A couple of weeks ago, Glenn discussed Smith College being afraid of video of their convocation ending up online, and that they were trying to tone down the event from the party it has become.

Well, I figured I would do my duty and report on the state of convocation at women’s colleges in 1999, 2000, and 2003, the only years I ever bothered attending.  I won’t be naming specific schools since my overall perspective on the issue comes from multiple colleges.  Yes, Smith has been represented here at the Bitch Girls, as have several other women’s colleges.

My first convocation was my first year of college, and it was a completely relaxed pep rally.  I wore jeans and a t-shirt, as did my roommate.  When the seniors arrived, they were wearing their caps & gowns, but most had on their class color underneath.  In what form they wore their class color was interesting.  Many wore lingerie with their gowns partially or completely open.  And yes, many of them were intoxicated.

The following year they made the decision to quietly crack down on individuals who took it too far.  Like the girl who showed up in a gown, a cap, a pair of underwear, and green body paint.  And that was it.  That’s when things were going too far.  And the body paint girl would go on to live in infamy.  I’d be shocked if the story isn’t still told today.

For my senior year, we started drinking very early in the day, and we found ways to sneak alcohol into the event by way of water guns.  We actually weren’t drunk, didn’t party that hard, just had one last blast before classes started.  Most of the women I was with were dressed in some form of lingerie, but nothing too revealing and we all had gowns on over it.  Some wore corsets with skirts or pants, others wore yellow boxers and skimpy tops, but all had their gowns on.

“But would the event be better off as a somber academic ceremony?”

Women’s colleges often top the lists of schools with the least party atmosphere in the country according to annual rankings of student life by the Princeton Review.  That’s not to say that they should desire to top the party school list, but for secular schools, it is rather odd to consistently top the many religious colleges in the country and often the military academies.  So maybe a few events here and there to loosen things up do a student body good.

Let’s face it, with so many traditions dating back 50 or more years at women’s colleges, it doesn’t hurt to have a few evolve.  There’s the ever-popular Mountain Day that takes place at many New England colleges and has for literally a century or more in most cases.  There are traditional, more formal events centered around graduation to finally recognize graduates as fellow scholars.  Women’s colleges in particular seem to really buy into many of the traditions that involve song.  As someone who cannot sing, this was less fun for me.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the connection with the past.  But evolving the tradition to be a true pep rally for the school year isn’t doing a complete disservice to the idea behind convocation.

“But, Bitter, pep rallies and clothing don’t have to be mutually exclusive!”

I will grant you this.  But I think there is a way to keep it under control with a little policing that doesn’t get in the way of a good time.  Anything that would get you arrested on the street probably isn’t appropriate.  But you know, I had a blast with my friends shopping for gold or yellow lingerie and other goodies.  Even our water vodka guns were yellow.

“But how do you deal with the complaints from other students and faculty who weren’t expecting to know what their students look like in lingerie?”

Well, I think you just have to let them learn.

Yes, one student was offended at Smith and wrote an article in the college newspaper.  But I also think one benefit to college is having different experiences.  That doesn’t mean being surrounded by a bunch of naked women cheering is inherently a “good” different experience.  But then again, how is an uptight formal ceremony any more or less beneficial?  The beauty of these different types of experiences is that you can pick and choose.  I’m assuming the young woman who complained about convocation’s party atmosphere may have enjoyed the more traditional events that Smith offers.  But maybe those students who like to let off a little steam between studies benefited from the party atmosphere at some events.

“But it’s online!  Online!  Where other people see.  Where parents who pay tuition see!”

Now, I will say it’s fair for the college to be concerned about its reputation with the videos appearing online.  But how do you stop that?

You can’t ban college students from documenting their experiences.  And Smith has already been down the road of threatening students who reference the college online.  (I knew two students who started a website that emphasized they were students at Smith, and yes, it contained erotic photos.  Smith came down on them for advertising their connection to the college.  It was not hosted on the college servers, and it made clear that the only connection was that they were students.)  I don’t know if they want to go that route again.

It is a concern to any college that new media access and developing technologies will make it easier for the otherwise quiet secrets to get out.  At this point, I think it’s safe for Smith – and other colleges who will face these challenges – to just accept the risk.  Every college will eventually have to deal with this problem.  If the college itself jumps on board and produces professional content, it should rise up in the Google rank over the amateur videos of the crazy night out – it’s not unbeatable.  Hell, hire your own students to do more mature videos about life at Smith.

There’s actually less of a problem in this situation here than imagined.  It’s actually ripe for solutions to help the college more than it hurts.

As for convocation as an event, there’s not much to do about it.  Just accept the evolution for what it is and make sure it doesn’t get completely out of hand.  Try to guide it as best you can, but enjoy the enthusiasm by the student body.

