Chapter 12:

 

SOUTH CENTRAL

The quite distinctive staircase front of Kent Hall, August 2013Straight out of South Central, it's Cannon, New Castle, Kent, Sussex, Squire, and Warner.

 

Wait, did they tear down Smyth?! Nah, calm down. Still there, and I think always will be. It’s just that we’re considering it now an “Academy Street” dorm. Read about that, in the next chapter!

 

Anyway, most of you know that UD used to be split into Men's and Women's colleges. When I first landed on the UD campus back in '91, ALL of the South Central dorms -- yes, ALL of them -- were STILL all Women's dorms.

 

Some people referred to South Central as the “Virgin Vault,” but I called it “THE GREATEST PLACE ON EARTH.” It was impossible for a healthy straight male to stroll through that part of campus, without getting a boner. Well, actually, that’s basically true for any part of the UD campus...

Rumor: UD is two-thirds female.

 

Dude, this is: False, though it’s not too far off. The Female / Male ratio is about 60 / 40, at least it has been for the past fifteen years. I’m getting a chubby as I type this.

 

 

Now, I dated a girl who lived in Kent '91 - '92, and then Warner '92 - '93. Guys: If you never dated a girl (or at least stayed over) in an all chick dorm...well...oofa! Nice scenery. Only problem is that if you have to use the (one) bathroom in the building that guys are allowed to use, your girl has to escort you and all of that.

 

Nice Rooms. Some of the South Central dorms have some pretty unbelievable rooms. There are quads on the second and third floors of Warner, that are real impressive...the most known one being the quad with that big half-circle bay window, as seen from the South College parking lot side. It’s often showed off in UD publications.

 

Coed-ification. The demand for all-female housing REALLY started to dive in the early '90s, with Squire, Sussex and Smyth going coed in 1993. Eventually all of South Central went coed, save Warner -- to preserve its tradition, Warner (built in 1914) will probably remain all chicks until the end of time.

 

Campus Critter: “Rocky the Wonder Squirrel” was a famous rambunctious rodent, who frequently visited Warner’s third floor during the '91 - '92 school year. I think he would just like, jump from a branch and into the building somehow. Rocky was eventually safely captured by some maintenance guys, and then went on to teach a 400 level Business class.

 

Renovations. 1997 - 2002 brought considerable interior clean-up and some floor restructuring to the South Central dorms. I know that at the very least -- dare I say it -- some of the charm of Kent was lost; on the second floor (the Mall side) there was this really nice parlor sitting room thing. But hey, when a dorm is going from all-female to coed, ya' can't have guys around nice shit, right? So, they ditched the parlor sitting room thing, and put in some more dorm rooms. Hey, no stopping it.

 

 

Sleepus Interruptus: Shut the brick up!

 

“In Sussex, I lived right next to the study lounge. Our room had a bricked up fireplace, which backed up to the lounge, so we could hear almost everything going on in there. So when people would hang out in the wee hours not using their ‘inside voices’…it was hard to get up for my 8 AM German class.”

 

- Shannon, UD '99

 

Dudeless Dorm

 

“As for Warner, I had a friend who got to live in one of those REALLY nice rooms in there, but I also had another friend in Warner who lived in a painfully small double. But the building itself is one of the cleaner and more nicely decorated dorms on campus...I guess UD trusts that girls won't trash the place!”

 

- Brenda, UD '02

 

Boobs, Butts & Beyond: Quite Disturbing

 

“My roommate and I lived in Squire Hall, and wrote ‘DND’ on our message board -- ‘Do Not Disturb.’ Even though we had our system, one day I went to my boyfriend’s room for a while, and came back around midnight to find my roommate topless and about to have sex with this guy in our room. She hadn’t bothered to lock the door or write ‘DND,’ because she thought I was spending the night at my boyfriend's. Yuck! It was during finals so I grabbed the things I needed to study for my Calc final (which I failed because I forgot most of it), and I wouldn’t go back to get the rest of my study packet because of the embarrassment. The thing that pissed me off the most is that this dude had a single down the hall, and they didn’t go there!”

 

- Anonymous, UD '09

 

 

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