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Chronological Listing
- May 30, 2000
WBUR "THE CONNECTION"
As a guest on the award-winning public radio show "The Connection,"
professor of economics ANDY ZIMBALIST got the chance to
discuss two of his areas of expertise: Cuba and sports. With
host Christopher Lydon, Zimbalist analyzed the role of sports
in a struggling communist economy and the pluses and minuses
of a sports system in which love of the game not big money
is the incentive. [www.wbur.org]
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- May 30, 2000
NEW YORK TIMES
Among the commencement speeches excerpted in the Times was that
of artist JUDY CHICAGO, who offered a controversial warning
to Smith graduates expecting to "have it all." "I
believe one of the pernicious lies that has been told to your
generation is that one can have it all," Chicago cautioned.
In looking to history, Chicago recalled, "those women who
had achieved at the level at which I set my sights had been childless
and those that were not had suffered constant guilt Although
I would be the first to say that this situation is not a fair
one I believe it is important to be clear about your goals and
be willing to shape your life in a way that makes them possible
to achieve." [www.nytimes.com]
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- May 29, 2000
WASHINGTON POST
An editorial lauded professor of English and Sudan activist ERIC
REEVES and condemned Secretary of State Madeline Albright
for declining to deem the civil war in Sudan genocide. "If
America's leaders relapse into amoral word-wincing, they are
likely to be embarrassed by ordinary folk like Eric Reeves, whose
understandable outrage hisses through a thousand modems."
[www.washpost.com]
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- May 28, 2000
PARADE
Highlighting the latest book by religion professors CAROL
AND PHILIP ZALESKI, Parade called "The Book of Heaven"
(Oxford), "a collection of descriptions, interpretations,
meditations, ruminations, and speculations relating to heaven,
gleaned from an astonishing variety of sources " [www.parade.com]
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- May 26, 2000
WALL STREET JOURNAL
In "A word to the unwise," the Journal took issue with
the choice of commencement speaker JUDY CHICAGO, the feminist
artist best known for the installation piece known as "The
Dinner party." Chicago's remarks, the article observed,
"failed to achieve the arcane majesty of either her artwork
or for that matter, Gloria Steinem's 1995 Smith send-off: 'Now
you are becoming the men you once would have wanted to marry
'" [www.wsj.com]
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- May 24, 2000
BOSTON GLOBE
The Globe reported that KURT VONNEGUT, "one of the
20th century's great satirists and an author who redefined the
modern novel," will teach an advanced writing class at Smith
in fall 2000. [www.boston.com]
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- May 18, 2000
"THE EARLY SHOW," CBS
Guest correspondent Tracy Smith of Channel One, a news program
seen in schools across the country, reports on efforts to teach
students effective speaking skills and to eliminate what many
have come to call "teenspeak" or "mallspeak."
Professor of English PAT SKARDA believes peppering one's
speech with "like's" or "you know's" isn't
just a phase that will pass but a habit that needs to be broken
consciously. "Students today are unwilling to have an absence
of sound. They fill it with 'you know,' as though begging for
their listener to care about what they are saying." KIRSTEN
FLAGG '02 concurs: "I think the problem has more to
do with self-esteem than laziness. Our generation is very unsure
of what it is saying." [www.cbs.com/network/htdocs/earlyshow]
May 17, 2000
NEW YORK TIMES
The Times notes that LAURA D'ANDREA TYSON '69, the former
head of the National Economic Council, is among the panel of
foreign policy advisers being assembled by Al Gore as part of
a "government in waiting." [www.nytimes.com]
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- May 17, 2000
BOSTON GLOBE
"Women grads get wrong idea," was the headline on Eileen
McNamara's column about the messages young women receive at graduation.
Spurred by JUDY CHICAGO'S caution to Smith graduates that
"having it all" was a "pernicious lie," McNamara
recounted a recent commencement speech at Barnard when Joyce
Purnick, a groundbreaking editor at the New York Times, advised
that mothering and career success are incompatible. "Just
for once," McNamara wrote, "for a change of pace, wouldn't
it be something to hear a commencement speaker caution an audience
of bright young men against expecting to 'have it all' in life?"
