Metzger Hall

Kim Larsen (Class of 66) returns indoors through a Metzger Hall window after being serenaded by a male student outside.

Jackie Jackson (Class of 1964) of Metzger Hall rushes to kill a bug that has found its way inside.

Kim Larsen (Class of 1966) and Sally Stevenson (Class of 1966) of Metzger Hall in its final years study for Spring semester courses.

Tardiness required suitable excuses or punishments were inevitable! This is report to the House Council in Barbara Wishmeyer's (the Dean of Women) Scrapbook for Zelda Clutch on January 4th, 1963. She was 5 minutes late on this Friday night for curfew because she had an argument with her date.

The only foreign student at Dickinson during the 1962-3 year was Hsiao Mei Tsou from Singapore. She remarks in this article on the differences between America and Singapore, most notably that girls never talked to boys back home. Very studious, she works often in the library but wishes that it were open later, but finds the Dickinson students very helpful. In Singapore, about half of children go to school and even less complete post secondary education. Hsaio loves the United States and thinks she wants to stay after graduation.

"Suggestions Considered Requisite by the Students of Dickinson College For the Improvement of the College," labelled the "Atrocity Sheet Circulated by Dickinson Students" in Marion Bell's 1941-1946 Scrapbook lists many student complaints including those against Dickinson's food, service, and need for a President, but most notable are those against the Women's Dean, Dean Josephine Meredith.

Included in Marion Bell's scrapbook is a song composed by the Metzger Girls about their Dean, Josephine Meredith:

I.

"We are the girls from old Metzger Hall,

We might as well be within prison walls,

For the "Creep" is always there,

Lurking behind each door and chair,

She never laughs and she never smiles,

She disapproves of us and our styles,

As we girls go screaming by

She utters with a sigh:

"Nice girls don't scream."

II.

In Metzger Hall we ain't got no mice,

Found in Marion Bell's personal scrapbook from her years at Dickinson College (1941-46), this document of six pages outlines female regulations in dress and socialization in games, bars, dancing, and dining, with a special section regarding social possibilities on Sundays. It also includes rules regarding curfews, tardiness, noise disturbances, and distinctions between freshman women and upperclassmen not "on rules- those having a 75 average." It even provides a section for transfer students.

Clipped from a newspaper between 1941 and 1946 and placed in Marion Bell's personal scrapbook, this snippet shows the rules and regulations regarding women's attire at Dickinson. Marion Bell was known to wear slacks and this made her quite a rebel against this school rule. See Marion Bell, the Anti-Anti Bifurcationist.

Circa 1942, The Metzger Council divided itself into three new councils in addition to a fire drill committee to better provide for Dickinson's female students. A fire drill committee was created of Helen Kretschmar, Arline Mills, Nancy Tatnall, and Nancy Person in which regular drills would be planned.