Student Protests
By the early 1970s, students were fed up with the war.
Sheila Kelly Hampton, Class of 1970, said, “We were a radical bunch of hippies except for the one weekend a year when it was Dad's Day. We managed to clean up our acts for that special day.” Even in the midst of total chaos -- between student riots causing classes and exams to be cancelled until the following September, and a small portion of the ROTC building being blown up in protest* -- Douglass students still saw the Date with Dad activity as something they wanted to cherish and be part of.
*Only a small portion of the ROTC building was attacked, and luckily no one was hurt.
Interesting Times
In 1976, one year after the Vietnam War had ended, there was a very interesting theme for the event. It was, "Her Father's Mustache."
I wondered to myself, “Why ‘Her Father’s Mustache’?” And then I took my internship supervisor’s advice and looked up popular culture from the decade. Immediately I found images of Cheech Marin, David Crosby, Mark Spitz, Billy Dee Williams, Freddie Prinze, and Burt Reynolds.
The End?
The last Date with Dad program found in College Hall was the 1979 program. Therefore, I thought that was it. Then,...I just so happened to flip to a random page in the 1989 Quair...
1979 Program