Rules and Restrictions

When the college girl entered the sphere of the university, women were still widely believed to be the inferior and weaker sex. With this belief came specific rules and practices that were meant to protect women at universities and colleges. While the majority of these restrictions have been abolished, the mind set behind their implementation still remains in the university today. Women are continually challenged in academia in a way that men are not; their intelligence, abilities, and accomplishments are questioned and ignored based solely on gender. In particular, the College of William and Mary has continued to glorify its forefathers: Thomas Jefferson, Lord Botetourt, James Blair, etc. yet Martha Barksdale may be the only female alumnus that is given extensive attention, historically speaking. Through the interview with Dr. Carolyn Whittenburg, we have learned a great deal concerning the College’s history and the restrictions applied to women. Dr. Whittenburg completed her dissertation at William and Mary on President J.A.C. Chandler and the first female faculty.
In general, institutions that moved to co-education felt that women needed special attention and aid during their college years. These “Restrictions on students – involving clothes, dating, sports, drinking, smoking, and the like…” clearly affected all aspects of life (Solomon 159). Obviously, students were separated by gender in their living arrangements. Limited contact between the sexes and rules involving conduct concerning the opposite sex attempted to be heavily enforced. These rules were expected to uphold notions of “morality”: “As before, parents expected colleges to keep young people within the accepted boundaries of morality. Some colleges instituted formal dress codes, and others had regulations on proper appearance, in an effort to uphold earlier standards” (Solomon 159).
According to Dr. Whittenburg, President J.A.C. Chandler, president of William and Mary between the years of 1919 and 1934, believed that the first female class and onward needed specific supervision and guidance. He supported the prior president’s (President Lyon G. Tyler) creation of the office of the Dean of Women, the first dean being Caroline Tupper. President Chandler also created many rules and restrictions for the students in order to encourage “proper” conduct. For example, a woman was not permitted to travel in a car, attend a movie, go to church, etc. exclusively with one man; multiple couples must be present for such outings. Women were not allowed to be accompanied exclusively by one man and must be chaperoned during excursions down Duke of Gloucester Street. Even more confining, women were not permitted to leave Duke of Gloucester Street, alone or accompanied, for any reason. Dormitories were separated by gender and men were not permitted to leave the foyer of women’s dorms.
Surely these restrictions only for women made the assumption that women are the weaker sex much easier to accept and internalize. Unfortunately, women all throughout history have had to challenge this belief during their college years. Our commemoration of the 90th class of women at William and Mary is not only to recognize the 24 women in the class of 1922, but to recognize the achievements and challenge the limitations of women in general in the sphere of higher education.

-Irene Davidson

Then and Now, part 2: GOOOAL!

Continuing with activity regarding our documentary, I’d like to divulge into another topic I found interesting about the women at The College of William and Mary; sports!
Ever since women started arriving on college campuses, their desire to play sports does not shy away from male participation, although many women did not participate as it was unbecoming of them to partake in such vigorous activities. (pink think!) Most sports teams were left to the boys on campus while the women students watched and supported.

“Women’s athletics, first initiated in the oldest women’s colleges, became routine. Yet they did not inspire the same fervor they had from the pioneers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Athletic competition in team sports did not have as much appeal for women as for men, nor women’s sports receive the same kind of public attention. Still, intercollegiate tennis, field hockey, swimming, and basketball had moderate vogues, with the approval and encouragement of educators who saw organized sports as safe outlets for their charges” (Solomon 164)

Women’s sports have always had a place at William and Mary. A couple of the first active teams upon our campus were basketball and fencing. Because the school didn’t provide funding or participated in any conference involving school sports, many of the female students on campus formed their own teams and played against each other. One of the infamous, if not most remembered, female athlete on our campus is Martha Barksdale. Martha participated in the women’s basketball program and was known around campus as one of the best players around, even easing up her game at times to let other teams win! Martha would go on later to coach women’s sports at William and Mary and has a sports field off of Jamestown road named after her, Barksdale Field. (Go visit and see the monument!)

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The next big step in women’s sports was the enactment of Title Nine, an amendment that made it mandatory for public universities to provide equal funding and/or opportunity for women’s sports on campus as men’s sports. William and Mary, being a public school, acted in this new law and the students saw its first swimming, gymnastics, softball, etc. sports programs for women. My mom even played on the first women’s volleyball team at William and Mary in the fall of 1976, her freshman year! This opportunity opened many doors for women’s rights and have taken many women into sports careers becoming famous and making millions.

