Bowling Green State University Association of Women Students records

The records in this collection cover two separate periods in the history of the Women's League, which was later known as the Women's Self-Government Association and finally as the Association of Women Students. The minutes for the Executive Board in the years 1918 through 1946 are in bound notebooks. There is a gap in the official minutes between 1946 and 1966. The post-1966 Legislative Board minutes are loose-leaf (except for a bound April 1968 - February 1969 notebook) and may be incomplete. Many are undated. This is also true of the Rules Committee reports on proposed changes for 1963-1970.

There is little material of any type for the late 1940's or 1950's. Most of the material in the subject files is from the 1960's and covers the traditional functions of the A.W.S.: Installation of Officers, Leadership Banquet, May Sing and Freshman Orientation. A radio program script and housemother regulations are from the 1940's. Three International Parties were held in the late 1950's.

The only financial records are the Treasurer's account book and a bank book for 1924 through 1940. The printed material is from the Intercollegiate Association of Women Students in 1966, a period when college regulations were starting to be challenged. Additional material for research is available in the collection of Women's Handbooks, published in 1923 and annually from 1926 - 1970, in the University Archives.

The Women's League, Women's Self-Government Association and Association of Women Students affected the daily life of every undergraduate female student living on campus until the late 1960's. The rules that they established and enforced reflect the expectations, standards and controls placed on young women following World War I through the early 1960's.

The minutes of the early years contain the first constitution, regulations and the record of individual hearings on infractions of the rules. The late 1960's records reflect the problems the organization faced in trying to adapt to a rapidly changing college culture.