DKL

Trustees in Bondage

Candace de Russy, a trustee of the State University of New York (SUNY), was shocked to find that a student paper, the Stony Brook Press, ran a front-page photo, "depicting her as a leather-clad bondage lover," according to the New York Post. The revealing photo superimposes Ms. de Russy’s face over the body of a woman clad in a leather string bikini.

After being named to the SUNY board by Gov. George Pataki, Ms. de Russy wasted no time in critiquing the school for two X-rated campus conferences that discussed lesbianism, S&M, and sex toys. Although she called for an end to such conferences and suggested that SUNY-New Paltz President Roger Bowen be fired, an internal school report found nothing wrong.

In addition to its editorial titled "Candy Ain’t Dandy," lambasting de Russo’s Catholic beliefs, the paper ran some raunchy copy alongside her photo, saying: "Call now and Candy and her friends will have you hog-tied and gagged..."

De Russy protested the incident in a letter to Gov. Pataki, and Catholic League President William Donahue called the article a "vicious and bigoted statement."

Super Bowl Snit

The Super Bowl as social stratification? The Super Bowl as an upper-class event? Exclusion of women from pro sports? A panel of professors and local sports celebs chatted up these and other subjects at a recent confab put on by the University of Minnesota Journalism Center.

Former Minnesota Vikings cheerleader Kellie Gallagher said: "There are always times people will look through their binoculars [at you] or make comments, but you just ignore them or get someone to take care of them." While journalism teacher Dona Schwartz noted that professional sports involves the objectification of women, Mary Jo Kane, head of the Center for Women and Girls in Sports, described football as an outlet that "provides male bonding rituals for men to celebrate their dominance over women."

Where’s Camille Paglia when we need her?

Students Grade System

Today’s crop of college freshmen rate politics and social activism as a massive yawn. Only 26.7 percent of freshmen believe that politics is important vs. 57.8 percent back in 1966, according to a recent survey. Could this be because nearly 35 percent say they "overslept and missed class" during their senior year of high school compared with 18.8 percent during the activist heyday of 1968?

A hefty 74 percent of these pragmatists view financial success as an essential goal, while a mere 40.8 percent give high priority to developing a philosophy. And student commitment to cleaning up the environment declined from 33.6 in 1992 to 19.4 percent in the latest study.

Alexander W. Astin, director of UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute and founder of the annual survey, attributes part of the results to a generation of kids raised on TV. After tracking freshmen in 1985 for four years, he discovered that "the more TV they watched, the more their materialistic tendencies were strengthened." Other factors contributing to their practical outlook may be the quantum leap in the cost of education. Getting a good job after graduation takes on new meaning if you’ve got to repay a $60,000 loan.

The survey includes responses from nearly 350,000 students at 665 two- and four-year colleges and universities around the country.

Music Video 101

Gary Burns, who teaches at Northern Illinois University, agrees with Bill Bennett and other right thinkers about much of the cultural rot affecting today’s liberal arts institutions. However, he takes issue with them over "their hyperbolic and often mean-spirited attack on the study of media and popular culture." That includes courses in music video, one of which Burns teaches at Northern Illinois U.

Burns explained in a recent Chicago Tribune piece that his music video course wasn’t even available to anyone but graduate students, adding that "it does not ‘politicize’ the subject or approach it mindlessly."

Burns explained that several of Peter Gabriel’s videos, including "Sledgehammer," "Big Time," and "Steam," are visually stunning works that make use of advanced animation techniques. Calling music videos a new art form, Burns noted that in film and TV classes, most students with 20 or more years of TV watching experience can’t pick up on the use of artistic conventions in videos or separate "personal taste from moral and aesthetic judgment."

"If universities don’t do this job, then nobody will," said Burns, explaining that "future media consumers need to be taught how to evaluate the performance of the media industry."

On the Mat

Erica Jimenez has established quite a record for herself at Montgomery High School in San Diego, California. School homecoming queen; a 4.4 grade point average (weighted for advanced courses); president of the calculus club; swimming, water polo...and a member of the school wrestling team.

Wrestling?

"I’m not trying to intrude on men’s sports," Jimenez told the San Diego Union Tribune during a recent interview about her third season on the school team. "If there were a wrestling team for girls, that’s what I’d do. But I’m not going to stop wrestling just because there’s no women’s wrestling team."

Jimenez says she understands why people think it’s bizarre for a homecoming queen to be wrestling boys. But, then again, she didn’t campaign for the crown. When she discovered that she had won, she thought about protesting by wearing jeans to the ceremony instead of a dress, but decided to play by the rules after learning how much it meant to some people for her to win.

Asked how her wrestling career began, Jimenez explained that during her freshman year, she approached the team coach, who was shocked that she followed through with it. Today, her coach recalls that her toughness was evident the first day of practice when a Navy SEAL volunteered to help the team through conditioning drills. After Jimenez outlasted all the boys by doing an impressive 325 situps, they knew she was someone special.

The inevitable question: Wrestling is a sport of grabbing and holding. Doesn’t that cause a problem?

"I don’t notice guys grabbing me," says Jimenez. "I’m just like any other athlete in the heat of competition."

Back to Basics?

Now that New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has made such a huge dent in urban crime, he’s taking on another challenge, namely education. A couple of weeks after he was sworn in for a second term, Giuliani called for an end to open enrollment at the City University of New York (CUNY), saying the current system was a failure that had destroyed educational standards.

Known for its academic excellence before open enrollment began in 1970, Giuliani said that the school had sunk to the point where in its community colleges, only 14 percent of the freshmen passed basic reading, writing, and math tests and the graduation rate averaged 1 percent. The average at the four-year schools is 9 percent.

The mayor told school officials that the days of rationalizing this disaster are over. He demanded that administrators provide entrance exams and admit only those who pass them. Stay tuned.

Fighting Chance?

Molly McGraw, a student by day, keeps her mind and body in shape at night by practicing a "mugger’s choke" on a tumbling mat in a dorm at Northwestern University.

Molly is one of a dozen women who signed up for a 12-hour course called "Chimera Self-Defense for Women." There are no books, no videos in this class, just a teacher showing the class how to deter attackers.

"You learn to walk confidently, to have a stance, to take up lots of space," said instructor Jill Robinson, adding that it’s important to "empower yourself. You show that you notice everyone around you—that you are not afraid to look at them....The point of the course is always to have some well-rehearsed game plan."

Chimera, Inc., a non-profit group started over 20 years ago by students at the University of Illinois-Chicago, was named for a Greek goddess who possessed an arsenal of weapons, i.e., wings, claws, horns, teeth, and a swirling tail to fend off intrepid attackers.

Chimera old-timers say the course has changed since its raucous beginnings when founder Andrea "Ra" Medea, a UIC student, learned to defend herself growing up on Chicago’s South Side.

"When Ra was working out her technique, it was still somewhat bizarre," recalls Sue Strong. "She would leap out at you on campus and try to wrestle you into the fountain."