Beer and Circus (38 page)
Authors: Murray Sperber
T
he following notes provide references for quoted material in the book and further explanations for some of the comments in the text. The notes follow the order of material presented in each chapter of the book. However, when a source is clearly cited within the text, particularly magazines and college guidebooks along with their datelines, it is not repeated in the footnotes. For example, the many citations in the text to the
U.S. News
World Report
annual college issue for 2000 (formally subtitled
America's Best Colleges)
are not repeated below.
he following notes provide references for quoted material in the book and further explanations for some of the comments in the text. The notes follow the order of material presented in each chapter of the book. However, when a source is clearly cited within the text, particularly magazines and college guidebooks along with their datelines, it is not repeated in the footnotes. For example, the many citations in the text to the
U.S. News
World Report
annual college issue for 2000 (formally subtitled
America's Best Colleges)
are not repeated below.
The quoted material from on-the-record interviews is footnoted according to name of interviewee, date, and place of the interview. However, in the case of interviewees who chose to speak off the record, I have noted this and included only the place and date. I regret that some university administrators and students chose anonymity. I understand their reluctance to see their names in print, particularly if they spoke critically of their schools, but in some cases they chose anonymity even when they praised their universities. I attribute this to the growing power of the public relations industry: increasingly they advise clients, including universities, to stonewall on every controversial subject, to not answer reporters' and researchers' questions, and if an interviewee feels impelled to respond, to do so off-the-record so that the interviewee can maintain maximum “deniability.”
As a person who has always spoken his mind and put his name next to his remarks, I am distressed by this off-the-record trend, and I hope it ends soon. However, as an author who wants to do the best work possible, I felt that I had to use some off-the-record comments, although I tried to keep them to a minimum. In addition, before quoting them in print, I tried to get in touch with the interviewees, and urged them to go on the record. Occasionally, they agreed but most often they refused. My rule for using off-the-record comments became thus: if the person had spoken on tape, I would use the quote; if not, I would not. As a result, I have a verifiable record of the interviewee's comment. This rule seems the best way to assure readers of the authenticity of the off-the-record quotes in this book. Sadly for my research, a number of interviewees made very useful remarks after the taping session ended, but I have not quoted these comments.
As for the student quotes from the questionnaire for this book: because the survey asked for anonymous responses, no names were placed on the hard copies of the questionnaire (the ones handed out in classes and in campus gathering places, such as student union buildings). On the web survey, I assured respondents that I could not reveal their names because I was using a public server that does not maintain log files, identity codes, or return addresses.
The results on some of the questions on the survey differ slightly from those given in the final chapter of my book,
Onward to Victory:
The Crises That Shaped College Sports
(New
York, 1998). After the publication of that book, I continued to distribute the questionnaire, including posting it on the World Wide Web. As a result, I received many more responses, and this changed the totals somewhat. In addition, the reader will note in the text and in these footnotes a number of citations from the student newspaper and other publications of Indiana University, Bloomington. I am not singling out my employer for special praise or condemnation. IU is a typical, large, public research university, and because I happen to read its student newspaper and some of its other publications on a daily basis, and clipped and saved many items from those periodicals over the years, I ended up citing them in this book more often than I did items from any other single school. I am certain, however, that if I worked at another university, I would have included as many citations from that school in the book as I did from Indiana University.
Onward to Victory:
The Crises That Shaped College Sports
(New
York, 1998). After the publication of that book, I continued to distribute the questionnaire, including posting it on the World Wide Web. As a result, I received many more responses, and this changed the totals somewhat. In addition, the reader will note in the text and in these footnotes a number of citations from the student newspaper and other publications of Indiana University, Bloomington. I am not singling out my employer for special praise or condemnation. IU is a typical, large, public research university, and because I happen to read its student newspaper and some of its other publications on a daily basis, and clipped and saved many items from those periodicals over the years, I ended up citing them in this book more often than I did items from any other single school. I am certain, however, that if I worked at another university, I would have included as many citations from that school in the book as I did from Indiana University.
Finally, for entries in the footnotes from college guidebooks, because of the erratic pagination in those publications but the consistent alphabetic listing, I have not always given the page numbers, instead referring the reader to the alphabetic listings. Similarly, because of the many editions that daily newspapers publish, and the frequent changes of the headlines on articles, I have given only the name of the periodical, the subject, author, and date. In a database age, this is almost always sufficient for retrieving articles.
