A fraternity dance imbued with alcohol. A Christmas party where alcohol was given as gifts, and whose recipients were required to chug it on site. A “beer bust” involving seventeen sorority members at a formal dinner dance. An 18-year-old boy found passed out in the rain at the door of the post office.

Sound familiar? No, they’re not headlines or case notes from last weekend’s police blotter. They’re incidents brought to the Social Committee of the University of Wyoming. From the 1950s.

As a graduate student in a qualitative research methods class, I went to the American Heritage Center (AHC) to gain experience conducting archival research. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for or what I might find, but having worked for seventeen years at UW in the Division of Student Affairs, I decided to see what archival records might exist about student life.

The archivist in the AHC’s fourth floor reading room directed me to several boxes on a cart they had retrieved for me in reference to “student affairs.” I opened up a small blue box—labeled Box #2—and was excited to find it full of manilla file folders. They were labeled in pencil with dates ranging from 1925 to 1958. The folders held meeting minutes, notes, and notebooks from “Associated Women Students,” “Mortar Board,” “Panhellenic Council,” “Record of Events/Developments During Dean E. Luella Galliver’s Tenure,” and “Social Committee.”

Curious about the “Social Committee,” I removed the folder and peeked inside. There were probably 100 or so papers, mostly typed, but some handwritten in flowery cursive. The paper was thin, nearly translucent, and I was almost afraid to touch it. I imagined the clicking sound of an old typewriter as I scanned the meeting notes, looking for anything interesting. It didn’t take me long to realize that this folder was what I had been looking for – reading through the Social Committee file was going to be fun.

Diving into the UW Social Committee

The early papers from the 1920s were minutes from what was then called the Social Committee. At some point, the name was changed to “Faculty Social Committee.” From what I could gather, the Social Committee or Faculty Social Committee wasn’t necessarily about planning for or engaging in social events. Instead, it was more about regulating activities and events, and reviewing student conduct concerns. Meeting minutes listed the members present and members absent. Several members appeared to be deans – Dean Galliver, who was the Dean of Women, and whose photo was also in the box; Dean Bishop; Dean Hill; and Dean Soulo, to name a few. Other members included Miss Hussey, Mrs. McKitterick, Mrs. DeKay, and Miss Weed.

In December 1925, the committee discussed dances hosted by the Associated Students of the University of Wyoming (ASUW). A guest at the meeting, Mr. Corbett, requested that two janitors be hired for cleaning up after a dance. The committee agreed that $2.50 per janitor would be a fair price. They also discussed the question of wax on the gymnasium floor. “This is a vexatious question with the whole Physical Education department, as a slippery floor is very dangerous for all types of physical education activity.” A discussion ensued about a need for a “floor committee” for ASUW dances.

The committee heard a request that “university girls be permitted to attend a DeMolay dance” in November 1933. Social Committee members approved the request, with the condition that they follow university rules about “chaperonage.” In the same meeting, significant discussion occurred about a request from the Interfraternity Council (IFC) to abolish the requirement of having a doorman at fraternity functions. Students argued that the “presence of doormen at fraternity parties conveys a humiliating sense of surveillance and excites the ridicule of guests from other colleges.” Committee members discussed the request and ultimately voted to make the hiring of a doorman optional.

Alcohol-Fueled Student Behavior

During the 1950s, the committee saw more alcohol-related conduct issues. On December 15 (year unclear), the committee discussed a student who went into the dorms on a Thursday night. He was “drunk, wanting to fight everyone, [and] using abusive language.” After threatening another student with a straight edge razor, he was taken to the county jail to “sleep it off.” The committee discussed the circumstances of how the student had become so intoxicated and found that he had been at a fraternity party where he received alcohol as part of a gift exchange. The committee discussed the role and responsibility of the fraternity in the incident and ultimately voted to place the fraternity on social probation for the rest of the year. “We are attempting to make it a warning to other groups on campus” said one of the Social Committee members.

In another Social Committee meeting, an 18-year old fraternity pledge and his parents were guests. They were there to discuss an incident that occurred on November 13, 1954. The young pledge had “imbibed excessively at a cocktail party” and was later “found unconscious by the police and was put in jail.” It was unclear how he ended up on the rear ramp of the US Post Office. The cocktail party was an unofficial function but had been organized and attended by about 30 fraternity members and their dates.

Social committee members brought up that other organized groups had been “doing a lot of drinking at their dances” and that perhaps UW should try to regulate them. A motion to suspend all social privileges from the fraternity in question for the winter quarter 1955 was unanimously passed.

Reading through old UW Social Committee meeting minutes in the AHC was a treat. I enjoyed learning about the escapades and concerns of students from the 1920s through the 1950s. It was also interesting to learn that the escapades and concerns didn’t seem all that different from the escapades and concerns of students and university administrators today.

I encourage anyone interested in a historical perspective of UW student life to visit the AHC and spend some time going through the Student Affairs Social Committee archive.

Post contributed by Lena Newlin, a PhD student in the University of Wyoming’s Public Humanities program.

Explore More UW History

Interested in learning more about the University of Wyoming’s past? Check out these American Heritage Center exhibits: University of Wyoming: A Brief History of Campus explores how UW’s campus developed over the decades, while Keeping History Alive: 136 Years of Progress compares historical campus photographs with images taken in 2023, showing how the buildings where these Social Committee meetings and student incidents occurred have changed and endured over time.