University of Virginia Library

A Step Back

Another hideous situation,
characterized by lack of foresight
and of concern, has arisen at the
University of Virginia. All
upperclass women who have
secured dorm rooms by lottery will
be housed in Mary Munford and
Roberta Gwalthney dorms next
year. Mary Manford is isolated not
only by its location but also by its
practice of no visitation in dorm
rooms. The girls get a genuine home
atmosphere through the residence
of a house mother, absent this year
only through an inability to fill the
position. These policies added to its
all-female, isolated status harbor an
undesirable stiffness characteristic
of a tenth-grade boarding school
atmosphere. Perhaps this is an
attempt to squelch the recently
exposed "bawdy house"
reputation, at least among the
upperclass women.

By allowing the backwardness of
this situation to thrive,
co-education will be thwarted, the
social development and maturation
gained by the present first year
class through this year's freedom
will regress, and the entire college
experience will be destroyed for
many people. Petitions are being
circulated and our feelings are being
presented, but our fate is entrusted
to a force out of the control of
those it governs.