And for kicks, here are some of the videos:

That’s the motto of Democrats in Massachusetts who want to tax endowment assets above the first billion dollars for colleges. Just a little.

“Why do we want to tax the poor all the time, but we let off the hook the richest of the rich?” said State Rep. Angelo Scaccia, a Democrat, said during the course of Monday’s debate, according to the Metrowest Daily News. “We’re not going to break them,” he added of colleges’ endowment funds. “We just want a little.”

The sponsor of the proposal, Rep. Paul Kujawski, another Democrat, said in a telephone interview late Wednesday that “when you realize that you do have some institutions of higher learning where wealth has grown above and beyond where you really wouldn’t imagine, you say to yourself, When does a nonprofit stop being a nonprofit? How on Earth can they possibly utilize $35 or $36 billion?” Kujawski, who sits on the House Ways and Means Committee, which is responsible for tax policy, said that “from the standpoint of a responsible legislator, when you are operating in a budget deficit, you have to look towards each and every way there’s a possibility of acquiring new revenues. Every type of revenue should be on the table.”

Let’s do the math of what a “little” is to these folks. I’m taking the what the numbers for the first year take would be if they were applied to the 2007 numbers.

• Harvard – $840,872,650
• MIT – $224,510,250
• Williams – $22,301,375
• Boston College – $16,752,300
• Amherst – $16,559,425
• Wellesley – $16,414,125
• Tufts – $11,301,450
• Smith – $9,024,150
• Boston University – $2,534,650

That takes the one year total from those nine schools to $1,160,270,375.

“A billion dollars is a lot of money.” – Rep. Kujawski

Indeed, it is. So why take that from them in their first year alone? What bothers me more is if you look at the rest of his quotes:

“How on Earth can they possibly utilize $35 or $36 billion?”

“We were saying the first billion isn’t going to be touched. So maybe more of these schools might provide more funds for their students, to stay under the billion.”

He actually wants to encourage schools to avoid investing donor dollars effectively. Many funds are restricted, so if the schools are forced to give up a portion to taxes, then less will be available for scholarships. As a former scholarship student to a school that could end up impacted by such a policy in the future, I have a huge freakin’ problem with this idea! Because my career has been so closely tied to the work I did at my unique institution, I can’t even imagine what kind of job I would be in today if I hadn’t been able to afford my alma mater. The ability for my school to give away such generous scholarships made a difference in my life, as I’m sure it has with many other women. But these guys aren’t even looking at that opportunity cost of swiping the scholarship funds.

The Massachusetts politicians seem to have a problem with the fact that some of these colleges have an active donor base and make successful investments to grow the assets. Why is success in higher education a bad thing to them? Kujawski believes that once an organization reaches some mysterious number that only he can make up in his head that they no longer are a non-profit institution. I can’t fathom how he reasons that one out. If the non-profit status is based on work done, how does financial standing make any difference?

When they say they just want a little, they really want a billion.

(Original links stolen from Instapundit.)

I noticed this in a Wikipedia entry:

“Alumna” is a feminised form of “alumnus” that has entered common English usage.

Then why do I still get funny looks or at least people pause for a second when I use the words alumna and alumnae?  Not everyone does it, but it happens often enough that I would say it’s still not a matter of common English usage.

I may have detected a hint of bias in this survey of alums from my alma mater:

So… Hillary or Obama?
Hillary!
Obama, Baby!
Neither, I am a Republican.
I don’t vote.
Neither. I choose [blank]

That was the only political question.  When asked my favorite tradition that I miss, I noted that it was reminding supposedly open-minded women that respect for other viewpoints was important in a true liberal environment.

I *heart* my Seven Sisters. Here’s to Hill!

I really hate when chicks attending women’s colleges do something stupid.  Because there’s such an instant, tight bond with all women’s college alums once we graduate, it means I still cringe when girls at other chick schools do something stupid.  It feels like it’s giving us all a bad name.

A Barnard girl backed her brother’s decision to choose the U.S. Naval Academy over Berkeley till she discovered “the truth” about “military academies.” They train students to serve in the military! Which involves weapons! And being willing to put your life on the line. Writing in the Columbia Spectator, Idris Leppla recounts her inability to get her brother out of his commitment — perhaps hampered by the fact that he didn’t want to get out.

Here’s the strange thing that also gets under my skin: She claims to go to Columbia.  I know Barnard is set up to eventually become a Radcliffe (aka none existent), but seriously.  You go to Barnard.  You didn’t choose Columbia.  If you’re afraid to admit that you attend a women’s college, I’d be happy to show you the door.

Read the original article if you want a laugh/cry that somehow people who are that dense get into schools like Barnard and survive.  Honestly, I couldn’t believe how it just didn’t sink in with her that her brother made a military commitment.  To say she was a little slow on the uptake would be generous.

