Not every school can handle its parietal problems as gently as Harvard does.
When a student-faculty committee at the University of Pennsylvania failed to take any action on a proposal for an extensive increase in hours, the students rioted last Thursday night.
Some 500 students -- mostly freshmen -- hung James Craft, dean of men, in effigy in the Men's Quadrangle, and then stampeded toward the women's residence. They tore down a picket fence, they destroyed a plywood wall built around the site of construction of a fine arts building, but it took only two squad cars and four policemen to stop them short of the women's dorm.
Craft feared an even bigger "rowbottom" (as these things are called at Penn) for Friday night, and he decided suddenly to make concessions. He knew that students would be leaving their dorms by 5 p.m. for dinner, and any solution would have to be well publicized before that time or it would be too late.
Craft met with two student leaders, and they drafted a statement announcing there would be "significant changes in dorm hours" next semester. The statement was written by 4 p.m.--by 4:30. 1700 mimeographed copies had been distributed to every dorm mailbox. There was no rowbottom Friday night.
At present, students living in Penn dormitories have no parietals Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Friday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday. Most seniors and juniors and about half the sophomores live in fraternity houses or off-campus, where no restrictions apply.