Women’s sports have continued to develop in society and have become a common place among today’s customs. Any school or university in our country that has men’s sports teams have women’s teams and give the appropriate funding to them. Many girls participate in sports at a young age and have made active lifestyles popular American culture. Recently, we’ve also seen many popular films involving women athletes, such as “Love and Basketball”, “Stick It”, and “Million Dollar Baby”; making sports all more common among girls today. Women’s sports play a large, positive role on our campus now and I hope it continues to do so!

-Laura Condyles

Flappers and Rebellion

This afternoon Irene and I interviewed Dr. Carolyn Whittenburg, Director of the National Institute of American History and Democracy (NIAHD) at the College of William & Mary. Dr. Whittenburg did her dissertation on coeducation at William & Mary and is certainly one of our best resources here on campus. What I found incredibly interesting about our discussion was the way that Dr. Whittenburg’s comments on coeducation at William & Mary really mirrored the general history given by Barbara Miller Solomon in her book In the Company of Educated Women: A History of Women and Higher Education in America. Both discuss how the flapper ideal of the 1920s was at odds with the traditional rules and regulations for female college students. Solomon notes that “the 1920s marked a new vogue for the college girl who entered school in the age of the flapper” (Solomon 157). It is interesting to consider that while Solomon is writing from the perspective of women having been in college before the age of the flapper, the very first women to enroll in William & Mary did so as this icon was on the rise – there was no pre-flapper William & Mary woman.

While some of the images available in Swem Special Collections’ online exhibit on women, The Petticoat Invasion, reflect a flapper trend, it certainly was not universal on campus. Dress does not appear to be particularly forward-moving, although some of the women in this picture of the J. Lesslie Hall Literary Society are wearing dresses that exhibit the typical asexuality of flapperwear. Janet Coleman Kimbrough, a member of that first class of women, noted that “girls’ skirts were going up; of course, the flapper and jazz and the type of dancing” (Kimbrough), so they certainly were not immune to outside cultural influences.

Solomon discusses how the college students of the 20s were more rebellious than their foremothers, noting that “rebelliousness typified each particular peer culture; students resisted any interference with personal and recreational aspects of college life” (Solomon 159). Dr. Whittenburg described extensive rules to us governing the social lives of William & Mary women, and did not mention a serious resistance effort. Furthermore, , outlines the ways in which students, while they may have resented President Chandler’s rules, did not overtly subjugate them. Kimbrough said that “dancing every evening gave the college rather a bad name from Dr. Chandler's point of view. He said that it was giving the state the impression that they

were spending their state money in riotous living for the students, and so he did away with the social hour, which I thought was a pity. It [dancing] went the first year and about halfway through the second year, then they were forbidden to dance in the dormitory at all” (Kimbrough). She does not mention a serious effort to change the rules. She does note, in reference to “lights out” times, that “you weren't supposed to stay up, but you could get up as early as you pleased, and we would very often go to our rooms and go through the formality of going to bed, and then get up and sit on the stairs and do our studying and also talk to each other” (Kimbrough). Perhaps it was because these women considered themselves lucky to finally be admitted to William & Mary, but while they experienced many of the same restrictions as their peers at other institutions, they were more content to let things be and not rock the boat.

-Cate Domino

Then and Now

A large part of our class is the creation of a documentary. We have been working hard at interviewing alumnae and piecing together historic facts to create a small film that briefs the history of women at the College of William and Mary. Recently, I found a rather interesting topic; the governing rules over previous William and Mary students.
These rules were strict and not to be broken without consequences. All qualified students had must obey them or come into close encounters to being expelled from the College. Most of these rules were bounding and kept students limited to what they could and could not do with their small amount of free time left over from the difficult and rigorous classes. Who were these qualified students? The female population.


A Guide of Appropriate Female Behavior >>>

One small piece of information comes from a blog in the archives of Swem Library and speaks about the rules previous William and Mary female students had to abide by to be in good standing with the College. The example rules are recalled by Janet Coleman Kimbrough, one of the first female students at The College of William and Mary and can be found at: http://womenatwilliamandmary.blogspot.com/2008/10/rules-for-women.html
Some of the rules are as follows:

-After dinner, the women had to stay in their dormitory, Tyler Hall, until all lights went out at midnight.

-While in their dorm, the women had a mandatory study hall from 8pm-10pm. During this time, they were not supposed to leave their rooms and they had to be quiet.

