By Laurie Babinski
Editor in Chief
In the 75 years since George Pepperdine started a small college in Los Angeles and in the 30 years since Pepperdine University moved to Malibu, Pepperdine has undergone many changes, including transformation in its rules and regulations.
No dancing, no members of the opposite sex in the dorms, no shorts or beachwear attires in the classroom and a long fence to separate the lower men’s dorm from the upper women’s dorm are just some of the historical rules at Pepperdine.
Many of these historical rules have since been changed with the times — but slowly.
“In response to the need of students, we’ve changed certain rules,” University Chaplin D’Esta Love said. “When I was dean of Students, the rules was revised every year with the change in the school’s population.
“It is good to know or at least recognize that we’re living in a changing world, a changing society and we’re changing individually,” Love continued. “Institute change along with them and the policies change accordingly.”
VISITATION HOURS
One of the biggest changes that Pepperdine has made to its rules and regulations are visitation hours. When George Pepperdine first opened the Los Angeles campus, members of the opposite sex weren’t allowed to visit each other’s dorm rooms at all.
“The men couldn’t come into our room,” said Helen Young, recalling her days as an undergraduate at George Pepperdine College in the late 1930s. “They were allowed to stay in the reception area for dates and once a year we had an open house where they would allow men to come and visit our dorms.”
Barney Barnhart, a Pepperdine alumnus who graduated in 1950, remembers how curfew hours were much stricter for the women.
“In the dorms, the girls were closely watched (by the house mother) and the boys could do as they please,” Barnhart said.
In fact, dorms in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s did not have Residential Advisors or Student Advisors yet. A house parent resided over each dorm, and they were the ones who reinforced the rules.
“The house mother gave the senior girls the ground floor (to live in) so the freshman girls wouldn’t have any ideas about crawling through the windows after curfew hours,” Barnhart said.
It seldom happened, but he said the rules were still stringent.
Much of the visitation hours remained the same throughout the years.
In 1974, just two years after Pepperdine opened its Malibu campus, freshmen had to be in their “respective homes” by 11 p.m. Sunday through Thursday for the first trimester of their enrollment. Thereafter, second trimester freshmen, along with sophomores and juniors were expected to be in their homes by midnight, according to the 1974-75 student handbook.
On Fridays and Saturdays, students had to be in by 2 a.m.
The seniors or students over 21 years old were expected to log their whereabouts and anticipated time of return whenever they were absent beyond these hours.
Lounge hours were from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 10 a.m. to 1 a.m. on weekends.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the suite lounge hours were extended to 1 a.m. Sundays through Thursdays and 2 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays.
By 1983, students no longer had to check into their rooms by a certain hour. Members of the opposite sex, however, were still not permitted inside the rooms or suite except for residents of Seaver apartments, who were allowed visitors of the same and opposite sex from 11 a.m. through 11 p.m.
In the mid-and late-1980s, Pepperdine allowed students to petition for an open suite, then they would have the privilege of visiting the suite and rooms of members of the opposite sex. The petition sheet, which had to be posted in the front of your suite’s door, had to have at least two signatures from two of the suite’s resident and the RA’s signature as well. An open suite’s visiting hours were from 1 to 4 p.m. and 7 to 9 p.m.
“I remember when we had to petition to our RA for an open house or an open suite so that members of the opposite sex can come and visit,” University Church of Christ Minister Scott Lambert said. “The doors had to be open and you could only stay until 9 p.m.”
Legend has it that the door was opened with the width of a Bible, Director of Housing Jim Brock said.
While today male and female dorms are usually placed alternately in dorm and greek roads, Pepperdine used to situate females in the upper dorm roads and the males in the lower dorm roads. To ensure the university’s policy on opposite-sex visitation, a long fence separated the male and female dorms as well.
“I used to jump over the fence which was pretty beaten up by the time I was there,” Lambert, who transferred to the Malibu campus in 1982, said.
The regulations regarding visitation hours were still changing in 1999. Housing extended dorm visitation hours from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m.
CONVOCATION
While the rules regarding visitation went through transformations, so did regulations regarding Convocation.
Oly Tegner, a 1943 Pepperdine alumnus and dean emeritus of the Graduate School of Education Psychology, remembers when Covocation, then known as Chapel, was an everyday devotional. Since the school began in 1937, Convo was an everyday requirement, instead of the 14 per semester requirement students have now.
“I went to chapel everyday,” Tegner said. “It was student-oriented with a religious service on Fridays.”
Identification cards weren’t used to record students’ attendance.
“They took role by hand,” Tegner said. “They would check our seat and for a short while we had assigned seats.”
The daily chapel remained through the 1950s and 1960s.
By the time Pepperdine moved to Malibu, students could still attend chapel everyday, but they were only required to be present at two services per week. But they were still “encouraged to be present the other three days,” states the 1974 student handbook.
By 1979, the requirement to attend two Convo per week was changed to a weekly Convo requirement on Wednesdays. Students could only miss three Convos without any questions asked per trimester and they were still encouraged to attend the other Convo services the other four days.
In 1983, the policy was changed again. Required Convos were on Mondays instead of Wednesday, and students could only miss two times per trimester, instead of three.
This policy stayed until the mid-1990s. Weekly Convocation was changed again to Wednesdays at 10 a.m. Students did not have to attend Convos every Wednesdays but were required to accumulate 14 attendance credits each fall and spring semester. Seniors who did not accumulate the 56 credits before April could walk during graduations but they could not receive their diplomas until they completed their Convo requirement.
In 2001, those 14 credits were changed to grades. Students are presently graded on how many Convocations they’ve attended.
DRESS CODE
While today Pepperdine does not enforce a dress code, from the 1930s when the school began until the 1980s, students had to follow a dress code accordingly with the regulations in their student handbook.
“The Dean of Women was a fastidious woman from Lipscomb University in Tennessee,” Young said in recollecting the dress code in the late 1930s at Pepperdine. “She wanted everything to be proper. (Women) had to wear dresses to class and they weren’t allowed to wear bobby socks.
“Wearing shorts wasn’t permitted except for playing tennis or going to bed,” the 1939 Pepperdine alumna continued. “I remember when the (women) had a strike regarding the bobby socks.”
In addition to these rules, Pepperdine’s regulations expected male and female students to wear “appropriate, tasteful, modest attire fitting the time.” This regulation stayed in the student’s handbook until the mid-80s.
DANCING
From 1937 until 1989, dancing was not permitted on campus. The 1974 handbook states, “Dancing is not a part of the social heritage of the university, and is not permitted at university sponsored activity.”
By 1986, however, dancing was allowed as long as it was held off campus.
UNCHANGED RULES
Though various rules have been revised and changed, there are some rules that have remained the same or have become more defined.
Being a dry campus is not a new phenomenon at Pepperdine.
“The alcohol rules have pretty much stayed the same,” Campus Minister Lambert said. “Our long-ranged moral (rules) have stayed the same.”
One of Pepperdine’s moral regulations that have stayed constant throughout the campus’ ever-changing environment is the rule regarding sexual associations.
“Sexual relations rules have actually become more defined,” continued Lambert in response to this year’s updated definition on sexual regulations. “Realistically, major rules stay the same.”
November 14, 2002