Preface
Frederick Rudolph's comment is in his essay, “Neglect of Students as a Historical Tradition,” in the anthology,
The College and the Student,
edited by Lawrence E. Dennis and Joseph F. Kaufman, published by the American Council on Education (ACE), Washington, D.C., 1966, p. 47. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching funded the Boyer Commission and the latter group published
Reinventing Undergraduate Education: A Blueprint for America's Research Universities
, Stony Brook, New York, 1998; the quote on ordinary “baccalaureate students” is on p. 7. The argument that “You get out of this place whatever you put into it” occurs repeatedly at Big-time U's; for some printed examples of it, see
The Insider's Guide to the Colleges,
compiled and edited by the staff of the
Yale Daily News
, New York, 2000; for example, “Louisiana State is a large research university ⦠introductory courses tend to be large ⦠. As one undergrad said, âYou can get a lot out of an LSU education if you put a lot into it.'” The quotes about the University of New Mexico are from the same source, 2000 edition.
The College and the Student,
edited by Lawrence E. Dennis and Joseph F. Kaufman, published by the American Council on Education (ACE), Washington, D.C., 1966, p. 47. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching funded the Boyer Commission and the latter group published
Reinventing Undergraduate Education: A Blueprint for America's Research Universities
, Stony Brook, New York, 1998; the quote on ordinary “baccalaureate students” is on p. 7. The argument that “You get out of this place whatever you put into it” occurs repeatedly at Big-time U's; for some printed examples of it, see
The Insider's Guide to the Colleges,
compiled and edited by the staff of the
Yale Daily News
, New York, 2000; for example, “Louisiana State is a large research university ⦠introductory courses tend to be large ⦠. As one undergrad said, âYou can get a lot out of an LSU education if you put a lot into it.'” The quotes about the University of New Mexico are from the same source, 2000 edition.
An American Imperative: Higher Expectations for Higher Education
was published by the Wingspread Group, Washington, D.C., 1993. The material quoted here is on pp. 5-6. An explanation of Juvenal's “bread and circuses” phrase is in
Veni,
Vidi, Vici
by Klaus Bartels, Darmstadt, Germany, 1999, pp. 130-31. My book
College Sports Inc.: The Athletic Department vs. the University
was published by Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1990. The administrator at the Sunbelt University spoke off the record, claiming that his bosses would not appreciate his comments about how beer-and-circus worked at his school. The junior at this university put his comment on the questionnaire that I handed out on campus at this school.
was published by the Wingspread Group, Washington, D.C., 1993. The material quoted here is on pp. 5-6. An explanation of Juvenal's “bread and circuses” phrase is in
Veni,
Vidi, Vici
by Klaus Bartels, Darmstadt, Germany, 1999, pp. 130-31. My book
College Sports Inc.: The Athletic Department vs. the University
was published by Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1990. The administrator at the Sunbelt University spoke off the record, claiming that his bosses would not appreciate his comments about how beer-and-circus worked at his school. The junior at this university put his comment on the questionnaire that I handed out on campus at this school.
Introduction
The Clark and Trow passages in the introduction are from their essay, “The Organizational Context,” in
College Peer Groups: Problems and Prospects for Research
, edited by Theodore M. Newcomb and Everett K. Wilson, Chicago, 1966, pp. 17-70. According to Clark and Trow, the essay “appeared first in unpublished form in 1960,” and their conclusions are based on research done in the late 1950s and updated in the early 1960s. In their work, they go far beyond the descriptive passages used in the introduction to this book, and they present complicated social science matrices to analyze college students. Their work sparked a debate among sociologists and higher-education authorities, some seeing it as a valuable administrative tool, and others criticizing its statistical aspects and results. For a time, the Educational Testing Service used a version of Clark and Trow's work in college placement tests, but this infuriated many social scientists. In the end, the statistical formulas sank the entire essay, and the ideas
in it disappeared from sight. (For a summary of the debate, see P. T. Terenzini and E. T. Pascarella's “An Assessment of the Construct Validity of the Clark-Trow Typology of the College Student Subcultures,”
American Educational Research Journal,
1977, vol. 14, pp. 225-48.)
