Guest Post: Student protest at Radford College

RC Campus, from the 1963 Beehive

In the spring of 1964, a group of students fed up with social regulations gathered and marched silently around dormitories on the campus of Radford College, not having realized organizers had called off the planned protest.[i] This would be the first of many physical demonstrations held by Radford College student during the 1960s, and this would be the last demonstration they would be pressured to end. The students had realized the college administration they were facing was unwilling to compromise on campus issues that concerned them and they were breaking ground as the first group of students to publically demonstrate against the social policies of Radford College in the 1960s. Some of the reasons for the protest were quoted by students as being, “we can’t wear Bermuda shorts on campus without wearing a coat,” “we should be allowed to drink—the rule now says we can’t drink within a 50 mile radius of campus,” and “we couldn’t hold a drive for the Kennedy Memorial fund, because that was ‘soliciting on campus.’”[ii]  Most of the student’s claims were supported by the student handbook. The social policies and freedoms, as defined by student handbooks, from 1964 until 1972, when the college became coeducational, varied, but still remained strict. Although social regulations annoyed the women of Radford, the lack of attention given to their requests for change seemed to be the real cause for unrest. 

As the decade continued students began to fear they were being censored by the college administration through their campus newspaper the Grapurchat, so they developed an alternative newspaper, The Ant Hill, where students could submit articles on any topic they wished, without the fear of censorship.[iii] And as the decade neared to a close, students on Radford’s campus began to protest the actions of the United States in the war in Vietnam, holding demonstrations and silent protests on campus. In 1968, a student’s article appeared in the Ant Hill concerning the rumor of coeducation, with the author noting that, “college education on any other basis is incomplete and unrealistic. We live in a bisexual world, and to isolate a man or woman, during his or her active and formative college years is quite unnatural and ill-preparing for the rest of life.”[iv]  This article was written four years before Radford would become a coeducational college, but as Radford College, like many other women’s colleges, was transitioning into the 1970s, it was also transitioning towards coeducation.[v]  This change was occurring around the same time another change was taking place at Radford, as Dr. Donald N. Dedmon assumed the position as Radford’s fourth president in 1972 and Dr. Martin took the job of Chancellor and by July 6, 1972, 59 years of tradition would officially change as Radford would be open to both female and male students.[vi]  In Dr. Dedmon’s move to president and Radford’s transition to coeducation, Dedmon promised “a new, exciting, successful era for Radford College.”[vii] 

The new decade and “era” at Radford College was one of promise for the students who had actively participated in bringing change to the campus. By 1972, students were allowed to make their own decisions on what they considered “appropriate dress” as opposed to following a dress code, the handbook printed that students should dress in a way that was “appropriate for the academic or social activity they are attending,” and asked them to use their personal judgment noting that “neat, casual attire” was always appropriate.[viii] Policy was not the only issue that had changed for Radford, as college conferences began to shift from topics concerning housewifery to issues on civil rights and war. Students had gone from being afraid to sign their names on letters to the Grapurchat, to holding public demonstrations against their college administration, with hundreds in attendance. And as the fear of censorship grew, the handbook began to print “safeguards of editorial freedom” and a “code of ethics” in regards to the Grapurchat and outlined regulations for developing new campus organizations. [ix] Although progress had been made, the students still had regulations that had not been abolished and they continued to protest those regulations throughout the new decade. But as the fight for the abolishment of social regulations continued, a new set of problems began to develop surrounding the departure of Dr. Martin. During the midst of the Martin controversy, coeducation and relaxed social regulations allowed for some optimism among the student body, as students hoped Radford would only progress. Each class of women could have not progressed without the work of the class before them and those who followed did not allow that progress to be in vain.

- Caitlyn Parker

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[i]Lewis, “Radford Girls Cancel Protest Demonstration,” Publicity about Radford College-Women’s Division of Virginia Polytechnic Institute, May 1945-June 1956, January 1965-June 1964, vol. 2. Radford University Archives, Radford, Virginia.

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] Ant Hill, Vol. 1, no.2, April 21, 1968, Charles Knox Martin Papers, Radford University Archives, McConnell Library, Radford University, Radford, Virginia.

[iv] Ant Hill, “Co-Education?”

[v] A.J. Angulo and Leland Graham, “Winthrop College in the Sixties: Campus Protests, Southern Style,” Historical Studies in Education 23, no. 2 (2011), 120.

[vi] David Horton, “A Narrative History of Radford University,” Radford University Archives, Radford, Virginia, http://lib.radford.edu/archives/RUHistory/general.html, (Accessed November 4, 2012).

[vii] “Radford Goes Coed,” Grapurchat, Vol. 53, no.1, July 6, 1972, http://library.radford.edu/archives/ grapurchat/GrapurchatImages/1972/july061972-1.JPG, (Accessed November 4, 2012).

[viii] Rules Committee (1970-71). Handbook on Student Life at Radford College, 1971-72, Radford University Archives, Radford, Virginia

[ix] Handbook, 1970-71; Handbook, 1971-72.