-At 10pm, the women were allowed to wander between rooms and talk.

-At 10:30pm, all women students were required to go to bed, unless they got special permission to stay up and study until midnight.

-If a woman received special permission to stay up until midnight, she had to study in a different room than her own, so she would not disturb others.

Mind you, that male students did not have to abide by these rules. Many of these rules were put in place to keep the two sexes from being together and preventing alone time in private places. Males were allowed to roam campus whenever they felt free to while girls were shut up indoors immediately following dinner.

William and Mary wasn’t the only school following these strict codes for girls, these codes were placed in most schools and had been running for many years, back from the nineteenth century when women first entered institutions for higher education. “Parents expected colleges to keep young people within the accepted boundaries of morality. Some colleges instituted formal dress codes, and others had regulations on proper appearance, in an effort to uphold earlier standards.” (Solomon 159)

These standards also were in place at more concentrated schools, such as religious and Historically Black Colleges. “Catholic and black schools demanded the strictest behavior both on a off the campus. Catholic schools extended their supervision and rules to the hours that students were not on campus. The discipline of women at black colleges reflected a special determination to obliterate a presumed inherited taint of impurity often associated with the female slave in minds of black men.” (Solomon 159)

Obviously, many of the strict rules of the past have faded away and given light to the college culture of today, often portrayed as one large party in the media with students who are completely out of control. Maybe one day we’ll be able to find a happy medium…

-Laura Condyles

Career or Marriage? The Eternal Question.

“The new element in the approach of young college graduates in the 1920s was freedom of choice; whether to marry or not, whether to have children or not, were matter to be decided by the individual, and no judgment was passed on these various options.”

-Barbara Miller Solomon (175)

The idea that educated women are forced to balance between work and marriage, between careers and children, is certainly prevalent today, as it also was back when William & Mary began educating women. Popular culture tends to embrace the existence of “choice” that Solomon discusses in the epigraph, but rarely does it turn this dichotomy between home and public life on men. Advertisements, political punditry, and other elements of pop culture are often obsessed with the idea of woman as balancer: cooking dinner and excelling in the workplace, giving the kids a bath while her Blackberry buzzes in the background. This commercial for Crockpot fits the mold perfectly, with the family coming home after busy days at work for Mom and Dad and school for the kids. The mother has taken it upon herself to prepare dinner before leaving for work, picked the kids up from school, and served the food to her family, while her husband merely shows up for dinner. The old concept of the double day, of women working in the public office and in the home, is very present in modern advertising.

Still, Solomon notes, “always the problem persisted of justifying women’s new options” (Solomon 173). This can still be seen today, especially in the current political environment. When the women of The View discussed Sarah Palin’s candidacy, it was her experience as a mother, not as a governor or mayor, that these women kept coming back to in order to justify her candidacy. At the beginning of the clip, when Elisabeth describes her friend’s reaction to Palin with her identity as mother and “now we have a woman who I really feel has a realness to her” it is incredibly interesting because in the act of choosing to have a family and a career, Governor Palin’s choice of motherhood is still the one that we as a culture choose to embrace and we push her career to the fringe. I can name all of Governor Palin’s children, but never in a million years could I name the three male candidates’ children. It is not because her children are young – Senator Obama’s are in the same age range – it is because she is a woman and therefore seen as their natural keeper over their father.

This tension the crops up time and time again has really raised questions for me as we complete the documentary portion of our independent study. During our interview with Dr. Carolyn Whittenburg, she described Martha Barksdale and how she went to work for the College after graduation and continued to do so for the rest of her career in education. I don’t believe that Barksdale ever married (there are no internet records indicating marriage and she did not change her name during her career at the College), which places her as an interesting example of those who made the choice to have a career over a family. Our culture tends to consider women who do not rank motherhood as the be-all to end-all experience of life somewhat confused, as advertising and punditry demonstrate, yet William & Mary women were making strides when the first class of them graduated. Go girls.

-Cate Domino

What is this? The 50's or something?

One of the many components of our commemoration of the 90^th anniversary of the first class of women at William and Mary is a short video documentary. We are interviewing several alumni about their experiences at the College and providing a brief history of women in higher institutions of learning, specifically, William and Mary. Nancy Johnston, an alumnus that was interviewed, made the interesting point that women could not realize or identify their limitations at universities because the tools were not available for them to do so. To use the words of Nancy Johnston, “You only know so much at the time. I was young.” While the members of this group are young, we believe our project creates a dialogue to identify limitations and marginalizing efforts throughout history that have affected women at William and Mary.

