‘2 units, 1973

(the Starlet all!) SBlath

Housing Options Vary Through History

by Kyle Schauh

Co7ed bathrooms have not always

' been an option for students looking
for next year's rooms. Neither has
otf7campus housing or co-ed loCa7
tions by alternating rooms on Hours
or even co-ed campuses been a
choice.

At one point, there were not even
dorms. in 1359, when lowa College
of Davenport merged with Grillnell
University, housing became a mat-
ter of personal arrangement within
private homes, Prices were a bit
lower than today; in an 1861 Grin-

‘ nell College Bulletin, room and
board were quoted atrms per week
(However, this cost was upped 50¢
a week if the student wished the
use of chairs, tables,bedsteads and

, stove.)

College housing did become estab7
lished in 1868 w1th“WestCollege”
rooms gosting $5.00 per term and
“East College“ rooms at $250.
At this time board could only be

' obtained in private homes, although
student cllibs which were formed
in 1870 also began serving board
at $1.30 per week.

Twenty women were housed in the
“Ladies' Boarding Hall” which was
built for them in 1874. The only
other rooming alternative ior wo-

, men was the same lor men _, pri—
vate homes. This option, however,
was wiped out in 1an along with
the other college buildings when
the infamous tornado struck campus
Residences were once again limited
to private homes.

A “College Boarding Club” was
soon established for men, with a
choice or board only or room and
board. Fuel and light were provided
at the extra expense of 50;“ per
week. The women on the othel‘hand
in 1884 had to have approval from
the faculty of their room and board
arrangements in town, subject to
supervison by the Lady Principal.

Mears' Construction

The year liltio marked the arrival
of the longest standing structure on
campus todaya—Mai-y Grinnell Me-
ars "Cottage,"_ which could house
‘30-Women on its second and third
floors-"The 'first floor was a dining
hall which could accomotlate 80 men
and women for meals.

. The rooms in Mears were furnished
by contributions, each room costing
about $75 to complete. However,
the donors then had the privilege ol
naming thegroom he had outlitted.
One such name mentioned the Bulle7
tin was the “King’s Daughters” al7
though the location of this room in
Mears was not recorded.

The demand for the rooms in Mears
became so high that the College de—
cided in 1897 to limit renting to
a year at a time. In 1903 Mears
was enlarged to accomodate a total
of 50 women to meet increasing
demands.

The College announced in its 1905
Bulletin it would now furnish plats
of the floors of Medrs with the pri-
ces of the rooms indicated upon re7
quest, in addition to application b17
anks, Rooms could then be reserved
with a $5 deposit, (Once again elec7
tricity cost 50c more per month.)
All women were required to live on
campus it they were out-ot—town
students.

A building boom in 1916 gave birth
to the Women's Quadrangle which

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Fifth Main, Grinnell

was comprised of Mears, Main,
Cleveland, James, names and Read.

Main Hall, known then as Central
Hall, was highly acclaimed since
it ollered a large commons, thea-
er, second story garden, a tonrth
lloor iniirmary, and spacious re7
caption rooms.

The Bulletin stated for the first
time that these rooms were to be
assigned ”in order of application
with all possible regard to prefer—
ences expressed ll Once again Cir—
culars and application blanks were
iorwarded by the College upon re7
quest with the descriptions or all
six cottages.

Men’s Quad

The men soon caught up with the
women in 1917 when the “Men's
Quadrangle" was built. The dorms
included Smith, Langan, Rawson,
Gates, Clark and Dibble. These
rooms were assigned by the Dean
of Men ill the order of application
and order or preference. Roaming
in private residences was still an
option tor men,

Board was now on campus lor all
students, With separate dining halls
for men and women Since Cowles
was not built yet, the men’s dining
hall was in the basement of “Dorm
«2" or Langan,

Room assignment then started on
the seniority system basically in use
today. Seniors were allowed first
choice, lollowed by juniors and sop-
homores, Men stayed in the same
dorm while women tended to move
from the ireshman dorms to upper7
classmen dorms.

