I found this in the Dean of Undergraduates collection:
I can hardly imagine a worse introduction to the life of higher learning. I would have been hiding in the library the entire time.
There’s a lot of interesting and sometimes comical material in this collection, by the way, but the most important thing about it is a broad change that took place during the 1960s. Discipline at Rice in the late ’50s and early ’60s might best be described as both petty and merciless but by the end of the decade the Rice administrators in charge of student affairs were spending much of their time in an effort to keep students out of the grasp of their local draft boards.
Bonus: Rose petals in the Turrell Skyspace this morning.
Too bad the girls didn’t get to share the terror of facing the military draft. That would have been real equality.
At least the parameters of the hazing were explicit.
I kind of like the requirement to attend a meeting of the student council. Let’s reinstate that. Somebody should go to those things.
I would have been in the library hiding with you. Wonder how many Freshman females participated in the guidance. Was there a guidance for the guys?
Patsy
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Boy, was there ever! As a matter of fact I was surprised to find the girl’s version because whenever i hear people talking about guidance they’re always talking about the guys. Unfortunately that sometimes turned into real hazing.
As a male member of that freshman class, I can tell you that “sometimes” above should be “always”, with licks from a broom every Monday evening in our section. I don’t recall written instructions for boys, but the more sadistic sophomores carried on the hazing traditions that had always prevailed. Two sophomores died that year in a foolish attempt to carry a tire to the top of the Campanile, not suspecting that it was full of carbon monoxide. That, and the start of the college system changed Freshman Guidance forever. As sophs, we had a much watered-down version. There was a slime parade to the Shamrock Hotel, but little else to allow us to avenge our humiliation on the incoming freshmen.
Rule 19 is the built-in way out.
Shouldn’t take more than a day.
The introducing yourself to everyone sounds like what the Aggie “Fish” at least used to have to do. My mom said my dad (who graduated from A&M in 1949) really hated that culture. Glad I wasn’t at Rice in ’56!