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-