College Peer Groups: Problems and Prospects for Research
, edited by Theodore M. Newcomb and Everett K. Wilson, Chicago, 1966, pp. 17-70. According to Clark and Trow, the essay “appeared first in unpublished form in 1960,” and their conclusions are based on research done in the late 1950s and updated in the early 1960s. In their work, they go far beyond the descriptive passages used in the introduction to this book, and they present complicated social science matrices to analyze college students. Their work sparked a debate among sociologists and higher-education authorities, some seeing it as a valuable administrative tool, and others criticizing its statistical aspects and results. For a time, the Educational Testing Service used a version of Clark and Trow's work in college placement tests, but this infuriated many social scientists. In the end, the statistical formulas sank the entire essay, and the ideas
in it disappeared from sight. (For a summary of the debate, see P. T. Terenzini and E. T. Pascarella's “An Assessment of the Construct Validity of the Clark-Trow Typology of the College Student Subcultures,”
American Educational Research Journal,
1977, vol. 14, pp. 225-48.)
However, by discarding the matrices and statistical formulas, and using the descriptions as historical insights, not social science, Clark and Trow's discussion of undergraduate subcultures proves a useful starting point for a book on this topic. Obviously, I use their remarksâwith major emendations and additionsâin this manner. American society and higher education have changed significantly since Clark and Trow did their research; nevertheless, their comments on student subcultures remain the single best explanation on record.
Very few historians have written about undergraduate life; the best studies are by Helen Lefkovitz-Horowitz,
Campus Life: Undergraduate Cultures from the End of the Eighteenth Century to the Present
(New York, 1987); in it, she calls the academically inclined students and the faculty the “outsiders”; Calvin Lee,
The Campus Scene,
1900-1970
(New York, 1970 [an anecdotal but factually accurate book]); and folklorist Simon J. Bronner,
Piled Higher and Deeper:
The Folklore of Campus Life
(Little Rock, Ark., 1990 [his title originates in a student jest about university degrees: B.S. stands for “bullshit,” M.S. is “more of the same,” and Ph.D. is “piled higher and deeper”]). I have drawn from these sources, and some less important ones, as well as my own research, for the history of college life presented in this introduction and in the book.
Campus Life: Undergraduate Cultures from the End of the Eighteenth Century to the Present
(New York, 1987); in it, she calls the academically inclined students and the faculty the “outsiders”; Calvin Lee,
The Campus Scene,
1900-1970
(New York, 1970 [an anecdotal but factually accurate book]); and folklorist Simon J. Bronner,
Piled Higher and Deeper:
The Folklore of Campus Life
(Little Rock, Ark., 1990 [his title originates in a student jest about university degrees: B.S. stands for “bullshit,” M.S. is “more of the same,” and Ph.D. is “piled higher and deeper”]). I have drawn from these sources, and some less important ones, as well as my own research, for the history of college life presented in this introduction and in the book.
A number of studies of vocational education exist, one of the best and most informative being Christopher J. Lucas's
American Higher Education: A History
(New York, 1994). The statistics of GI graduation rates are from Lucas's work; although the graduating class of 1949 was the first one dominated by vets, some ex-GIs graduated from 1946 through 1948 (they had attended college for a year or more before the war, resuming upon return). For a vivid portrait of the life of GI vets as college students, see Joseph Goulden's
The Best Years: 1945-1950
(New York, 1976); in addition, my book
Onward to Victory
(New York, 1998) focuses on the postwar era and discusses the GI vet college athletes. Clark Kerr was the president of the University of California who coined the phrase, the “Multiversity.” He discussed it at length in his book
The Uses of the University
(Boston, 1964).
American Higher Education: A History
(New York, 1994). The statistics of GI graduation rates are from Lucas's work; although the graduating class of 1949 was the first one dominated by vets, some ex-GIs graduated from 1946 through 1948 (they had attended college for a year or more before the war, resuming upon return). For a vivid portrait of the life of GI vets as college students, see Joseph Goulden's
The Best Years: 1945-1950
(New York, 1976); in addition, my book
Onward to Victory
(New York, 1998) focuses on the postwar era and discusses the GI vet college athletes. Clark Kerr was the president of the University of California who coined the phrase, the “Multiversity.” He discussed it at length in his book
The Uses of the University
(Boston, 1964).