McNamara's advice to women grads? "Don't set out on your
path looking down for minefields. Look up, follow your dreams,
aim high, and reach for the stars instead." [www.boston.com]
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- May 17, 2000
ASSOCIATED PRESS, BOSTON GLOBE
KURT VONNGUT, author of "Slaughterhouse-Five,"
"Cat's Cradle," and "Breakfast of Champions,"
will teach advanced writing courses at Smith, starting in the
fall of 2000. [www.ap.org, www.boston.com]
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- May 17, 2000
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
On the occasion of the release of her memoir, "Life So Far,"
the Christian Science Monitor interviewed BETTY FRIEDAN '42
recounting how Friedan's survey of her Smith College classmates,
15 years after graduation, provided the impetus for Friedan to
write "The Feminine Mystique." [www.csmonitor.com]
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- May 16, 2000
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
EVELYN BOYD-GRANVILLE '45, the first African-American woman
to earn a Ph. D. in mathematics, is on a campaign to dispel multiple
stereotypes: that girls aren't good at math; that minority women
don't 'do' math; that math lovers are nerds; and that math will
go the way of Latin and Greek, becoming an obsolete intellectual
tradition. "There's a lot of talk about women and minorities
in math, why they aren't there in great numbers," she told
the Christian Science Monitor. "When I was young, nobody
told me women couldn't do mathematics. Sometimes I'm glad I wasn't
born in the enlightened '90s." [www.csmonitor.com]
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- May 15, 2000
SPORTS ILLUSTRATED
For average-income families, the price of attending a pro sports
event is often beyond reach. Since 1991, ticket prices for pro
basketball, football, baseball and hockey have risen 80 percent.
Many blame the rapid rise of player salaries, but economist ANDY
ZIMBALIST thinks otherwise. "The reason ticket prices
have skyrocketed," Zimbalist says, "is a combination
of new facilities and a higher income among the top 20% of people
who are willing to buy the highest-priced seats." This changing
demographic not only excludes traditional fans but, Zimbalist
says, dampens the spirit of the game. "Corporate customers
tend to be more sedate, which lessens the home field advantage."
[www.cnnsi.com]
- May 15, 2000
NEW YORKER
Employing the incisive data analysis for which he is noted, economist
ANDY ZIMBALIST illustrates why, especially of late, major-league
baseball has become "the Brazil of sports, a land of paupers
and plutocrats," as New Yorker contributing writer James
Surowiecki describes it. "In the last four years, if you're
not one of the top teams in terms of payroll, you don't make
the playoffs," Zimbalist explains. "And if you're in
the bottom half in terms of payroll you almost never get over
a .500 winning percentage." [www.newyorker.com]
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- May 14, 2000
NEW YORK TIMES
MTV is best known for its music videos but for 14 years LAUREN
LAZIN '82 has helped the network make its mark in another
arena: award-winning documentaries. As vice-president for news
and documentaries at the youth-oriented network, Lazin shepherds
through production some 50-75 documentaries each year, about
one-third of which address social issues relevant to MTV's "core
demographic": 18 to 24-year-olds. "Warning Signs,"
a documentary on high-profile school shootings, impressed critics
with its timeliness, since it had been well into production shortly
in advance of the Columbine tragedy. "People were amazed,"
Lazin said. "'How did you know? How did you get this?' It
was like, 'That's what we do.' We're in the business of taking
that pulse." [www.nytimes.com]
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- May 14, 2000
NEW YORK TIMES
The New York Times noted a reception honoring GWEN GRANT MELLON
'34 who, with her late husband, founded the Albert Schweitzer
Hospital in Deschapelles, Haiti. In recognition of her longstanding
commitment to the sick and impoverished, the college awarded
Mellon a Smith College Medal in 1997. [www.nytimes.com]
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- May 14, 2000
NEW YORK TIMES
When Woody Allen makes a film, chances are good that JULIET
TAYLOR '67 has helped him find the actors -- actors who regularly
receive Oscar nominations. On the eve of the release of Allen's
latest film, Small Time Crooks," the New York Times transcribed
a conversation between Taylor and Allen, headlined "A Team
of Two Who By Now Think As One," that provided insight into
their collaboration. Over the course of the discussion, Taylor
talked about her attempts to persuade Allen to cast new actors
and to spend more time with actors invited to casting calls.
