Reasonably enough, one of the main points of Freshman Week seems to have been the giving and receiving of advice and orientation. I’m not completely certain, but common sense would tell you that it must have revolved around course selection and other academic matters, with a smattering of campus social lowdown. It looks like it was handled in the colleges. I sometimes get the colleges mixed up–I don’t like to go in them and these pictures were taken over 40 years ago–but I think the one to the left was taken at Brown. Which must mean that this one is in Jones:
Or vice versa.
Even more interesting are these next two. Here are the fellows at Baker, neatly dressed and wearing their beanies under the paternal gaze of Captain Baker:
Last class to be issued beanies? I'm not sure, but I think its the latest I've seen.
While over at Will Rice things were a lot more loosey-goosey. These guys could have benefitted from a portrait of Will Rice staring down at them:
Bonus: It was a glorious day on campus today: warm, sunny and every Italian Cypress standing straight up.
Yeah, we didn’t get beanies in 1971.
Neither of us can remember much about Freshman Week, other than beer, but we’re pretty sure there wasn’t any discussion of academics to speak of.
In my year there was quite a bit of discussion of academic (along with the beer) especially for the SEs. Advice as to how much SE basics to load (we were advised to not take more than the MATH 100/101, Chem 100/101 and Physics 100/101). I think my year was the first in which the English Composition requirement was not there and may have been the first in which the formal distribution requirements were in place. There was discussion about some people taking the ‘new’ self paced Physics version of Physics 100. It was a particularly structured week including (in Hanszen) introduction to Freshman guidance activities.
I also would be interested in the circumstances of the Baker picture since at that time none of the colleges were coed so neither of the women in the pictures would have been members. I suspect the Baker picture may have been related to advising since four of the men in the picture have the beanies and one does not along with the woman.
The Will Rice picture looks more like a group of people stopped by in the commons.
(Bear in mind that there were still house rules on visits to the rooms by members of the opposite sex and I do not think open visitation was a policy yet. I believe even in my year we got a set of rules which specified when we could have visitors behind closed doors and I am pretty sure Brown/Jones had specific curfew hours)
All the pictures in the post were labeled with a single word: “Advising.” That’s all I know!
So, yes, I think you’re right. I suspect that the young women were some sort of peer advisors.
Finally, a face that seems familiar.
I believe the woman in the white pants, next to The Hat, is former MOB clarinet player and former Rice Swim Team Coach Kris Wingenroth.
As you noted, the first picture was in fact at Brown, in the commons.
I started in 1974, but never saw a beanie.
Why don’t you like to go in to the colleges?
I wondered that, too shouldn’t a good historian be familiar with as many aspects of her subject as possible?
In all honesty, at first I just didn’t like it in there because the colleges are full of teenagers. That changed as I got to know them better, but I still would rather spend my time in the academic buildings simply because I’m more interested in the academic aspects of the institution right now. I certainly don’t ignore the history of student life, but it’s not my main focus. I also rather enjoy the feeling of there being terra incognita–that there are still so many things here waiting to be discovered. I’ve been outlining a book on the collapse of the in loco parentis regime at Texas universities in the mid to late 1960s, so my focus will inevitably shift–but not just yet.
And I never claimed to be a good historian!
The year on the beanies was the (four year) graduation year for the class, not the matriculation year.
Remember 1970 freshman week well….. sunny/hot like standing on the sun (Houston had just dodged Hurricane Celia). Had my pic taken the day documented in Part I – they used the same pic all four years on the Rice ID – still have card for ’73-’74. Am pretty sure the top pic in Part III is the commons of Brown College……anyone who was at Rice at that time will recall this as the site of the “Brown Sandwich Service” on Saturday and Sunday nights, very well attended (recall the univ. didn’t feed students on these nights/RMC was closed……. A “servery”?? What is that?); every weekend, 3-4 enterprising Brown girls would buy/bring in something like 20 – 30 lb of cold cuts (enormous piles), about a dozen loaves of bread, jars of mayo…..with the final result that a Rice weenie could “build his own” monster (or two) and could could pig out for about $1.50 – 2.00, including a Coke. One of the girls running it wore a T shirt with “full belly deli” on the front. Back to freshman week – – the two main things I remember were 1) the “chalk talk” (as photo’d in Part III) – how to select courses/ask for help…….even a lecture on how to behave……being told to never, never ask a female freshman her SAT scores because you would always lose (after all, I was in Wiess), and 2) the swimming test….four lengths of the university pool/tread water for 15 minutes. Back then it was a mandatory thing in order to receive one’s degree; some students were either unable to complete this (lessons could be arranged) or postponed the test, so that by May 1974, with commencement something like two weeks away, students got memo’s saying the test must be completed in order to graduate. Panic ensued. I have heard that the college swimming reqirement was modeled after Harvard’s (after Harry Widener’s death on the Titanic……all college grads need to know how to swim, etc), but I have also been told that the story of this requirement is most likely apocryphal. I recall the “beanie” was a Baker College thing that orientation. There were none at Wiess as I recall…..a Wiessman wouldn’t be caught dead in one.
Are we sure that is Will Rice in the fourth picture? That briefing outside the windows looks more like Lovett to me. I love the “of the period” striped pants on the student on the left.
I typed “gridding”. My iPad corrected it to “briefing”. As I typed it just now the iPad tried to make it “grossing”. Sigh.
It is Will Rice. The Hanszen and Will Rice commons were mirrors
to each other in those days. This is the long commons area at ground level. The dining area was a half level above. I also recognize the pattern of the tiles outside of the windows as what both commons had