Women's Dormitory Regulations
Concordia’s dorm rules and regulations have been continually changing throughout the years to fit with more modern expectations and they are still changing now. The dorm’s rules and regulations at first were very biased depending on sex. In the 1970s, women’s dorms had stricter hours than those of the men’s dorms. The administration believed that these early curfew hours were in the best interests for the women socially, physically, and academically. These curfews consisted of being in the dorms by ten o’clock Monday through Thursday, on Friday and Saturday night women were allowed to stay out a little later depending on their year in college. Freshmen women were expected to be back by eleven o’clock, sophomores were expected back by eleven thirty, and juniors and seniors were allowed out until midnight. Women students at this time also had very strict rules on sign-out sheets, late leaves, and quiet hours. Eventually, students decided to attempt equal rights for all sexes. Female students started a Women’s Rights action committee in October 1968, before the pictured rules and regulation document was out. Almost eighty-five percent of the female student body was in favor of changing the curfew hours. This led to curfew hours in the dorm being later on both weekends and weekdays. In September 1972, the Concordia Student Affairs Committee recommended that all curfews should be dropped completely, this lead to a trial basis for one semester in January 1973, after this trial, Concordia never went back to having curfews. (1) During this time in the 1970s, it was known as a decade filled with female firsts and many different women’s achievement though protests of sexism. (2) This shows that Concordia students were also very involved it the women’s rights movement in the 1970s.
1. Carroll Engelhardt, On Firm Foundation Grounded (Concordia College, 1991), 275-278.
2. Layman Richard, American Decades 1970-1979 (Detroit: Gale Research, 1994), 347.
Essay by Carlie Erickson