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As
a Christian school, the early Coe community believed it had an
obligation to its students and to the community at large to maintain a
scholarly atmosphere while still maintaining a healthy social climate
as well. In 1898, women living in the dormitories were permitted to
leave the hall at night for special events such as Bible study and the
Thursday night prayer meetings. Students around the turn of the
century were prohibited from going anywhere on the day of the
Sabbath. School rules also prohibited students from appearing at
local saloons, taverns, pool halls and other places of "unchristian
behavior." Until 1934, the official Coe Policy prohibited smoking,
drinking and gambling by Coe students on Coe property.
By
the 1920's Coe students became more comfortable with challenging the
moral rules of the college and its authority as loco
parentis. For example, by the middle 1920's Coe faculty
began authorizing previously prohibited dances, sponsored by the SATC,
or Student Army Training Corps. There was also an attempt through
Coe Cosmos editorials to convince the administration to
legalize gambling on campus. The flapper fashions of the 20's
were however, largely frowned upon by "proper" Coe women and never
really caught on as much as in other parts of the nation. The
school also maintained control of student private affairs by
discouraging "petting" and dancing and by expelling several students
from Coe for neglecting to request permission to marry.
As
a Christian school, Coe has always been active concerning both campus
and community affairs. Organizations at Coe in the 1920's such as
the Prohibition Association worked as a side arm of the local
temperance movement, helping the community maintain its Christian
values and helped shut down several locally owned bars in the early
1900's. Other Christian organizations such as the Gospel Team
sent volunteers to work in nearby towns. In 1911, the Gospel Team
sent seven men to work in Sumner, IA, during the Winter break.
Today the Coe Alliance, Coe Greens, Coe Christian Fellowship, and now a
Coe branch of Amnesty International work on campus and within the
community to continue to spread good ethics and the college's moral
ideals.
However,
there have been some issues to contend with. In 1904 the Coe Courier,
distressed over swearing on the football field, proposed expulsion from
the game for the use of profanity on the field. Swearing was such
a problem in the Chemistry Labs in 1911 that the faculty held a meeting
to discuss the problem. Rumor has it that if you step into the
lab room today, quiet as a mouse and listen carefully you can still
hear an occasional swear word as a Petri dish crashes to the
floor! In 1898 the possibility of unscholarly card playing in the
men's dorm rooms was investigated by President Dr. Samuel
McCormick. Today, traditional poker and rummy have been replaced
by euchre as the game of choice and by the occasional unfortunate
streaker.
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