Michigan Today - November 2007

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The day in loco parentis died

by James Tobin

 

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Residents of Hinsdale House at U-M

Residents of Hinsdale House in Alice Lloyd Dormitory, circa 1965. "In loco parentis" rules, enforced by the housemother (second row center), governed most facets of young women's lives.Click images for larger versions.

For a good deal more than a century, everyone took it for granted that the University was in charge of undergraduates, not just in the classroom but in their daily lives. The first professors, after all, had been clergymen. By law and by custom, the school was to act in loco parentis—"in place of parents"—guiding the development of students' character and policing their conduct.

In practice, in loco parentis comprised an elaborate structure of written rules and quiet understandings enforced in the trenches by housemothers—the term was bureaucratized at some point to "resident director"—and student resident advisors, or RAs. It governed much of the what, where, when and whom of students' lives, especially women: what to wear to dinner; what time to be home; where, when and for how long they might receive visitors; even, famously, the number of feet (three) that must be on the floor when a male and a female student occupied a dormitory room alone during the weekly "open-open," that two- or three-hour window of opportunity when dorm and rooms alike were open to visitors.

But by the 1960s, with soaring numbers of students and a sprawling archipelago of residence halls to administer, the University had discovered that managing in loco parentis was rather like managing the British Empire. Demands for student self-determination were rising all over, even from some faculty.

There were two key points of contention—when and for how long students of either sex could have visitors of the other sex on their floors; and how late women students could stay out. (That question was not raised about men; they could stay out as late as they wanted.) Year by year, changes came. In 1962, curfews were abolished for senior women. Junior women followed in 1965, then sophomores. In November 1966, Thomas Fox, the director of South Quad, allowed residents to close their doors when entertaining a member of the opposite sex during visiting hours. (Fox had to back down when faculty objected.)

Gargoyle magazine cover from 1963

Gargoyle magazine imagined the consequences of co-ed housing in this 1963 cover. Click images for larger versions.

In the fall of 1967, brushfires of revolt broke out and spread, fanned by student judiciary councils exerting new authority over the enforcement of rules. Mary Markley Hall's Van Tyne House declared it would no longer consider all cases involving alcohol in dorm rooms, only cases in which a student "is infringing on the rights of others." Two other Markley houses voted not to enforce the penalty of "late minutes" against freshmen women who broke curfew. The Honors Steering Committee "encouraged other women's houses to take similar action as a step toward entirely eliminating women's hours." On November 13, the women of South Quad's Frederick House, asserting "the right of students to determine their own rules of personal conduct," voted to allow 24-hour visitation for a trial period of two weeks. Eleven women invited friends—female ones—to visit Frederick House after hours to publicize the point.

Then the Residence Hall Governing Board—a panel of five professors and two students—universalized the issue, voting in December to allow all dormitory houses, on a trial basis of one term, to set their own rules on visitation.

"I visited dorms day and night talking to students," said board member Frank Braun, a professor of German. "I looked like a damn spy, but I came away convinced that our students are realistic and mature enough to handle this."

With that, higher authority stepped in. When students returned from the Christmas break in January 1968, it was announced that the Regents would hear public comment on the issue of visitation and curfews in the dormitories, then rule.

"The Regents told me they are not prepared to let something so vital go by default," President Robben Fleming told the Daily. "I suggested the possibility of the hearing." (It was one of Fleming's first acts as president.)

It was clear that a border between two eras of student life was about to be crossed—that what was at stake, as one resident director put it, was the entire question of "to what extent, if any, will the Residence Halls continue to keep company with that overworked but under-evaluated phrase: in loco parentis?"

Expecting a donnybrook at the Regents' meeting, student leaders mobilized, arguing that the power to govern non-academic affairs could not be delegated by the University, but instead was vested in the students themselves. "Power lies in numbers,"  Bruce Kahn, president of the Student Government Council, told students. "If you demand en masse your rights, the University will be unable to prosecute you." (That was overwrought; nobody was talking about prosecuting anybody.)

Mrs. Morris, Hinsdale Housemother

Mrs. Morris, housemother of Hinsdale house. "With no rules to work with," said one housemother, "I can't see the necessity for the kind of staff we have." It was true: the era of the housemother soon ended. Click image for larger versions.

The network of housemothers resisted. "Ethics, morals, practically everything has lowered somewhat in the last few years," one of them averred to her superiors in the Housing Division.

But on January 19, it became clear that the Regents simply had wanted to make the momentous decision themselves. They voted to eliminate curfews for all women students in residence halls for one semester, as a trial—provided their parents gave written permission. The Regents also voted to allow each housing unit to set its own visitation hours, all in keeping with "the maintenance of good taste" in pursuit of  "the goal of mature self-government." Only Regent Paul Goebel demurred, saying: "If my judgment is proved wrong, no one will be happier than I."

