Linda Bates Parker, MA (A&S) '70, had good reason to think her days of commenting on Sander Hall were long over. The 27-story dorm she once ran was imploded in 1991, and it has been decades since reporters called her to discuss UC's first co-ed dorm.

"The media was always there," laughs Bates Parker, now director of the UC Career Development Center. "Once a runaway kid hid in the residence hall. He was rumored to have been fed by students for a week."

As head resident counselor at Sander when it opened in 1972, she lived with her family in an adjoining building's apartment. It was just her, her family, 1,300 students and at least one very large snake. Bates Parker recalls the night one of the floors fell eerily still after a student emerged from his room with a boa constrictor around his neck demanding some peace and quiet.

"It was an amazing environment," she says. "My 5-year-old daughter had an unbelievable experience living there. She thought they were all her brothers and sisters; they were all so warm to her."

The early '70s was a turbulent period of change for young people, particularly on college campuses. "That group of students was breaking barriers and learning to experience life differently than their parents," the administrator says. "We had to try to manage the uncharted courses they were taking."

She chuckles at how male students once hung around outside the new building after dark to take advantage of mirrored windows that had been installed backwards. The clever students were also quick to figure out that a new dollar changer could not recognize color. "The students would Xerox a dollar," she says, "and then get change. There was a tremendous amount of traffic one morning as they cleared out all the change by noon."

Living in the diverse environment of Sander Hall cultivated leadership skills in students, she says. "They had to grapple with ways of making an impact with large numbers of students. Once they knew how to make a name for themselves in Sander, they had learned an important lesson about working and living in a diverse world."

The women of Sander even helped advance the women's liberation movement when they pushed for change after learning they occupied the bottom floors of the building because "the architects at the time thought that was just the way it was supposed to be," Bates Parker says. They took the issue to the board of trustees and soon displaced the men on the top floors.

Greg Pohl, A&S '83, a self-described "dormy," balanced his responsibilities as an RA, an office holder in dorm government and an unofficial commander of the all-male "Dabney Moon Platoon."

"One Tuesday out of the month, the 'Moon Platoon' would go out and moon the girls' dorm," Pohl says. "All the guys would do it. Somebody would call the cops, and after a couple minutes everyone would head back inside."

Midnight basketball in UC's Shoemaker Center was also memorable for Pohl and dozens of other Dabney residents who discovered that an underground steam tunnel connected their dorm with the Shoe.

"We would throw the lights on and play until about 3 a.m. or until security caught us," he says.

Pohl was an RA who looked the other way as long as “nothing got broke and nobody got hurt." That standard was put to the test on more than one occasion. Like the time he returned from Easter break to find a group of guys had made their own four-foot swimming pool by damming up the communal shower with plywood and garbage bags. Or the time residents decided to sling one another down a soaped hallway to play "human naked bowling."

He acknowledges that much has changed about dorm life at UC since the days when keg parties were so common that a parachutist dropping in to deliver the beer tap for "Dabney Goes Nuts Week" attracted little attention. Fundamental changes occurred in the way universities viewed alcohol use by the end of the 1980s when alcohol-related deaths spurred lawmakers to raise the legal drinking age from 18 to 21.

For Pohl, today a dentist, living on campus was a time to develop camaraderie among fellow students. He liked it so much, he spent all four college years either in dorm government or as an RA. "It was a great period of my life," he says. "It was like the Peter Pan Syndrome. I didn't have to grow up."

Jeff Siebert, CCM '95, spent the first half of the 1990s working as an RA in Calhoun and Sawyer and says UC's residential life experience was far different than that of many universities at the time. It was more than just a place to crash between classes. The experience helps him every day in his public relations position at Paramount's Kings Island.

"We were taught a wellness model," he says. "There was as much learning in the residence halls as there was in the classroom. We spent so much time in training sessions learning about things like diversity issues and developmental strategies. It was a great positive learning experience in my life."

The young professional misses the days of living among so many pals. "There is no other time in your life that you will have so many friends living in one area," he says.

"Everyone's door is open, and you're running up and down in your pajamas all night long. It is such a neat aspect of life. You literally are a family, and you are surrounded by 32,000 people your age."

Stinky feet and a wild possum

UC's residence halls have witnessed plenty over the years, but with more than 3,000 students living on campus today, new memories are in the making every quarter. One of the classic stories developed only recently when a resident received a suspicious package in the mail. The student had left his sneakers at home, so Mom mailed them to him. But not before powdering them to mask the obvious foot odor.

"We evacuated the building after someone dialed 911 when they noticed an unknown white powder," says Dawn Wilson, director of resident education and development. "We had the police, fire and even the postal inspector here. It was quite a production."

Parting with their pets, Wilson says, remains a common problem for today's students. "Gills and a tail," she says as if she has uttered the phrase for the 500th time. "That's it. We only allow fish."

Abiding by that rule would reduce the havoc caused by lost snakes, loose iguanas and the recent incident in which someone called campus police after seeing a "wild possum running the halls." It turned out to be a pet ferret.

Wilson hopes today's residents leave their dorms with more than just a few great stories to share.

"We are not merely a place to eat and sleep," she says. "And we certainly aren't focused on partying. The focus is on community and achieving the shared goals of academic success and personal development."

Having been an RA for five years in the '60s, I think I've heard and seen everything imaginable that the recreational side of dorm life provided. As much as we stressed the educational opportunities of group living, we endured the brash, silly, outlandish behaviour most remembered by former students and staff.

With each new year, incoming residents would repeat and outdo the antics and pranks of their predecessors: Water and shaving cream fights; floor floods; "pennying" residents in their rooms or switching doors so they couldn't get in; water-filled trash cans leaned against doors; false fire drills; hide the mattress; and hanging moons out of windows.

French Hall residents carried the RC's VW into the lounge, while a Dabney residents returned from class to find his entire room set up on the lawn. A resident returned from a weekend at home to find his room entirely stuffed from floor to celing with newspaper.

Comments

"Each year presented the staff with challenges old and new, but these events and their perpetrators were the things best remembered about dorm life at UC, and still are."
-- Ralf Smith, Pharm '65, Ed '68

"I just wanted to say that my two years in Sander Hall was a lot of fun. I don't think that most of our antics would be suitable for Horizons, but I can assure you the old stories have entertained a lot of people. One example is taking the school's lock off of the Sander penthouse and putting ours on. We had a lot of parties on that roof."
-- Bill Stirling, BusAd '80