WHEN WE WERE NORMAL
A Historical Augmented Reality Walking Tour
Dorm Rules to Break
LOCATION: SOUTH SIDE QUAD ENTRANCE, SECOND FLOOR
Certainly dormitories have rules, but Miller Hall had a “housemother” who, true to her name, would mother the residents. Part of her maternal duties included ensuring that the rules were being followed.
One such rule was a strict curfew. On weekdays girls had to be back by 10:30pm. On Friday and weekends, they were allowed out a little later.
If leaving the dorm after 8pm, residents had to indicate who would accompany them and where in a guestbook prominently displayed in the reception area. This allowed the women to see who was going out on a date and who wasn’t. Former Miller resident Arlene Bentley remembers:
Despite the strict rules, the Miller women found ways to sneak out and avoid getting caught. One method was convincing another girl to open a locked door from the inside when you came back. Pamela DiGrezio (Class of ‘69) relates another way:
“The second floor rear windows of Miller opened onto a porch. The windows were large enough for us to slip out, and the porch was easy enough to exit from and reenter at a later hour.”
Inside the dorms themselves, alcoholic beverages were strictly forbidden, and smoking was prohibited in the building except for designated areas. Some women still smoked cigarettes in their rooms, as Ruth Boland (Class of ‘47) describes when talking about a prank she would pull on her fellow residents:
"When [the housemother] detected smoke coming from the doors, she would knock three hard, slow knocks and say ‘Girls, is there anyone smoking in there?’ Subsequently we would scatter like rats into closets, bathrooms, under beds, etc. [...] I knew that I could mimic her walk, her knock and her voice [...] night after night I would approach the worst offenders [...] all would scatter - only smoke and silence prevailed.”
Slipping by the housemother and breaking the rules was just another way to make Miller Hall feel like home.