Too late to save face at your meeting, but her's the info from U of C. We sdidn't allow any aids until recently but now allow a dictionary, on the grounds that being deprived of this routine aid would cause unwarranted cognitive dissonance no matter how often we assure writers that we cut them slack on spelling. We don't allow anything else except for LD students, who get a computer if they need it, but there are some obvious arguments for doing so. Yes, we allow more than one sheet of paper. (I agree--bizarro!)