In the interview with Nancy Johnston she mentioned that Williamsburg, and William and Mary specifically, could be a “bubble”; or an environment somewhat cut off from national and world events. She credited this “bubble” with the fact that minimal conversation and action was made for or against the Civil Rights movement, the Women’s movement, and the Vietnam War. Johnston explained that a few protests took place at Confusion Corner, the beginning of Duke of Gloucester Street, but this was the extent of activism. This possible separation from the Women’s movement could possibly be a reason that a dialogue was not engaged in on campus concerning women’s limitations. Although the Women’s Movement may have sparked some discussion, the debate concerning the role of women in the university was as old as the first female class at any college.

The birth of women’s education colleges in universities is grounded in the expectation that women are being educated, yes, but their primary duties after graduation will be to their husbands and children. Many participants in the controversies over a female’s curriculum “…insisted that women’s lifelong domestic responsibilities be addressed in their undergraduate education” (Solomon 150). Some educators insisted that all topics and degrees of study include aspects related to domestic life that would assist a woman in her wifely and motherly responsibilities: “Domestic relevance reached absurd levels when some educators tried to codify every subject in the curriculum to fit the peculiar needs of female students, as if to guarantee that all would acquire knowledge solely for the purpose of domesticity” (Solomon 150). Critique of any institution must be examined to some extent through its history. Perhaps the history of women’s education so heavily influenced by domestic expectations has affected the way women relate to and talk about their options after graduation and the options available to them.

Coupling the infusion of women’s college courses with strong undertones of domesticity and media images depicting females as perfect housewives and mothers, it is not surprising that Nancy Johnston believes that young women in college are not always cognizant of marginalizing efforts. Uncanny parallels can be drawn between the 1950s picture of the perfect housewife and Kelly Ripa’s commercial for Electrolux: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDBMHz1Dthw . Kelly demonstrates that any woman is only one step away from being the perfect housewife. All she needs is Electrolux appliances: “You can be even more amazing!” Can we, Kelly? No wonder that discussions concerning the limitations posed to women in college are not occurring; with role models like Kelly Ripa, who needs a college degree to make a perfect roast and be the perfect host?

The lack of recognition and visibility given to female student and alumni accomplishments, in history and the present, needs to be seriously questioned. Hopefully our short documentary will aid in creating an open dialogue that educate and encourage a critical look at William and Mary’s treatment of its female students and alumni.

-Irene Davidson

Back To School Sale = Pink Think

This week we read chapter three of Lynn Peril’s book College Girls, “The Collegiate Look”. Peril describes the importance of dressing right for the college girl of the past in this chapter. Looking the part is not a new idea for women on college campuses. Ever since women arrived on college campuses across America, the idea of fitting the perfect college image has been a must for all students. Peril explains that “clothing marks the passage from schoolgirl to adult, when we don the ritual outfit of graduate’s gown and cap. Long before manufacturers sold a ready-to-wear college girl look, new clothing and new endeavors were firmly entwined.” (College Girls, page 106)

Unlike today where it’s almost impossible to avoid marketing campaigns of the perfect look for school, college girls of the early twentieth century were encouraged to write to their schools and find out! Peril describes this process; “lacking the guidance of mid-twentieth-century teen magazines and their back to school issues stuffed with copious pages of fashion advertising and editorial, the best way for the turn of the century college girl to find out the clothing fads and necessities at her campus of choice was to simply write ahead and ask. “Be sure to write such a letter of inquiry before purchasing your fabrics unless you are perfectly certain of what to wear and when and how to wear it” New York Times” (College Girls, page 107) The pressure of looking the part was intense for students, particularly females since they were just beginning to make their mark on developments of higher education along with their male students.

There were often consequences with not dressing the part of the perfect college girl in the early years of the university. Any girl who so desired to dress ‘mannish’ was termed with the name “Freak” and was feverishly tried to change by her fellow classmates to fit in better as a girl. Peril gives an example of this from Ladies Home Journal essay titled “How a Case of ‘Mannishness’ Was Cured” in the series “College Girls’ Larks and Pranks” in 1990: “The ‘Freak’ was enough to handicap any self-respecting Freshman class. What were the girls to do with a girl who set about in bloomers, had her hair cut short, and who doffed her fore-and-aft cap like a man when she met her classmates? “Something must be done,” said the President of the Freshmen.” (College Girls, page 115) There was an obvious difference between wearing a couple of male items to create the ‘collegiate’ look for a stylish outfit, but severe consequences existed for the girls who took it too far as to identify themselves as ‘too mannish’. The desire to fit in was huge and the appropriate clothes were essential.