"Woody, more than anyone I've ever worked with, works off
an initial response to an actor," Taylor explained. "[W]hen
somebody walks in the room, before they've even opened their
mouth, you distinctly know whether you feel they're right."
[www.nytimes.com]
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- May 14, 2000
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The AP's coverage of Smith's graduation ceremony focused on speaker
JUDY CHICAGO'S controversial message to graduating seniors.
Noting the irony of expressing these thoughts on Mother's Day,
Chicago rejected the prevailing attitude that career success
and family are both attainable. "I believe that one of the
pernicious lies that has been told to your generation is that
one can 'have it all.' Although I can't explain how I knew it,
I always knew that this was not possible. [When] I looked to
history, I discovered that those women who had achieved at the
level at which I had set my sights had been childless and those
that were not had suffered constant guilt at not being able to
meet the demands of both their work and their children."
[www.ap.org]
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- May 13, 2000
BOSTON GLOBE
CAROL AND PHILIP ZALESKI, both of the religion faculty at
Smith, are authors of "The Book of Heaven" (Oxford
University Press, 2000), an anthology of writings about heaven
from all eras and genres. As described in the Globe, the book
features "poetry and prose, songs and spells, literature
and liturgy." Of contemporary views of the afterlife, Carol
Zaleski recounts that her students have differing images: "Some
envision heaven as something like Disney's Magic Kingdom, while
others fear that it's akin to an endless church service."
[www.boston.com]
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- May 9, 2000
"PURE OXYGEN," OXYGEN NETWORK
The new "online and on-air network for women, by women"
follows PRESIDNT RUTH SIMMONS on a morning at Martin Luther
King, Jr., Elementary School in Washington, DC, as she talks
with inner-city students, emphasizing the value of education.
Of her mission of outreach to young people, Simmons explains,
"We've got to let these children know, in these schools,
that there is a path: to work hard, stay in school, and finish
school. If they don't get that message how will they ever survive?"
In the last year, Simmons has made similar visits to urban high
schools in Los Angeles and Houston. [www.oxygen.com]
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- May 5, 2000
CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
A new column titled "Syllabus" features a behind-the-scenes
look at Smith's Comparative Literature 230, "'Unnatural
Women: Mothers Who Kill Their Children.'" Taught by THALIA
PANDIRI, associate professor of classics and comparative
literature, the course examines not so much why a mother kills
her child but the reaction it provokes. "You may never know
why someone does these things but what's interesting to me is
what kind of story is told about them," Pandiri explains.
[www.chronicle.com]
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- May 1, 2000
U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT
In "Strangers on a Strange Campus," U.S. News &
World Report higher education reporter David Marcus recounts
the measures undertaken by small, non-urban colleges to recruit
minority students. Among the "extraordinary steps"
Marcus cites are the visits to inner-city public schools made
by Smith PRESIDENT RUTH SIMMONS, as well as the college's
new scholarship program for young women from nearby Springfield,
Mass. [www.usnews.com]
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- May 1, 2000
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The farm and food crisis in Zimbabwe, characterized by often-violent
occupations of white-owned farms, threatens to send the suffering
country into deeper crisis. "From a national economic standpoint,
it bodes very badly," observes SCOTT TAYLOR of the
violence surrounding crops and food production. Taylor, the Gwendolyn
M. Carter Lecturer in African Politics, adds, "You are scaring
away investment dollars. You are scaring off tourist dollars."
[www.ap.org]
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- May, 2000
ESSENCE
Marking its 30th anniversary, Essence devotes a special issue
to the "sparking achievements of Black women trailblazers"--among
them Smith President Ruth Simmons--"who continue to light
up our universe." Simmons "is as much about removing
barriers impeding those behind her as she is about breaking through
walls in front of her," the magazine notes. "She uses
her visibility as an elite college president to defend affirmative-action
programs in higher education at a time when they are most under
attack." [www.essence.com]
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