In 1989, on a cold night in late fall, I watched a ragged group of fraternity pledges sing from the steps of the graduate library. We had followed them there on bicycles as they made their all-night tour of the University and environs. A friend drove up on my motorcycle. I protested, but he, as a return favor, wanted to show me how to properly drive it. I climbed on back for the lesson, which consisted of a wheelee, with engine screaming, clear across the center plaza of the diag and the sacred M, which I do not pass over without remembering that ride.

Re: U-M opens new doors in campus living: I moved into the 4th floor of Stockwell Hall in 1967. It was the smallest room on the floor back in a corner! But my roommate and I (whom I had never met until I moved in) made the best of it and are still friends to this day. I remember a small snack place that was just down the street toward the hospital which served the best melt-in-your-mouth pecan sweet rolls you have ever tasted! There was also a housemother to deal with and we had curfews to observe. No boys were allowed past the lobby. Panty raids were a common happening in the spring—what fun!
The dining hall was downstairs and I earned extra money working there busing tables. I remember taking a PE class (bowling) which was not far from Stockwell. Mostly I remember having to set up our own pins!! The girls PE field hockey class practiced on the field behind the dorms. I walked to church on Sundays to the Lutheran Student Center. I walked to the stadium on Saturdays for football games and sat in the endzone where students did the card designs during the game—what a great time! I still follow U-M football although I live with a rabid Georgia bulldog fan!
I carried the nursing school flag for our commencement in April 1967 in the stadium—that was way before they started calling it the Big House! I’ve never gotten to come back for a football game but maybe for my 50th anniversary I’ll make it. I worked during my junior and senior years at UM hospital—at that time students were used for staffing on odd shifts—learned a lot during those shifts about the real world of nursing! It was a great education which has served me well during the past 41 years.
Tuition back then was about $500 for in-state students—my parents used to send me about $20/month to spend and it was enough! Hardly anyone had cars, we just walked everywhere. My, how times have changed!!
I also remember spending my 21st birthday at the Pretzel Bell and chugging a number of beers up on that table while someone was ringing the bell! And I remember coming out of a freshman anthropology class in November 1963 to learn of the assassination of John F. Kennedy—we all spent the rest of the weekend in front of the TV to learn what was going on—there were no computers, cell phones or iPods to speed up communication. Term papers were typed on a typewriter with white-out in hand. If you needed a second copy of something you used carbon paper and if you needed lots of copies you used a mimeograph machine—lots of people today don’t even know what that is!
It was a slower time but a great time and a great education—I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Re: U-M opens new doors in campus living: Living in Alice Lloyd as a freshman in 1969 introduced me to another reason to visit the cafeteria—to “borrow” a tray, walk through the cemetery, and sled down the hills in the Arb on the tray. It had to happen in the dark because we would never try it if we could see what we were getting into.

Re: U-M opens new doors in campus living: I lived and worked in the best dorm on campus—Alice Lloyd. When I entered the dorm in the Fall of 1996, I didn’t realize how special AL was until I started visiting other dorms. AL had a home away from home feeling for me. I met my friends there, I attended classes there, I worked there for three years, and I just enjoyed the atmosphere of the living/learning community. I felt very safe and supported while I was in Alice Lloyd.

Re: U-M opens new doors in campus living: I lived in Stockwell from Fall 1981-Winter 1983. My parents were under the illusion that an all-women’s dorm would mean only women were there after hours. My mother had to use the showers one day and, much to her chagrin, the arm in the air in the next stall was hairy and male!

That was nothing. For some reason, a favorite prank of the early 80s was calling in bomb scares. This was especially common during study days for finals and immediately preceding Thanksgiving and Spring Breaks. The alarm would go off, then we would meet between the tennis courts and the CCRB for attendance with our RA, then trudge off to Mosher-Jordan to spend the night in one of the commons rooms or the cafeteria. One night we counted 15 men in addition to the 50 women living on our hall. No offense to MoJo, but it looks a lot better now. In fact, we should each have gotten a half grade better for all the missed sleep on those bomb threat nights.

Waiting for John Lennon…I was there that wonderful and glorious night back in 1971, waiting for John Lennon to show up at the Free John Sinclair concert. I’ll never forget the Archie Shepp set…..and finally when John and Yoko walked out on the stage after 3:00 am…. I was always amazed and proud that U-M let the concert go on to the wee hours of the morning.

May I add a small first hand addition to the panty raid story (Panty raid, 1952 July, 2008) which I just read. I was a freshman in law school in 51-52, and that Spring I was living in the east wing of the Law Quad, across the street from Martha Cook. When I heard the noise and saw the rush of men in and around Martha Cook, curiosity trumped contracts or torts or whatever I was trying to master, and I went over to get a better view.

I walked in the front door of the dorm and down the hall and saw men literally sprinting up and down the center hall on the first floor; it was amazing to see that sacred residence defiled by men running around yelling to one another, some swinging panties and bras over their heads.

And then I was grabbed by the arm by Dean Bacon. She may have recognized me because I had been (and maybe still was; I don’t remember) on the Joint Judiciary Committee. She said sternly and very dean-like, “Get these young men out of here!”

“Dean Bacon, I can’t get them out of here,” I pleaded, and by way of explanation I added, “besides boys will be boys.”

To which she answered even more sternly, “And deans will be deans. Now get these young men out of here!!!”

Perhaps I made more of an impression than I thought because she used my phrase (certainly not original with me) when interviewed by the Michigan Daily.

In 1952, I was US Vice Consul in New Delhi. The panty raids were front page headline news in all the English-language newspapers (can’t say about the non-English). The assumption of the reports, and of Indian friends, business contacts, store keepers, anyone I spoke with, was that mass rape was occurring on US campuses. Incredible that neither parents nor authorities intervened to save the girls! The [erroneous] lesson to be learned: mass rape is the unavoidable result of co-education.

Thanks to James Tobin for sparking a memory about which I hadn’t thought critically until this time (Panty Raid, 1952, July 2008). I attended U-M in the turbulent 1968 – ’72 time period when student riots and unrest were, at least from our perspective, serious matters of political dissent. However, I also lived in West Quad in the late 60’s and among the men (it was still all-male) who lived there, there was an acute appreciation for the “legacy of the panty raid,” which many felt was akin to a fraternal obligation to carry on for those who lived in the ivy covered WQ walls.
And one chilly night in 1969, fueled primarily by alcohol and pot, a band of Quaddies did just that, trekking across the Diag to conduct a small (there were probably no more than 100 of us) but noisy “raid” on Stockwell Hall followed by Mary Markley Hall. The times had changed of course since 1952 and many of the women in the halls responded to our chants of “pants, pants, pants…” with cascades of panties, bras, and other female accoutrements and slips of paper with their phone numbers. And a good time was had by all…

However, what I also remember was returning to WQ later and being buttonholed by a more politically active student friend of mine who said, “Panty raids are for children. You should come down to our next Student Mobilization/SDS gathering and you’ll see what social action is all about.” Therein lies the nexus of fanciful rule breaking and social activism. Having been involved in both, I believe that beneath the higher purpose that social activists attribute to their actions, there’s always a little bit of a panty raid in every cause-driven demonstration…