This idea of the perfect look continued well into the mid twentieth century when slacks became more and more popular on college campuses as attire for women. This was called the “slob” look and was often discouraged by society. Peril reports the consequences for women dressing in comfortable slacks on school grounds; “outside criticism of dress standards nonetheless sometimes stung. In 1940, the same year it ushered in the “boyish” look with such great fanfare, Mademoiselle reported that the undergraduates at what was then the all-female Skidmore College…had undertaken a campaign to reverse their status as the “worst-dressed college in the East”” (College Girls, page 126) all due to the fact that slacks were popular on their campus for females.



The pressure to look right didn’t subside by any means. “Appearance even played a role in whether a girl got into school or not. Girls were instructed to “make sure your nails, hair, and complexion reflected good grooming at their college interviews.” (College Girls, page 127) This intense influence to be the perfect college girl took away from the whole movement of women in higher education. Where once women fought for education to free themselves from the “Pink Think” ideals of keeping them in the house, raising children, and uneducated, society’s standard for the perfect woman was not erased when women were allowed to be educated at institutions of higher learning. Many women felt empowerment by being able to achieve the same knowledge status as men and work side-by-side in fellow jobs, but they still let society hold them back with the idea that they were still supposed to represent themselves as ‘women students’ in the way they dressed instead of just ‘students’. If women did not look the part of idea of the traditional, properly dressed college girl, then they were shunned just from these premises of outwardly looks. These women were even being denied admission into the universities that were supposed to be freeing them from the ideals of “Pink Think’s” uneducated woman, just on the basis of their appearances.

The idea to look right has not stopped. The perfectly dressed school girl is revealed every mid-summer in endless of advertising campaigns by every major and minor clothing store in the country. These ads feature pretty girls dressed in the most stylish, expensive clothing and becoming popular, getting A’s, and getting the attention of the boys all due to dressing the right way. Companies advertise these “Pink Think” messages on TV, in magazines, movies, music videos (see Vanessa Hugdens) and mall across America, trying to influence girls on how to look perfect with their “Back to School Sales.” Unfortunately, these ads work and is what fuels the billion dollar industry each year. But not only do companies win by being able to take girl’s dollars in return for the best looking clothing, they also win by selling “Pink Think” look. Back to school sale? Back to school “Pink Think” sold.

http://www.popcrunch.com/vanessa-hudgens-sears-back-to-school-commercial-video-dont-just-go-back-arrive/

(Vanessa Hudgen's back to school music video = PINK THINK)
-Laura Condyles

Money, money, money, MONEY!

When asked to think of an establishment driven solely by profit and gaining the most amount of work for the least amount of expense, I am sure the university is not the first institution to come to mind. Unfortunately, America’s universities are not exempt from our increasingly commercialized society. Marc Bousquet explores this idea in his book How the University Works.

In his introduction, Bousquet writes that the modern university has become a vehicle to gain profit, with a shrinking percentage of tenure or tenure-track faculty and an increasing percentage of handsomely compensated administrative and management personnel (7). This division has also become disturbingly gendered with “…the typical faculty member [being] a female nontenurable part-timer earning a few thousand dollars a year without benefits. [And] the typical administrator [as] male, enjoys tenure, a six-figure income, little or no teaching, generous vacations, and great health care” (6). The university-administrative sector increasingly encourages faculty to adopt “…academic-capitalist values and behaviors…” such as “…the commercialization of research, the enclosure of intellectual property, market behavior such as competition for scraps of “merit pay” rather than a collective demand to keep up with the cost of living…” etc (12-13). The values and ideals embedded in higher education have been replaced with capitalist goals and the exploitation of academic labor all the while tenure-track jobs for Ph.D.’s become increasingly scarce (24-25).

