Media
Text
To regulate relationships between cadets and the mostly female civilian student body, the administrations of the Cadet program and the college established the “Conference and Appointment Bureau." This as also, and more accurately known as "the dating service.” Single Air Cadets would be given a slip of paper with questions on it. Depending on how they answered they might be paired up with a woman from the civilian college. One record says that while filling out one of these questionnaires, a cadet put down under “favorite activity” a coed’s name six times. Needless to say, the card was not accepted. This program laid out strict guidelines on social interactions between the air cadets and the college coeds. Rules included where and when social interactions were allowed. For example:
- Sunday 9pm – Saturday 12pm, absolutely no interactions between cadets and women were allowed
- Saturday 12pm – Sunday 9pm cadets were allowed to interact with women
- Cadets on “open” post were able to go anywhere with their dates, while cadets on “closed” post were only allowed go fifty feet off campus with their dates. Cadets rotated between the two.
- Examples of “Proper Dates”: included walking around campus, going to dances, escorting women to church.
There were mixed feelings about the “service,” and it was only enforced while the Air Cadets were on campus. One reaction to the dating service from an air cadet was, “Well it’s sort of a grab bag, yah know?” We have found no recorded responses from the women.