Ohio University - Athena Yearbook (Athens, OH)

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li A ' We ' re Not Babies . . . Let Us Decider Freshman Dorm Frustrations End in Futile Efforts

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1975: You might call it the year of the CRISIS. For graduates at OU and all over the country, it was an employment crisis. For the university it was an enrollment crisis (among other things). For government it was the political crisis of Watergate and a food crisis threatened the world. For America it was an energy crisis, an economic crisis . . . inflation, recession, depression . . . whatever. For the freshmen it was a housing crisis (the 90-hour rule), for Harry Crewson it was an administrative crisis, for the supporters of the United Farm Workers it was a grapes-lettuce crisis, for the Student Governing Board it was an existence crisis, or a non-existence crisis . . . or maybe a why bother? crisis. ONE OF the attitudes that was repeating itself as the year progressed was a sort of looking back to how the things of the recent past had shaped the present. For example, refer to: Bob Tkacz: One could go on for maudlin hours over Vietnam . . . (p. 28). Gary Putka: Not too many years ago when freshmen still came to the university with a blooming — even if naive — social consciousness, a pair of enlightened older students were discussing Southeastern Ohio . . . (p. 116). GaleSeider: . . . when hometown friends ask me to profile an OU student, it ' s not so easy. To make it simple, many say everyone is from Cleveland, participates in spring riots and . . . four years ago this university had a reputation for the biggest party school in Ohio ... (p. 124). Noreen Wilson: What will they remember? Perhaps playing Frisbee on the green, or cards in the dorm. The tough exam they aced, those miserable eight o ' clocks and climbing the stairs of Copeland and Ellis Halls . . . (p. 130). Jake Newman: October 7, 1971 : Athens, Ohio is shocked into Gay awareness . . . (p. 142). Horace Coleman: In that time so recent and so far away when blacks and many others were voting in the streets across the nation, colleges and universities were also polling places of opinion . . . (p. 154). AND LOOKING at the present problems, for example: Jan Johnston: Naming an interim president for a one year period as the university approached a crisis situation was no easy job ... a campus turned its eyes toward Crewson in hopes that he would have the answers to the university ' s problems . . . (p. 12). Mark Payler: . . .this may have been the last year the band performed under a restricted male membership ... (p. 40). Margaret Van Demark: With the famed drops in enrollment and the budget cutbacks, academic programs have been cut, instructors relieved of their jobs and courses eliminated . . . (p. 168). Dan Sewell: 1975-75 will not be entered into the annals of OU sports history as being particularly memorable. In fact, for the majority of OU fans, it will probably be remembered as a year of extreme frustration ... (p. 178.) BUT THE whole year wasn ' t problems and hard times. There were all the traditional OU activities, as well as new events, making 1975 a year of just OU. For example, refer to the rest of 1975 Spectrum GREEN:

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BY RON IORI PHOTOS BY BILL WADE The Freshman Residential Program was one of those ideas that met with adversity from the word go. And an attempt for change of the policies this year was inevitable ... it was just a matter of how and when. When the program was announced in the spring of 1974, students had spoken out against it, objecting to the idea of isolating freshmen from upperclassmen and to restricting freshman visitation rights. The objections to the program stewed over the summer and through the fall until, during the second week of winter quarter, objections became actions. Prompted by Student Governing Board, freshmen spoke out in the form of meetings, petitions and protests which ended in a sit-in in Boyd Hall (West Green freshman women ' s dorm), the referral of 23persons and no change in the freshman dorm policies. Tuesday, January 14, SGB sponsored a mass meeting which was attended by about 225 freshmen. The group approved the idea to hold a vote in which freshmen could express their preferences for visitation hours. They also expressed willingness to attend an after-hours party to be held in Boyd Hall Thursday night if the current visitation hours were rejected in the balloting. That night, University President Harry Crewson and several administrators had met until 1:30 a.m. formulating a statement reaffirming full support of the FRP including the restricted visitation hours which the president termed, reasonable. The referendum, in which 1549 freshmen or 72 per cent of the class voted, revealed that 1478, nearly 95 per cent of those voting, favored either full 24-hour visitation or 24-hour visitation on weekends with limited hours during the week. FRP hours were noon to midnight throughout the week. LEFT: Dr. Ronald Hunt, associate pro- fessor of government, expresses his views in favor of freshmen visitation rights at a rally on the College Green. ABOVE: SGB Chairman (fall quarter) Bruce Mitchell asks for opinions at an organ- izational meeting to plan the sit-in.