Although the film “Mona Lisa Smile” takes place fifty-some years ago, there are similarities between the function of Wellesley and the modern university http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E38gP5460Qw. One of the early conflicts in the film develops between Betty Warren, a student whose mother is the president of the Alumni Association, and Wellesley’s nurse, Amanda Armstrong. Ms. Armstrong is publicly accused of distributing contraceptives and promoting “sexual promiscuity” in an article written by Betty Warren in the school newspaper. Under significant pressure from the Alumni Association, Wellesley’s president fires Ms. Armstrong. One can only assume that financial donors to the school included those members of the Association as well as wealthy alumni who were clearly uninterested in promoting “sexual promiscuity”. Ms. Armstrong had worked as a faithful employee for twenty-one years, yet her loyalty to Wellesley was no match against financial motivations.

Blatant financial motivations can also be observed very clearly here at William and Mary. I do find myself wondering where my tuition money is going especially when the yearly budget for more unconventional departments like Black Studies are roughly only 15% of one student’s tuition (not including room and board). Money is poured into our sports teams as can be seen from the new Jimmye Laycock Football Center for the football team otherwise known as Football Mansion. This new facility cost the College $11 million. Yet few staff enjoys any benefits at all for their work done on campus. Tuition has also continued to increase steadily concurring with Bousquet’s more general statement concerning the cost of higher education: “Tuition soared 38 percent between 2000 and 2005, outpacing nearly every other economic indicator” (4).

At first glance, universities are assumed to be places dedicated to the values of education and knowledge. Unfortunately, these values have fallen by the wayside in light of more attractive financial motivators and gains.

-Irene Davidson

We’re Here For You [money] !

In reading this week’s assignments, what struck me the hardest is how the university system has highly changed over the course of its existence, particularly since the days of Martha Barksdale. Many universities across the country have seemingly gone from focusing on the students and their education, to focusing on the marketing of the university. The problem, like stated in Marc Bousquet’s How the University Works: Higher education and the Low-Wage Nation, is that universities have become corporations. This corporation idea has taken it’s priorities from the students and to the development of the campus as a whole in order to keep up with expansion of other institutions of higher learning.

Bousquet explains this idea on page nine of his introduction, “There are many ways of understanding what we mean when we speak of the “corporation” of the university. One valuable approach focuses on the way campuses actually relate to business and industry in quest of revenue enhancement and cost containment: apparel sales; sports marketing; corporate financed research, curriculum, endowment, and building; job training; direct financial investment via portfolios, pensions, and cooperative venture; the production and enclosure of intellectual property; the selection of vendors for books, information technology, soda pop, and construction; the purchase of provisional nonstandard labor; and so forth..”

Universities have found a way to sell themselves. From clothing, to overpriced meal plans, to thousands of extra dollars in college tuitions just to pay for the athletics programs so it, in turn, will bring in extra money, the university system these days surely has devised a way to receive all the money they need. It even reaches to the professional degree programs. At many universities, in order to receive a doctorate degree, the graduate student must fulfill the requirements of teaching a few classes in that subject to undergraduate students. Students paying to be professors, what a way to save money! Bousquet examines this idea in How the University Works on page 23; “Postsecondary educators usually fulfill the service mission that constitutes their half of the bargain; in return, society continues to grant them monopoly control over degrees…Degree holders frequently serve as university teachers for eight or ten years before earning their doctorate.” (pg 23) Seems like another hidden characteristic that make the university into a corporation.

From this, it’s quite obvious to tell that the university system has changed over time, especially since the first female students stepped foot on our own campus. Speaking of William and Mary, I noticed very similar circumstances of our university becoming the coined “corporation” has stated in How the University Works.

It’s hard to tell the real motive of universities anymore. Even as I walk around my own campus of William and Mary, I have to ask myself who the expansion and development is really for. Our campus has made many changes recently; two brand new dorms, a new science building, a new business building, a new football building, and a new education building. I applaud our campus’ efforts at expansion to more modernization and capability to better educate its students, but are these the only motives?

Our bookstore has become a huge ‘corporation’ monopoly after William and Mary signed the text book selling rights away to Barnes and Noble. This recent change in the past years has become a practical monopoly on our campus, being able to charge students a few dollars less on text books as opposed to the older, historical mom and pop text book shops – running them out of business. And on top of it all? The fraction of money returned to the students when selling the books back; pennies on the dollar.

Another recent pride and joy is the new business hall our campus is in the process of building. Whenever I hear students or staff talking about it, all they seem to mention is the fact of how nice it will be, so in return, William and Mary national rankings will go up, more students will apply, our school will become more notorious, and eventually, everyone will somehow receive more money. Even on the business website, they describe the new building to burst our university scores up...not educate better – and isn’t that the point of the whole building?
All in all, it is inevitable that our universities will become those of corporations living in the money run country that we do, but can we try and remember the education for once?

