Administration

A document entitled "Suggestions Considered Requisite by the Students of Dickinson College for the Improvement of the College" was distributed to faculty and trustees on December 15, 1945. The first "suggestion" was the appointment of a "recognized educator" as president to replace the committee of three ruling the college at the time. According to the document, the "lack of individual authority prevents decisions." The second and longest suggestion asks for the appointment of a new dean of women. The document calls Dean Josephine B.

Winona Mensch Gray (Class of 1948) admits in an interview that she helped to instigate Dean of Women Josephine B. Meredith's resignation. Gray recalls that Meredith resigned during her sophomore year (1946). According to Gray, Dean Meredith was strict--her father and husband had both been Methodist ministers--and forbade female students from activities on Sunday.

Joyce Rinehart Anderson (Class of 1945) reports in an interview that the dean of women, Josephine Brunyate Meredith, locked her in the infirmary when she was sick. The dean feared that Joyce had scarlet fever, but Joyce claims that, in locking her in the infirmary without care, they "practically killed me." According to Anderson, not only did this quarantine cost her a semester in college, but it also led to other problems later in her life.

Mary Louise Shuman, who attended Dickinson during World War II, reports in an interview that Dickinson College had difficulty when it moved female students to East College. According to Shuman, the dean of women was concerned because the building, which had not previously been a women's dormitory, had fire escapes; she worried that men would enter the dormitory via the fire escapes.

While interviewee Mary Synder Hertzler did not mind the quality of the food at Dickinson's dining hall during the World War II period, not every student agreed with her. Other students "objected" to the food, and one female student took her steak and put it on a spindle on Dean Josephine Brunyate Meredith's desk. Hertzler claims that she "would have no more done that than fly to the moon." This student "evidently didn't care for the steak."

In an interview with Helen Alexander Bachman (Class of 1946), the Dickinson alumnus describes the rules for student conduct and dress codes during the World War II period. Dean Josephine Meredith supervised the women, requiring them to sign in and out of their dorms, to act in a lady-like manner, and to avoid drinking. Moreover, female students needed to receive signed permission from parents if they wanted to visit home for the weekend. Bachman explains that these rules "existed to protect the girls...." Dress codes for the female students were strict; they coudl not wear slacks.

In an interview, Christine Crist (Class of 1946) recalls the "big revolution" the students organized in December 1945. Although Dean Josephine Meredith had appointed Crist as a student government representative when she arrived on campus, Crist eventually became dissatisfied with the rules that the Dean of Women imposed on the female students and the "ridiculous authoritarianism that crept in" to the administration.

Christine Crist (Class of 1946) describes the heavy-handedness of Dean Josephine Brunyate Meredith when the cadets arrived on campus. Although Crist remembers a date with a cadet from Texas, she says that the dean did not tolerate such fraternizing. The female students received an earlier curfew when the cadets arrived.

Coach John Cantalupi of the Women's Track and Field team wrote a letter to then president of Dickinson College, Dr. Samuel A. Banks, pleading for the resurfacing or conversion of the Bibble Field Track. The coach expressed worry that the state of the track and its measurement in yards instead of meters  would hinder athletes from meeting national qualifying standards. He cited national qualifier Linda Reinman's achievement, saying that he would "hate to see Linda's chances of qualifying for next year's national championships hindered by our current setup."