Men were also given another hous7
ing option starting in 1919. The stan-
dard price oi a room was set tor
the ideal number of Occupants, with
the choice ranging irom a one room
single to a tour room suite tor th-
rec men The cost per person could
then be reduced by agreeing to room
with more than the "ideal” number.
Prices were also graded according
to the quality of the room.

House mothers came into existence
in 1923 to “assist in developing
the social life of men, care for
those who were temporarily ill, and
in every way possible generatewlthe
in the men’s halls a home spirit.”
Also for the first time men were
required to live on campus.

This reporter then talked with Mr.
Dick UilrlCh of the Development
Office who attended Grinnell from

ANALYSIS (“0m page 1)

The next day, Social Policies and
Regulations Committee met to dis7
cuss the motion submitted by the
Joint Boards. A compromise motion
submitted by the SGA President
and the Black Student Housing Com-
mittee was passed, 3-2-1.The com-
promise proposal is as iollows:

1) Black students who will be
seniors may retainthe singles which
had already been chosen. These
rooms involve 4 singles in Loose,
z in Langan, 2 in Dibble, z in
Clark, and l in South Younkers.

Z) The committee outlined in Item
3 of the Joint Board proposal would
select junior and sophomore rooms
which it feels are equitable interms
oi the quality of the rooms and in
terms of class rank.

3) All Juniors7to7be are eligible
for singles it they wish (every
senior and Junior in the College
can presently get a single).

4) Sophomores—tube are eligible
tor 17nnd 37room' triples and 17
room doubles.

5) Black students participating in
the cluster system shall draw into
the pie-selected rooms in a mail-
uer equivalent to the All7Campus
room draw, i.e., by number and

class rank.
5) in subsequent years, Point «1

will be deleted, and seniors will
go through the procedure outlined
in points 275

At a special session of the Joint
Boards held on Friday, March 30,
the compromise proposal was pas7
sed for the year 1973774, 11727 .

hamburgers.
shakes.

fries

1929-1933 to discover how he par-
tioipated in room draw.

He explained that room draw was
held Only inside each of the men's
halls since a student stayed with his
original hall unless personality con7
flicts developed. Seniors then drew
numbers and picked their rooms,
iollowed by Juniors and sophomores.
The remaining rooms, “usually th7
ose in the basement," were then left
to incoming freshmen.

Mi". Ulll‘ich also noted that there
was a tendency to stay in the same
room; in tact, he believes he stayed
in the same room on the third floor
of Dibble all four years, ”It was the
easiest thing for the school to do,“
Mr. Ullrich emphasized, “Rooms
were no problems, and were easy to
get, and pleasant.”

Students were required to send ina
$10 room deposit in mid7August
to affirm rooms selected the pre-
vious May New students were as7
signed rooms according to applica7
tion dates and preferences.

Off-Campus

A housing shortage in 1937 lead the
College to open two oft-campus hou7
ses tor dorms; Carney House which
held 20 men and Macy House which
held 17. The Women also needed
more space and “Pine Tree Place”
was purchased which could hold
20 women.

In 1942 Cowles was built to help
alleviate the men’s housing and
dining space shortage. One or the
most featured aspects of Cowles
mentioned in the Bulletin was its
“second floor prominade used for
dances.” ‘

Reed, Haines and James became
npperclass Women’s dorms while
Cleveland, Main and Mears were
just for lreshmen. Loose, which
was built in 1948, also became an
upperclass dorm. By 1955 distribu7
tion had shifted so that Loose, Read
and Homes were upperclass and
James, Cleveland and Main were re-
served for trash.

Mears had since become an over7

night guest tacility since its facili7
ties had become obsolete. However,
another housing shortage in 1957
forced the College to update the
building and open it once more to
freshman women.
(The history or housing will con—
tinue next week with a report of
changes which took place in the
60’s.)

It was tabled with respect to the
futre, however, in the belief that
a lair, non-crisis oriented propos-
al can be worked out by the Stu7
dent Housing Committee next year.
The compromise proposal for19737
74 was then sent to Committee A,
where it was approved unanimous7
1y.