-Laura Condyles

Alma Mater Hail?

In the introductory chapter of his How the University Works: Higher education and the Low-Wage Nation, Marc Bousquet notes that, since the 1960s, “campus administrations have enjoyed a massively increasing sense of solidarity…More than just ‘apart,’ management is often aligned against the faculty (say, when the faculty seek to bargain collectively or to make ‘shared’ governance meaningful),” (Bousquet 11). Lack of shared governance and the faculty’s tenuous job security when they counteract management was demonstrated very clearly here at William and Mary last spring, when the Board of Visitors (BOV) did not renew popular president Gene Nichol’s contract and the faculty rose up with their students.

During the strikes, sit-ins, and teach-ins that followed Nichol’s resignation, it was difficult to escape the sense that what the faculty were doing by not teaching and by speaking out was dangerous. During a town hall meeting on one of the strike days, Professor Leisa Meyer explained that “it has been made clear to us that the Commonwealth has informed the administration of rules concerning work stoppages. That if two or three state employees collude to engineer a work stoppage they can be terminated immediately," (full video here). Our professors had a sense of solidarity, yet they could not act on it without endangering jobs that, as Bousquet notes over and over again, would be incredibly difficult to replace with another tenure-track position. As Professor Meyer noted, they could not even say the word “strike” for fear of losing their jobs.

During the controversy, we as students were often told that Nichol’s contract was not renewed because of his “management” problems, which we translated (without correction) as his failure to raise as much money for the College as the BOV had hoped. This also speaks to Bousquet’s overarching point about the corporate university basing success on profit margins rather than the accumulation of knowledge, that higher education has “been increasingly marketized – transformed into sites of unprecedented capital accumulation by way of the commodification of activities and relationships,” (Bousquet 1). Gene Nichol challenged assumptions about church and state when he removed the Wren Cross, even though it lost him donations. Gene Nichol took a stand for free speech when he refused to block the Sex Workers’ Art Show’s performance on campus, even though it lost him donations. Through his actions I learned important lessons about the Constitution and the ideals upon which the country was founded, for which this college loves to take credit. The BOV commodified Nichol’s actions, translated them into costs to the College, and then cut off his superior teaching. The faculty was blocked from organizing against it, and students lost out.

-Cate Domino

(photos courtesy of www.wrengateblog.com)

Pink Think and Pink Panties

In her College Girls, Lynn Peril notes that the “clothes make the college girl” (CG 106). The importance of fashion on college campuses, and college students as fashion consumers, is as prevalent today as it was at the turn of the century through to the 1960s and 70s, as Peril describes. It is incredibly easy to find modern-day parallels to the examples of college fashion trends and their marketing that she describes. In describing the menswear trend prevalent at the turn of the century, Peril notes that “this alternative style incorporated highly symbolic items of men’s clothing such as ties, jackets and vets…worn in combination with a woman’s regular wardrobe of dresses, skirts, and blouses,” (CG 113). These same combinations can be seen on campuses today, with women wearing fitted tweed coats in combination with lacy tops or tuxedo-inspired shirts with feminine heels. In fact, J. Crew describes their tuxedo shirt (pictured) with the tag, “Looks like you borrowed it from a boyfriend—but we're in love with the way it goes with a skinny pant.”

But what are the implications of the old menswear trend? That women in college are in intellectual drag, putting themselves in a man’s position in the academy? Modern-day menswear is particularly interesting when seen in contrast to the concurrent decidedly un-masculine, uber feminine trend that has been occurring in collegiate fashion. American Eagle’s Aerie line of women’s loungewear and underwear is framed, much like Victoria’s Secret’s Pink line Peril discusses, as especially for college women. The sexualized imagery that goes with the marketing of these brands stands in stark contrast to the buttoned-up menswear trend of yesteryear. Both Aerie and Pink sell “collegiate” underwear, and Pink even prints collegiate sayings across the back! Aerie’s line of “dormwear” is dominated by sweatpants and sweatshirts, which, while certainly more innocuous than sexy lingerie, does seem to be a throwback to a time when “three piece silk lounging pajamas” were on a college girl’s list of necessary fashions (Peril 138). In the age of the co-ed dorm, it is pretty easy to convince college women of the necessity of nice pjs.

