Education: At Montana

Gateways to the campus of Montana State College (Bozeman) were picketed by young men huddled around fires last week. From the women’s dormitory came the wail of “The Prisoner’s Song.” There had been trouble. Some eyes still smarted from tear gas with which the local constabulary had dispersed a mob of undergraduates who had attempted to enter the university heating plant. Object of entering the heating plant was apparently to blow the whistle, make further disturbance. Cause of this unusual activity: a general student strike, precipitated when Dean of Women Una B. Herrick ruled that all co-eds must be in their dormitories by 11 p.m.

Students began the revolt by proposing seven rules to the faculty, the first of which demanded that the student senate be empowered to pass on all social rules before they become effective. When the faculty declined to consider the document, the undergraduates struck, tried to prohibit others from attending classes until President Alfred Atkinson got back from a trip to Washington.