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What is a dink?

Have you ever had to wear a nametag....all the time?

Were you ever told where you could and could not walk?

Why would you have to carry matches for someone else and not be allowed to smoke yourself?

What are these boys wearing?

from " Freshmen" folder in the Archives

These, and many other rules, controlledthe lives of Freshmen on Saint Bonaventure Campus for quite some time.

For many years, there were Freshmen Rules on campus. The rules were quite long, detailed, and the list was quite lengthy. They varied from such rules as wearing specific clothing, not being able to go to certain places on campus, and the requirements to do particular activities or not being allowed to do certain activities. These were punishable by Student Senate. There were certain days when the rules were taken away, there were meetings that all the Freshmen had to attend, and there were initiations. The main reason for these rules was to make the freshmen "Bonaventure Men.”

During the 1940’s, the rules were quite strict and the punishments were severe. As time went on, the rules became more lax, dealing more with traditional rules, like information that the students needed to know, and there became less of them, until they eventually became non-existent.

There were some student handbooks missing from our collection, so it was hard to determine certain gaps and questions that I had. Therefore, this page only examines roughly 30 years of rules, when they had been around around longer than that.

This page states the rules for the years, changes, contains pictures, and comments about what people during the time had to say about them. My own comments, summaries, or analysis of the material on the page appears in the boxes.

This page was created by Beth McCarthy for History 210, Computers and Archives, in the Spring 2001 semester. Other than minor editing, any changes have been noted at the bottom of each page.