 | Board of Visitors minutes December 12, 1947 |  |
INTERFRATERNITY COUNCIL HOUSE RULES
1. Ladies may be admitted to fraternity houses between the hours of 12 noon and 10 p.m. on
Monday through Thursday inclusive, and between the hours of 10 a.m. and 12 midnight on Friday, 10 a.m.
houses after the designated hours unless approved chaperons are present. The Dean of Students will be
requested to compile a list of approved chaperons. Ladies are to be entertained in living and recreation
rooms only.
2. Fraternity houses shall be conducted in an orderly and gentlemanly manner.
3. Special rules will be made for dance week ends and special occasions by the Interfraternity
Council.
4. Each fraternity shall be responsible for the enforcement of these rules and for the conduct
of its members. The Interfraternity Council shall assume full jurisdiction over the enforcement
of the rules as applied to fraternity houses, and over the punishment of any violations thereof.
Mr. Carter stated that twenty-four fraternities were members of the Council and that while
the rules had not been accepted by all the chapters, a majority had signified their willingness to be
bound by them. He pointed out to the Visitors the difficulty of persuading the fraternity representatives
that it is their responsibility to formulate rules for the conduct of their chapters. In reply
to questions as to the late hours and lack of chaperones, he stated that while the rules might be regarded
as liberal they represented, in his opinion, the maximum in regulation that the fraternities and
the Interfraternity Council would agree to enforce.
Mr. Carter stated further that he believed progress was being made in formulating rules by the
Interfraternity Council, the Student Council, and the President.
The President stated to the Visitors that Mr. Carter had been unflagging in his efforts to
arrive at a workable plan for the government of fraternities at the University, and that the rules submitted,
which represented a substantial achievement, were in no small part brought about by his industry
and perseverance.
The Visitors after a lengthy discussion of the subject with Mr. Carter tendered him their
thanks for his assistance and excused him.
President Darden asked Mr. Edward C. Anderson to present to the Board a brief summary of conferences
held by the Student Activities Committee of the Board of Visitors with the Interfraternity
Council, from the formation of the Student Activities Committee in June of 1946 until the present. Mr.
Anderson made the following statement.
"The first contact which I had with student representatives dealing with regulations governing
fraternity houses occurred in the late summer of 1946. A committee of students called on me at my home
to report that the Interfraternity Council had presented a set of regulations to President Newcomb
during the spring or early summer of that year and that President Newcomb had returned the regulations
to the Interfraternity Council without comment. The committee calling on me wanted to know what the
council should do next. I told them that the Board of Visitors had recently appointed a Committee on
Student Affairs and that this committee would shortly meet with the Interfraternity Council and consider
the question of regulations governing fraternity houses.
"On October 10th the Student Affairs Committee of the Board of Visitors, consisting of Mrs.
Ben Wailes, Judge A. D. Barksdale, Mr. Richard Carrington, Jr. and myself as Chairman, met with the
Interfraternity Council. The set of regulations governing conduct in the fraternity houses and setting
forth visiting hours for ladies which had been presented to President Newcomb, were again presented by
the Interfraternity Council. These regulations were identical with those which were later presented by
the Interfraternity Council to the Board of Visitors at its meeting on December 12, 1947. A full evening
was devoted to discussing the regulations in question, student behavior in general and particularly
the boy-girl problem in the fraternity houses. The committee tried to emphasize to the students the concern
which the Board of Visitors felt that no adequate regulations dealing with the visiting hours of
young ladies were in force; also these students were told that the Board of Visitors did not with to
prepare rules of conduct governing the fraternity houses but was very anxious that the fraternities
themselves should prepare and enforce a set of regulations which would properly control behavior in the
fraternity houses and set reasonable limitations on the visiting of young ladies in such houses. It is
my recollection that we discussed with the Interfraternity Council a possibility of employing house
mothers or chaperons in order to improve conditions.
"The set of regulations which the Interfraternity Council presented at the meeting was returned
to them by the committee as inadequate and the meeting adjourned with the committee of the board feeling
that the Interfraternity Council would consider the question further and would present a new set of regulations
which would more nearly meet the ideas of the committee. The Interfraternity Council did not
indicate that it would do this. In fact, the statements made by members of the council were to the
effect that the report of conditions at the university was greatly exaggerated and there was no need of
any change being made."
Dean Newman was asked to appear and he presented to the Visitors information which he had
gathered from other institutions bearing on student life. He also presented a copy of the rules under
which the fraternity houses operated at the University during the year 1942-43 - the last year before
the demands of the armed services made it impossible for the houses to continue. He also presented
information from some of the national organizations showing the rules governing the chapters making up
their membership. This information furnished by Dean Newman is set forth below.
| Board of Visitors minutes December 12, 1947 | |