According to an item in The Standard, circa 1935 or thereabouts, Dean of Women Bertha Wells asked a then-Springfield Teachers College student: “How did all these empty bottles get in your room?” The student replied: “I wouldn’t know. I never bought an empty bottle in my life.”
Also, according to The Standard, Dean Wells once said to a campus woman: “Either your skirt is too short, or you are in it too far.”
These and other snippets continue to elicit chuckles at Homecoming, both from the 50-year class and the Golden Bears, a frisky group that meets annually just before the Bears’ Homecoming football game.
Both stories relate to campus bans, of which there have been many through the years.
Campus bands
Back when I was a Standard staffer, we endeavored to keep up with items “banned in Boston” – a city that had wide authority to ban works with content deemed objectionable by officials. These works included the spicy novel “Forever Amber,” the play “The Moon is Blue” and an issue of Esquire magazine. You knew if it was banned in Boston, it was just a matter of time before it got Dean Wells’ attention.
Most campus bans emanated from her office — but not all. The Board of Regents, especially during the STC years, had some rather odd bans. For example, male professors were forbidden from dancing with their wives at school functions. This rule prevailed until 1925 when a young history prof named James Shannon suddenly hopped up and, yikes, started dancing with his wife at a school mixer. Other staffers no doubt gasped, but when police failed to shut down the place, they and their wives joined the Shannons, and the ban was later expunged from the books.
Another Regent policy at the time: Female faculty and staff members could not be married. Dr. Gene Garbee, a ’30s grad who went on to become president of Upper Iowa University, once confided to me that during his student years, his wife worked on campus as a secretary. But they had to live as “singles” until he graduated and left Springfield. This rule seemingly stayed on the books until 1945, when the husband and wife team of Ivan and Georgia Calton was appointed to the faculty.
Through the years, probably nothing has been hashed and rehashed more than the use of tobacco on campus. The Standard, in the mid-’30s, noted that a committee of six students and President Roy Ellis “has been established to settle the ‘smoking on campus’ issue once and for all.” In a subsequent edition it’s noted the committee met, discussed the matter from all viewpoints and voted. There were six yea votes, all cast by the students, to allow smoking; and one nay, cast by Dr. Ellis. Quoth The Standard: “The nays won.”
Recently, at Homecoming, a group of Golden Bears recalled Dean Wells’ campus-wide no-alcohol policy and her infamous “sniff” test. Prior to student mixers, she stationed herself at the port of entry and sniffed the breath of each dashing young male student as he entered. Said a ’50s grad:
“One night, I held my breath so long I turned purple.” Another, a former Marine who enrolled in the fall of 1948, said he survived Iwo Jima more easily than he did Dean Wells.
No doubt members of the Class of 1962 remember that wearing shorts in the campus union that fall was a no-no except during very limited hours. According to The Standard, “The wife of a Regent said ‘we don’t want the public to get the wrong perception.’ ”
That same year, the snack bar manager at the union removed a professional hypnotist by saying:
“You can’t hypnotize anyone in the snack bar without permission of the dean.” Someone remarked at the time, “Too bad Dean Wells has retired. She no doubt would have said, ‘I wish I’d thought of that.’ ”
Don Payton, ’50, is former information services director at Missouri State University. Now retired, Payton continues to write for the University and area publications.
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