Imagine: Moving in. A room of your own?

Your Dorm and first day: After putting all of your things in order, you and your roommate hurry to the living room of the dormitory. But to your surprise you see a group of older looking adults sitting parallel to a younger group of students. The meeting begins and you quickly learn that two professors are to live on each floor of your new home, while an elderly woman known as the Matron resides on the ground floor. Is this what you were expecting?

Control and Surveillance: In order to maintain student behavior faculty and matrons were placed on residential floors to live among the students. During the young years of the seminary, students and faculty, including Mary Lyon, all lived under one roof. By having the teachers living among the students the rules of the seminary could be maintained quite easily, for who would think to go against the rules and get away with it when a teacher is next door? There seems to be a distinct method for controlling student behavior either with the presence of a faculty member or of the matron within the seminary and the residential halls.

Strict Schedule: While living in the Seminary, students were put onto a strict bell schedule that went on throughout the day’s activities (bell schedule from the class of 1847). From devotions, to calisthenics, religious lectures by Mary Lyon and to domestic work around the Seminary building. Students were constantly monitored on the punctuality and tardiness throughout the day’s activities. The domestic work for students was put into place to cut the costs of the building and give students a rigorous schedule in daily chores. And monitoring the students every hour of the day were the teachers of the seminary.

The Connection: The rules and regulations of the seminary or college where able to be enforced because the faculty, as well as matrons, were living among the students. Their presence provided the formal authority needed to enforce the rules set out by the institution. Having the faculty living among the student body insured that students would have to abide to the rules or face punishment for the crime.  

Three Periods exemplifying surveillance and control:

The Lyon Period 1837-1849: During this time period the Seminary housed approximately 45 students and faculty (“EBE’s interpretations of descriptions” of the Seminary). In the descriptions of seminary life, there is a clear routine and set of regulations that the girls had to follow even within the seminary building.

The Mead Period 1890-1900: President Elizabeth Mead was the first non-alumnae to be the president of the college but her term did not come easily. She had to cope with the burning of the seminary building in 1896 and how to move the college toward a new future while maintaining its heritage. In result, Mead lead Mount Holyoke College into the cottage system in the building of five new dormitories and the college acquired a new list of rules under ‘House Regulations.’

The Woolley Period 1901-1937: President Woolley holds the record for longest presidential term of the college. She also expanded Mount Holyoke College with new residential halls and more official regulations for students to follow.