Once in a while student initiative carries the day. This was the case with the relatively short-lived spring fever day. The impetus, as best I can understand, began in the women’s quantitative analysis laboratory during the spring of 1958. (Yes, there were separate men’s and women’s labs, but that’s another story.) Several of the students working in the lab on a nice spring day were bemoaning the fact that they had to be inside when many were enjoying the outdoors.

These students were aware that many colleges had a "Spring Fever Day" holiday and thought that Otterbein should be among them. They then decided that they could, indeed, make it happen. What was needed was access to a ditto machine, and in fact, one was readily available in the chemistry office. Sheets of paper were dittoed and then cut into small strips announcing that the next day would be "Spring Fever Day" and that all classes were cancelled. A strip was placed in each student’s mailbox.

Persons relatively new to Otterbein need to know that in those days each student had an unlocked pigeon-hole mailbox in the main hallway of Towers Hall. Anyone could insert (or remove for that matter) something in another student’s mailbox. Another factor was that even ditto machines were not readily accessible to everyone and something that came dittoed (in dirty purple as we used to call it) carried an air of authenticity.

The following day there were almost no students to attend class. Even commuters usually checked their mailbox before their first class, and so went off to enjoy the day. Professors were puzzled at first since they weren’t given notices, and by the time they figured out what had happened it was too late; Otterbein had its first Spring Fever Day.

Unfortunately, it was downhill from there. The day was taken over by the campus programming board and after a few years it was placed on the calendar. After a few more years the day became an excuse for a small number of, but still too many, students to go on a drinking binge. The agenda of the Judicial Council for the rest of the year was filled with the consequences of the day. Eventually, Spring Fever Day became more trouble than it was worth, and was dropped.