In her essay "Women at Dickinson College", Dean Meredith discussed dating, dances, and chaperonage at Dickinson College. She explained, "The college is sometimes criticized because boys and girls are together socially so much. Other criticism is not just but it is somewhat merited. About 8 couples can be so conspicuous that they give the college an unenviable reputation." Meredith argued that it is easier to control the relationships if the woman lived in Metzger, however, it was much more difficult to control commuters.
Meredith goes on to discuss dances. According to Dean Meredith, the school is criticized for having dances. She explained that, "the way we count dances lays us open to attack. When we count fourteen commencement dances, we might just count one as all are held on the same night. No individual student spends 14 evenings in a commencement
dance." Moreover, she claimed that the Fraternity dances are very well standardized.
As for chaperonage, Meredith argues that she is able to handle the women. The only problem she has is a few women going with the men to smoke.
In all, Meredith defended the school. She wrote that, "Many people attribute our increased social activity to the increase in girls over 30 years ago. They forget that 30 years ago
when we went to H.S. and Normal School we never heard of dances, and now those same schools have regular programs of dances as do Societies, Country Clubs, Societies and Private homes, where dances were formerly never heard of."