In a private memo promulgating the new policy to staff, John Feldkamp, the director of housing, left no doubt about the core issue of the controversy. The new rules, he said, must not be understood to abrogate existing policy, to wit: "The Policy that the University finds unacceptable pre-marital sexual intercourse continues in effect. Further, the new policy sanctions only visitation, meaning the periodic visiting of guests. Specifically, cohabitation and over night visitation will subject students to University discipline."

When Feldkamp's memo was leaked, he backpedaled a bit. "I don't pretend to be an expert on pre-marital sex," he told the Daily. "Personally I can't imagine that any mature woman could have intercourse in a dormitory."

Daily editor Roger Rapoport was less circumspect. "Let's be honest about the whole thing," he told readers of his weekly column. "You know the real reason why you cheered when the Regents decided…to exempt freshman women from curfew and let students…set their own visitation hours. You were getting sick and tired of trying to sandwich everything into those old-fashioned three hour open-opens required under the old policy. No more of that 'I really do love you but I don't want to get any more late minutes' jazz. No more resident advisor stopping you to ask why that girl you said was only your 'sister' tripped the fire alarm at 5 a.m. Sunday morning while trying to sneak out of the building. Just plenty of that good old-fashioned Joe College life."

On balance, liberation went smoothly.

Of 1,734 freshman women, the parents of 1,457 gave their written permission for "no hours"—a surprisingly large majority, perhaps, unless one considers the testimony of a male member of the class of 1968, who recalled that his girlfriend, a talented writer whom he later married, forged and signed letters on behalf of the mothers of  "an astonishing number of her friends." Responses from real parents ranged from an expression of confidence that "the added freedom and responsibility placed in [the students] will contribute to their development, educationally and socially" to the belief that the Regents' decision "is in violation of a basic responsibility of a University and violates good sense as well."

Most RAs supported the change. "Some attack this policy in that it encourages promiscuity," a Couzens RA told the Housing Division. "I don't feel this is true. Anyone who has stood in a women's lounge at closing has seen that privacy is not necessary for excessive displays of affection."

Do you remember housemothers, "3 feet on the floor," or other rules you obeyed—or didn't? Share your story at Your U-M History

There was no stampede to 24-hour, seven-day-a-week visitation regimes. Some men's floors made that change—"more of a glandular response than a result of meaningful discussion," one Bursley RA reported—but many chose to allow 24-hour visitation only on weekends. Only three women's floors chose the 24-7 regime. On men's floors, it was widely observed that noise decreased and civility rose during the hours when women were around.

On an East Quad men's floor with liberal visitation, an RA said "most residents have expressed their feeling that life in the house seems significantly more normal these days than in the old days when women were a sort of regulated taboo to be unleashed only on weekends—or, to be smuggled into one's room for a visit much the same as grass or acid might be sneaked in for insidious diversions. College men have no desire to look at their women friends as they do drugs." If that was not quite what administrators wanted to hear, it said at least that students were adjusting to freedom in a certain spirit of moderation.

As for the specter of sex, housing staff judged that open hours had led to something less than a revolution. "A few students will have a girl in all night," reported South Quad director Thomas Fox, "and many would like to. The general feeling of RD's was that little, if any, sexual intercourse occurs. Occasionally, the couple may sleep together, but the staff was quick to point out: a) this would probably have occurred without the new hours. B) sleeping together does not imply sexual intercourse."

After a few months, Fox said, "Contrary to being the ultimate 'thing,' the presence of women during the week is now looked upon as passé."

So the die had been cast. Before long there would be no restrictions on visitation and no curfews. "With no rules to work with," said a housemother in Bursley, "I can't see the necessity for the kind of staff we have." Nor could anyone else. The housemother's era soon ended.

There would still be rules in the residence halls, of course, but they would grow from a new theory of campus life—that students were to be understood not as children under the supervision of a substitute parent, but as members of a community with obligations to respect the rights of others and of the community as a whole. Which theory actually leads to greater maturity is anyone's guess.

"People without knowledge have all kinds of fears," a resident director at Couzens Hall reflected in 1975. "Ten years ago they had lockup times, curfews, dress rules. They were all so sacred to many people, who fought to keep them. Now no one even thinks about those things. The greatest fears are not borne out by reality."

Sources for this article were found in The Michigan Daily, the Ann Arbor News and the archives of the University's Housing Division at the Bentley Historical Library.

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James Tobin is an author and historian. His most recent book is To Conquer the Air: The Wright Brothers and the Great Race for Flight.