader said, "one can be kidnapped at midnight but would not be missed until four or five."

Conversely, Miss Schrader found that in dormitories with mild or no penalties, girls tried to estimate accurately the time they would return. She therefore recommended that there be no penalties for lateness for juniors and seniors.

Change Sign-out

Other students suggested that sign-outs be abandoned altogether or that they be maintained only for the convenience of the girl on bells and courtesy toward the head resident. In the latter case, students would indicate only that they were out for the evening; they would not sign out to a specific place or time. Adele D. Smith '63, president of RGA, pointed out that the sign-out system has never been effective in locating a girl in trouble. "In each case the state police have always called the college, not the other way around," she stated.

Apathy Hurts RGA

Turning to the problems of the RGA itself, Joanna C. Bartlett '63 suggested that many Radcliffe undergraduates have neither the desire nor the capability for self-government. She discussed the large number of "individualists" who are "so apathetic that in some dormitories it is practically impossible to elect RGA representatives."