The Student Government Cabinet
fully supports the outcome of the
black cluster housing proposal. The
compromise proposal for the year
197371974 was a reaction to prob—
lems which should have been for7
eseen by the Student Housing Com7
mittee and the Dean of Student
Affairs. The problems which arose,
then, were not the fault of either
the Black Student Housing Committ—
ee or the student body in general,
although both groups were directly
allected The compromise proposal
does not solve all the problems
completely. it does, however, sate
isiactorily deal with the mainpoints
presented by the conflicting interest
groups.

At the same time, the Cabinet
realizes that the compromise pro7
posal Should not be an end in it7
sell. it is very possible that the
proposal for 1973-1974 will be via7
ble tor subseqent years. it is just
as possible, however, that a more
equitable method of room selection
for the cluster system can be for7
mulated. The Cabinet supports the
Joint Boards' feeling that such a
formulation should not be attempted
in a crisis7llke atmosphere Rather,
the problem should be discussed
thoroughly and in unpressured cir7
cumstances by next year's student
Housing Committee and Black Stll7
dent Housing Committee, preferably
jointly.

For these reasons, any subsequent
action on black housing will bepnst7
poned until next year’shouslngcom7
mittees can deal with the issue so
that it does again become a crisis.

photo iiv lac-i Dreen

Grinnell's old swimming pool became this year’s second victim of the
bulldozer recently. In the large hole lelt by its passing, workmen have
been busy installing tour 20,000 gallon underground fuel oil storage

tanks .

ICOupled with two underground tanks already installed North of the Heat»
ing Plant building, the new tanks bring the College’s tuel storage capa-

city to l20,000 gallons.

JB Passes Housing Plans

by John Wylie

The Joint Boards approved several
proposals deSigned to alleviate some
oi the problems with room draw
in a short but productive meeting
Wednesday evening.

SGA officials emphasized that nei-
ther of the room-draW'proposals
passed will take elle'ct unless they
are also approved by the Student
Affairs office and the President
before Saturday.

Laura David presented three pro-
posals to the Boards. The first
would make more “good" double
and triple rooms available to upper
classmen by abolishing the practice
of “blocking" freshmen rooms.
Proponents of this plan pointed out
that the “luck of the draw” would
undoubtedly put freshmen in every
hall, but that upper classmen should
have priority on specitic rooms. The
proposal passed on a 7-3-1 vote,
A Second proposal, to lessen the
number of SA rooms blocked in some
of the larger halls, was defeated
after brief discussion by a 27871
vote. There was general consensus,
however, that review and relorm
of the entire sa system was needed.
The iinal housing proposal would
eliminate the blocking of separate
House President rooms in each
hall, opening a total of 24 single
rooms for room draw, The assem-

bled HP’S gave the plan resound-
ing approval by a 9-2-0 vote.

President Scott Well said that he
was “confident that the administra-
tion will approve the removal of HP
rooms from blocking, because the
plan was endorsed by SGA, the body

‘ that is affected”. He‘added‘thatﬂiQ
is uncertain about how they w l
react to the proposal to place all
rooms currently blocked for fresh7
men in the all-campus draw.

Asked how room draw controver-
sies can be avoided in the future,
Weil noted that the key was par—
ticipation among all allected par7
ties.

“The mechanism is fair -7 it just
has to be followed in good faith.
The student Affairs office, espec-
ially, must be more careful about
consulting the affected parties
beiore planning room draw”.
in other action Wednesday, the
Boards approved a proposal by Curt
Gorrell, Brent Schondelmeyer,
Barry zigas, and Terry Woll to re-
commend t0 the Trustees that Grin-
nell “vote its conscience" instead
of Withholding proxies for the var~
ions corporate stocks owned by the
College.

Jack Doppelt has agreed to edit
the planned Faculty Evaluation
Handbook; further plans for the
publication will be announced later.

 

RIGHT TOOL
FOR THE 705

See us for the ‘right’
office supplies to do
the ‘right‘ office job!

6 Fig: gum/l

GRINHEll OFFICE SUPPLY

Across from post office

 

Grinnell

 

 

 