Clark and Trow do not use the term “rebel,” instead employing “nonconformist.” Their term seems bound by the 1950sâat the time called the “age of conformity”âand it is much less applicable in the twenty-first century. American culture is now so diffuse that there is no dominant culture to which to conform, whereas rebels can still find some things to rebel against, such as political apathy. Helen Lefkovitz-Horowitz also uses “rebel” for one of her student types, although she gives it a much wider meaningâshe includes vocational students as rebelsâthan do Clark and Trow and other writers.
The college and post-college careers of the two most important Beat generation writers, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, illustrate the progression of the student rebel. Kerouac came to Columbia University in 1940 to play football; he quickly pledged a fraternity, and was a collegiate student until he started reading voluminously on his own. He became a rebel, then dropped out of football, his frat, and Columbia, and lived with off-campus rebels on Morningside Heights.
Allen Ginsberg entered Columbia in 1943 as a vocational student sponsored by a labor union. From a lower-middle-class family in New Jersey, Ginsberg hoped to rise in the world and become a labor lawyer. However, his rebel nature, his love of poetry, and his homosexuality moved him outside the vocational mold, and he dropped out of Columbia, also living with off-campus rebels on Morningside Heights. From the 1950s to the beginning of the twenty-first century, many rebel students have seen these and other Beat writers as role models, and imitated their movement away from higher education to personal salvation.
1: Animal House
The title of
Animal House
is sometimes listed as
National Lampoon's Animal House
because the
National Lampoon
magazine spawned the movie. However, because most people refer to the film simply as
Animal House
, I use that title here. Kyle, the World Wide Web fan
of Animal
House
, posted his comments at:
http://us.imdb.com
. The production history and revenue of the film were discussed by director John Landis in an interview with Bruce Westbrook of the
Houston Chronicle,
10/15/98. Harold Ramis, the main writer on
Animal House
, made his comments to Gene Siskel of the
Chicago Tribune
, 8/27/78. Gene Mustain of the
Chicago Sun-Times
speculated about the effect of
Animal House,
9/3/78.
Animal House
is sometimes listed as
National Lampoon's Animal House
because the
National Lampoon
magazine spawned the movie. However, because most people refer to the film simply as
Animal House
, I use that title here. Kyle, the World Wide Web fan
of Animal
House
, posted his comments at:
http://us.imdb.com
. The production history and revenue of the film were discussed by director John Landis in an interview with Bruce Westbrook of the
Houston Chronicle,
10/15/98. Harold Ramis, the main writer on
Animal House
, made his comments to Gene Siskel of the
Chicago Tribune
, 8/27/78. Gene Mustain of the
Chicago Sun-Times
speculated about the effect of
Animal House,
9/3/78.
Helen Lefkovitz-Horowitz wrote about the revival of collegiate life in the 1970s (op. cit.), pp. 260-61; and Simon Bronner also discussed this phenomenon and supplied statistics on it (op. cit.), pp. 127-28. In 1984, Lisa Birnbach began publishing
Lisa Birnbach's College Book
:
The Inside Scoop, Straight from Students, on the Courses, Professors, and on- and off-Campus Life at over 200 Colleges
(New York, 1984); her comments about the University of Miami and the University of Illinois are in the 1984 edition. Gene Mustain quoted the comments of the U. of I. frat man in the
Chicago Sun-Times,
9/3/78. Rudolph Weingartner in
Undergraduate Education: Goals and Means
(New York, 1992) commented about the noise level in the dorm, p. 130. I became aware of this phenomenon while visiting various student residence halls, and also seeing Indiana University publications advertising “quiet floors” in dorms. Rutgers anthropologist Michael Moffat wrote
Coming of Age in New Jersey: College and American Culture
(New Brunswick, N.J. 1989); his comment about “the floor party” is on p. 83. Penn State alum John Hall reminisced about “Happy Valley” in an article in the
Pittsburgh (PA) Post-Gazette,
7/15/98.
Lisa Birnbach's College Book
:
The Inside Scoop, Straight from Students, on the Courses, Professors, and on- and off-Campus Life at over 200 Colleges
(New York, 1984); her comments about the University of Miami and the University of Illinois are in the 1984 edition. Gene Mustain quoted the comments of the U. of I. frat man in the
Chicago Sun-Times,
9/3/78. Rudolph Weingartner in
Undergraduate Education: Goals and Means
(New York, 1992) commented about the noise level in the dorm, p. 130. I became aware of this phenomenon while visiting various student residence halls, and also seeing Indiana University publications advertising “quiet floors” in dorms. Rutgers anthropologist Michael Moffat wrote
Coming of Age in New Jersey: College and American Culture
(New Brunswick, N.J. 1989); his comment about “the floor party” is on p. 83. Penn State alum John Hall reminisced about “Happy Valley” in an article in the
Pittsburgh (PA) Post-Gazette,
7/15/98.
