Spotlight: The birds and the bees

It is 1980, and after a decade of coeducation, Georgia College is thriving as an institution. The young women and young men of the college are getting along famously, but the first president of the college, J. Harris Chappell, would have ripped his hair out.

In the early years of Georgia Normal & Industrial College, Chappell explicitly forbade the women of the college from fraternizing with men in any way. In fact, “intruders” of any sort were not permitted on the grounds of the college at all.

The women were not even allowed to receive mail from men, unless they had specific permission from their families. Chappell even went so far as to announce that he would open and inspect any mail that he felt violated this regulation. The young men of Milledgeville found an intriguing way around Chappell’s strict stipulations: instead of daring to set foot on the campus the men would meet at the depot where the women of the college would arrive by train, along with a real live marching band. The men and the marching band would then proceed to follow the women to the campus, hollering and whooping the whole way.

Obviously the times have changed, men can be seen all over the Georgia College campus, but no longer do the young men of Milledgeville attempt to “woo” the young women of Georgia College with marching band music. It will undoubtedly be interesting come Valentine’s Day to see how the current “gentleman callers” of Milledgeville live up to their earlier counterparts.

Posted by Hilary Thompson on Feb 10 2011. Filed under Features, Spotlight. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.