Not far from “Footloose”: History of dances at NGU
Trinity Adams, News and Feature Editor
“The college does not permit dancing on campus, nor does it permit college chartered organizations or clubs to sponsor dances off campus.” This may sound like a quote from a “Footloose” sequel set at a college. However, this is from the 1974-1975 handbook for North Greenville College.
Until 2017, students were prohibited from having dances on or off campus. In the Southern Baptist Convention, it was believed that dancing was a sinful act and could lead to promiscuous activities. Even in the early days of NGU’s history, students sought out other opportunities to dance in the dorms or attend off-campus dances.
In “A History of North Greenville Junior College,” Jean Martin Finn recounts a story of students in 1902 who went to an off-campus dance hosted in the home of a school donor, which ended in a fight between the local boys and the male students. The school rules at the time prohibited girls and boys from talking to each other unless they were monitored in the dining hall, and even talking to each other during classes was a punishable action.
On this cold winter night, Mrs. Roe decided to host a Valentine’s Day dance at her home off campus. The girls had already been at the house dancing with the local mountain boys when the male students of the school had arrived. Once the boys in uniform showed up, the girls fawned over them and carried the mountain boys to the side.
“Then followed one glorious knock-down, drag-out, free-for-all fracas. Although outnumbered, the North Greenville students held out bravely until one of the attackers seized a fiddle from a protesting musician’s hands and smashed it to bits over Dean Crain’s shoulders. He edged over to Mr. Jackson and said, ‘Cap’n, it’s time we were going home,’“ wrote Finn.
Archivist Joanne Beasley shared a story about a former professor who once attended NGU and the lengths that female students had to go to even dance in their dorms. When White Hall was a girls’ dorm, there was another dorm connected to it named Wingo. Mrs. Jean McManus was a student at the time, and her dorm mother, Mother White, whose husband was named after White Hall, did not like what she called “boogie woogie music,” said Beasly.
Beasley continued, “In the lobby, the girls had a piano and they could play music on it, but she didn’t allow for any dance music. So they would put one girl on lookout, while Mother White wasn’t there, and they would play their “boogie woogie music” and dance. When Mother White was spotted, they would all run back to their rooms and pretend they weren’t dancing.”
Throughout the school’s history, there have been many students requesting that the rules be revised so that dancing of some sort would be allowed on campus. During the height of the “Footloose” frenzy in 1984, a student wrote an opinion piece in the school paper, The Skyliner, urging dancing to be allowed.
Student Jim Duncan expressed his belief that the rules and concerns placed around the dancing policies were unfounded. He voiced that most students believe that it is unfair that dancing is not allowed on campus, and although the students voiced the opinion, they were still being ignored. He went on to point out the flaws in the argument that dancing is a sinful act that could send someone to hell. He called people who thought dancing was wrong to take a look at Paul’s writing to the Corinthians’ church, that what may be a stumbling block to others is not for everyone, and it comes down to a self-spiritual examination.
“There are plenty of options for having a dance. Maybe if we concentrate some of this energy on finding a good option instead of fighting about who is and is not a Christian, we’ll satisfy ourselves and not displease God in the process,” said Duncan.
In 2017, Tony Beam, then-VP of student engagement and Christian worldview, emailed faculty and staff to explain that the school would be hosting a welcome-back dance after its ignite conference. This was a controversial decision due to the Southern Baptist community’s culture, but Beam assured that it would be conducted in a God-honoring manner.
“While we know that this represents a significant change in policy, we believe that it can be done in a way that is God-honoring, socially acceptable, and will have the effect of improving some of our community interactions. While we understand that some people have very strong feelings one way or another about this, we decided to take this opportunity to calendar some of these events. Again, we will ensure that these events are carefully reviewed, chaperoned, and monitored,“ said Beam.
In the email, Beam explained that his office spent the summer coming up with a plan to incorporate dancing into some of the programming on campus, with the understanding that it will be heavily chaperoned, monitored, and reviewed. Beam thought that incorporating dances into the school’s activities would create more opportunities for social interactions.
In an article written by The Vision Magazine, students were excited for the first dance at the school, but many had not experienced a dance before college because they were home schooled. At the time, Billy Watson was director of student activities and was hopeful to have five to six dances a year, including a formal toward the end of the school year.
“It’s a big group activity, more than what people would conceive as a dance, or what people see as dancing that happens at clubs. I don’t think it’s anything like that or ever will be like that,” said Watson.
Although the number of dances is only two a year, it has become a big part of NGU’s culture and traditions. The dances of NGU are now a time for students to interact with each other and have fun, not worrying about if they will be condemned for hitting the dougie.
Feature image courtesy of Moriah Faulk