What is truly bizarre is Pink’s new attempt to market sexy school spirit with their new collection of clothes with real colleges’ mascots and teams on them. While the collection does include the usual sweatshirts, sweatpants, and tote bags, it also includes “undies” for a whopping $29.50 (not pictured online). I love William and Mary, but no way do I want or need our logo, feathers or not, plastered on my underwear. These items are covered in pink and hearts that do not match these colleges’ mascots or colors, but rather, like Peril notes in Pink Think, helps “those women engaged in activities not traditionally associated with their gender to maintain an aura of femininity,” (15). Girls who are interested in sports is potentially threatening, but when pinkwashed is perfectly nonthreatening. I particularly enjoyed Florida State’s line, with their certainly racist Native American mascot’s faced emblazoned over a bed of pink hearts.

Today’s college girl’s fashion is certainly still a staple of the clothing market, and companies are all too willing to embrace their perception of what the collegian wants in her closet to make a few bucks.

-Cate Domino

Beauty and Brains? Too Good to be True!

The confines of Pink Think stipulate that a woman must adhere strictly to “proper female behavior” and the construct of femininity which “…is sometimes used as a code word for this mythical standard, which suggests that women and girls are always gentle, soft, delicate, nurturing beings…” (Peril, Pink Think 7). The emergence of the college girl brought many stereotypes to the institutions of higher education surrounding what constitutes as “proper female behavior”, most of these stereotypes being grounded in the tenets of Pink Think. Among these beliefs laid the idea that college women must down play their intelligence and defy “…the stereotype of the intelligent-but-unattractive woman” seeing as “wasted looks [were] a betrayal of [oneself] as a woman” (Peril, College Girl 126-128). So began the preoccupation with appearance, beauty, and wardrobe in hopes of proving that women did not have to lose their “feminine charm” in pursuit of higher education.

“Attention to appearance was seen as a positive step away from the negative stereotype of the college girl as a horn-rimmed-glasses-wearing-spinster-to-be, a modern improvement that showed just how far the college girl had come” (Peril, College Girl 127). One of the worst insults that could be thrown at a young woman was that of a spinster. Since part of a woman’s worth laid in her approval from a patriarchal, male-dominated society, rejection by men due to failure to look attractive was a terrible fate indeed. This rejection stung even more if the female in question had shirked in her duties to femininity because of her pursuit of knowledge at an institution of higher education: “…it wasn’t enough for a woman to be smart – she needed beauty too” (Peril, College Girl 127).

This problematic message begins at a very young age as can be seen by the WalMart commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJHWJHYH_bk . A mother speaks of her daughter’s first day of school and her insecurities at sending her child into an unknown environment in which she cannot accompany her. But this mother can “…give her [daughter] what she needs to feel good about herself, without breaking her budget”! What could this woman possibly be alluding to? Is it her daughter inheriting her mother’s aptitude for chemistry? No, of course not. Obviously what this woman’s daughter needs to feel good about herself are cute clothes that gain the approval and friendship of fellow classmates. This theme goes on to present itself in several college movies including “The House Bunny”.

The entire premise of the film “The House Bunny” rests on the audience’s assumption that it really is not enough for women to be intelligent; they must be attractive as well and adhere to the accepted notions of beauty: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r9j1s8iSnY . The film depicts a former Playboy playmate becoming the house mother to the “loser” sorority at a university. The sorority’s members are made up of smart, yet unattractive (by society’s very narrow standards) and socially awkward. Their new house mother takes it upon herself to socialize these young women to not only be book smart, but, in effect, street smart. The sorority women undergo drastic changes in appearance and presentation and become “better versions of ourselves”, to take a direct quote from the film.

“The House Bunny” very clearly relays the belief that if women are going to go out on a limb and be smart, they had better be hotties to prove that they are still female and worthy of male attention. “The House Bunny” also enforces accepted notions of heteronormativity, assuming that the women in the “loser” sorority are all in the pursuit of acceptance and adoration from men. The absurd and unattainable beauty standard is also set by the girls’ new house mother, a former Playboy Bunny! I have news for you: no one looks like the Playboy Bunnies!

It is unfortunate that standards of beauty set the majority of women up to feel inadequate. What is even more unfortunate is that these women are taught by popular culture starting at an early age that their self worth rests in their physical appearance. Even intelligence must be coupled with an hourglass figure because: “…wasted looks [are] a betrayal of yourself as a woman” (Peril, College Girl 128).

-Irene Davidson