On Monday, there was a notice in our mailbox. We were to report to the Dean´s Office ASAP. Right after lunch, Anne and I went to the office to see what was up. She wore a white man´s shirt and her khaki skirt. I wore a long wool skirt and a western shirt with a scarf.
We sat in the waiting area. A girl came out of the office. She was wearing sneakers, jeans and a kind of ragged tee-shirt. Hair cut crazy; hadn´t been washed, at least not today. She didn´t look happy, but that may have been her natural expression.
We waited a while, then a woman came out.
“Anne Stilwell, Mary Travis?”
We went in and took the seats she indicated. She sat behind her desk.
“I´m Magdeline Hubert, Dean of Women. I´ll come right to the point.
“University rules prohibit noisy gatherings and disorderly behavior in the dormitories. I have had a complaint of noisy, late-night parties in your dorm. One complaint has mentioned your room as a place where parties are held each weekend. What can you tell me about this?”
Anne looked at me. “You start,” I said.
She said, “We have heard fairly loud parties on Friday and Saturday nights for the past several weeks, Ms. Hubert. We haven´t paid any real attention; they haven´t really bothered us.”
Ms. Hubert looked at me. “Is that correct? Have either of you attended these parties?”
“Anne is my friend as well as my roommate, ma´am. She doesn´t lie. There have been noisy parties for some time. I´ve assumed they are natural and common. And, no ma´am, neither of us has gone to them, although we have been invited.”
“Sorry, both of you. I don´t mean to sound abrasive or critical.” She sat back in her chair. “Can you tell me who invited you?”
“The first time, we were invited by someone on our floor, the third floor. I think her name is Louise, but I don´t know her last name or what room she´s in.”
Anne said, “Usually, we get asked to join the party when we come back from supper. There is usually someone at the stairway door who suggests we join them. I don´t know their names. The party is always on the second floor. Seems to be in several rooms, but I don´t know anything more than that.”
“Have you had any parties?”
I said, “Exactly what do you call a party, Ms. Hubert?”
“For the purposes of this discussion, a party is a gathering of maybe four people or more who are playing loud music, talking loudly and consuming alcoholic beverages.”
Anne grinned, “I´m not trying to be sarcastic, Ms. Hubert, but would an ice cream social be considered a party for this discussion?”
The Dean smiled. “This does seem a little intrusive, I know. And I suppose an ice cream social would qualify, at least on numbers. The problem is that these particular parties have been bothering people considerably and there have been some complaints of a fairly serious nature.”
“Well, then I have to say that we have had gatherings of four or more in our rooms.”
“Really? What do you mean?”
“We have a study group that meets Friday afternoons and evenings, Saturday mornings and on Sundays. There are six of us, Mary, myself and four men in our class. We spend the time working on our homework and reviewing for exams. We sometimes drink a beer, but we don´t make a lot of noise, rarely play music.”
I added, “Some of the people in the dorm know about our group, and at least once someone made sarcastic remarks about it. But we haven´t paid it a lot of attention. We try to avoid attracting attention – that just seems smart.”
“Apparently, discretion hasn´t helped all that much,” Anne chimed in.
Ms. Hubert turned to her computer terminal and appeared to be calling up records.
She looked back at us. “What has been the result of your study group so far?”
Anne looked at me. I said, “After last week´s exams, I compiled our exam results based on the in-class reviews. I estimated that our group average was 98.7%. We should get the actual grades back this week, of course, but I expect that´s pretty accurate.”
“The system tells me that the two of you did slightly better than that. Congratulations.”
“Thank you. But what about this party business?”
“I know that the main activity is on the second floor of North College. The remarks about your group were made in passing as a way of mitigating the behavior of the people I was speaking with. You know, ‘We´re not the only ones who have parties.´ I simply had to follow that up.
“I would suggest you continue being discreet about your meetings. I can´t be sure, but there is some possibility that the parties will resume or simply continue, and I doubt, knowing the people involved, that they will get any less noisy or unpleasant. I´m going to make a note to the security section and to the Dean of the College´s office that the allegations about North College 350 are groundless and probably malicious. If you have any complaints to make yourselves, please contact me. I´m sorry to have bothered you about this. I´m sure you understand my position.”
“It´s not an easy one, I guess. People our age sometimes don´t handle freedom too well.”
“If they don´t learn pretty fast, Ms. Stilwell, they won´t be around this campus for long. The University has fairly relaxed rules, so it does not tolerate people who can´t abide by the ones we do have. Thank you for coming.”
She shook our hands and we grabbed our coats and left.
“Not a bad lady,” said Anne.
“Got a lousy job,” I said.
.oOo.
E-mail from Mary Travis:
Anne and I had to meet the Dean of Women today about our “parties.”
Look for us at the Union at supper time tonight. We need to talk.
Mary