Last Call: High-Risk Bar Promotions That Target College Students
by Debra F. Erenberg and George A. Hacker, published by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Washington, D.C., 1997, provides an excellent survey of undergraduate alcohol consumption during the final decades of the twentieth century. Much of my discussion of the situation on campuses during the 1970s and 1980s comes from this report, as well as from other sources, and my clear memory of Indiana University and other beer-and-circus schools during those decades.
by Debra F. Erenberg and George A. Hacker, published by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Washington, D.C., 1997, provides an excellent survey of undergraduate alcohol consumption during the final decades of the twentieth century. Much of my discussion of the situation on campuses during the 1970s and 1980s comes from this report, as well as from other sources, and my clear memory of Indiana University and other beer-and-circus schools during those decades.
The fan of
Animal House
, Justin Siegel, posted his comments on the web at
http://us.imdb.com
. Gene Siskel was the film reviewer who commented about “every parent's worst fearsâthat they are paying $5,000 each year to send their sons and daughters on a vacation called âcollege'”
(Chicago Tribune,
8/25/78). The most amazing aspect of his comments was the price of college for one yearâonly $5,000! Simon Bronner mentioned frats as “underage drinking clubs (op. cit.), pp. 127-28, and Ernest Boyer, head of the Carnegie Foundation, discussed the same phenomenon in
College: The Undergraduate Experience in America
(New York, 1987), p. 208.”Beer and Loafing [at Indiana University]: A Fifth-Year Senior Reflects on Years of Madness,” by Robert J. Warren, appeared in the
Indiana
[University]
Daily Student
on 4/19/91. John S. DeMott of
Time
magazine discussed the student deaths from balcony falls, 4/7/86. The poll of college student attitudes begun in the late 1980s was done by this researcher: I mainly wanted to measure student opinion on intercollegiate athletics, and I started by handing out a questionnaire in my undergraduate classes at Indiana University, and similar schools. The most useful responses were to the question”After you graduate or leave your university, what do you think you will remember most vividly about your time there?” I kept this question for the survey used for this book.
Animal House
, Justin Siegel, posted his comments on the web at
http://us.imdb.com
. Gene Siskel was the film reviewer who commented about “every parent's worst fearsâthat they are paying $5,000 each year to send their sons and daughters on a vacation called âcollege'”
(Chicago Tribune,
8/25/78). The most amazing aspect of his comments was the price of college for one yearâonly $5,000! Simon Bronner mentioned frats as “underage drinking clubs (op. cit.), pp. 127-28, and Ernest Boyer, head of the Carnegie Foundation, discussed the same phenomenon in
College: The Undergraduate Experience in America
(New York, 1987), p. 208.”Beer and Loafing [at Indiana University]: A Fifth-Year Senior Reflects on Years of Madness,” by Robert J. Warren, appeared in the
Indiana
[University]
Daily Student
on 4/19/91. John S. DeMott of
Time
magazine discussed the student deaths from balcony falls, 4/7/86. The poll of college student attitudes begun in the late 1980s was done by this researcher: I mainly wanted to measure student opinion on intercollegiate athletics, and I started by handing out a questionnaire in my undergraduate classes at Indiana University, and similar schools. The most useful responses were to the question”After you graduate or leave your university, what do you think you will remember most vividly about your time there?” I kept this question for the survey used for this book.
Michael Moffat commented on the anti-academic ethos at his school (op. cit.), p. 91, “locating a good party,” p. 26. Sociologist David Reisman in
On Higher Education: The Academic Enterprise in an Era of Rising Student Consumerism
(San Francisco, 1980), discussed the relationship of academic faculty to academically inclined students, p. 5; he also endorsed Clark and Trow in this discussion.
On Higher Education: The Academic Enterprise in an Era of Rising Student Consumerism
(San Francisco, 1980), discussed the relationship of academic faculty to academically inclined students, p. 5; he also endorsed Clark and Trow in this discussion.
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