Everyone knows by now that all of the previous Bitches and I attended women’s colleges.  (The short timer Classy Bitch attended a different women’s college, but she started out at the same one as the rest of us.)  Anyway, I commented on how I would feel if my alma mater went coed when Randolph-Macon announced it was going coed last year.  I wouldn’t consider it the same school.

I can’t really say how I would have felt if it made the decision to switch while I was there.  I probably would have felt very betrayed.  I probably would have transfered out.  But I don’t think I would go so far to sue.  I can understand the level of disappointment and hurt that these girls likely feel, but I don’t know why they feel that the courtroom holds the answer.

A former women’s college breached an implied contract with students when its governing board decided to admit men, a lawyer representing a group of students challenging the coed status argued before a Virginia Supreme Court panel Monday.

Richmond lawyer Wyatt B. Durrette Jr. asked the state’s high court to grant an appeal of the group’s lawsuit, which Lynchburg Circuit Judge Leyburn Mosby Jr. dismissed in January, that calls for a reversal of the coed decision at the former Randolph-Macon Woman’s College until the nine students graduate.

Even if they win, will they really feel any better about their college experience?  I don’t think so.

As a women’s college grad, I can laugh heartily at this story.

A billboard advertisement for Wesleyan College was removed Monday after officials discovered it had been altered.

The billboard, located near the Forsyth Road and Rivoli Drive intersection, was supposed to read, “Picture yourself at Wesleyan.” Someone used white and black paint to change the sign to read, “Picture yourself a lesbyan.”

Truth in advertising isn’t a bad thing!

Last night and tonight I have been unwinding. What does that mean? It means I’ve been taking advantage of the $3/100 tea lights I got at IKEA recently. Why have them for non-emergency purposes if you’re not going to use them? I also have been burning through a Ripe Plum Vanilla scented candle that smells oh-so-fantastic.

Anyway, I moved my candleholders from around the apartment into the living room and about 10 of them around the room and turn off the lights. It’s amazing how just a simple change in environment can do wonders for relaxing a person.

The point of this post was really to say that it looks incredible in here, so I was going to take a picture and share. But then the flash went off and ruined it. So take it without the flash you say? Well apparently the glow that I see from the 10 little tealights in this very large living room don’t translate to film well.

But it does remind me of college. On the last night of finals of winter semester my first year, the lights went out. Computers shut down. Girls screamed. Students cried. Reports of homocide and suicide spread like wildfire. (Kidding about the last one.) I didn’t worry because I was done. Anyway, it’s a good a thing my roommate and I were such rebels. Our hallway lights were supposed to stay on from generators, along with heat. However, the lights dimmed significantly. We gathered our illegal candles and made a circle in one girl’s room as she used the light to pack for her early morning flight and others pulled out the hardly touched pen and notebooks to actually write out their papers. That night was great. The ones still working didn’t mind us talking and we all just bonded over breaking the rules togethr and the fact that we had light while most people didn’t because opted to be prepared regardless of school rules.

We saw a few other rooms in the dorms across the lake that looked dimly lit like ours. After a couple of hours those of who were done decided to go walking and sing Christmas carols to the students in the library who were still in full panic mode. No, that didn’t go over well, why do you ask? However, when it started lightly snowing as we skipped back to the dorm at about 4 am, I knew I would remember the evening for ages.

Oh, and we learned that the library is scary as hell on pitch black Massachusetts winter nights.

This time another women’s college.

Regis College is currently the only Catholic women’s college in Massachusetts, but all that is about to change.

In a move that some are calling regrettable but necessary, the Regis College board of trustees voted on Aug. 31 to admit men to the undergraduate program beginning in the fall of 2007.

I written about my thoughts on attending a woman’s college in the past.  Based on my own experiences and looking at similar women’s colleges, I see enrollments and endowments growing, so I can really only place the blame on these failing women’s colleges on mismanagement.  Going coed will not fix that.  There may be instances where the immediate influx of cash is enough to keep it afloat until a new managment strategy is adopted.  Anyway, I was disturbed to see this article from the president of Simmons defending all chick schools.

Consider the power: Although only 2 percent of all women who attended a US college or university in the past 30 years were graduates of women’s colleges, they constitute 20 percent of women in Congress and nearly 20 percent of the 2005 Fortune “50 Most Powerful Women in Business.” Students at women’s colleges have more opportunities to observe women in top jobs. (At women’s colleges, the majority of the presidents are women, and more than half of the faculty members are women.)

And we cannot stop here. In our society, we continue to hold cultural stereotypes about gender roles and abilities. Minority women face a double set of challenges.

Johnnetta Cole, president of Bennett College, a historically black women’s college in Greensboro, N.C., and president emerita of Spelman College, points to society to explain relevancy: “As long as we live in a society where there is power and privilege in being white and being male, we need these institutions.”

She made a very positive argument for the success of women’s college grads.  It’s not just that women who attend these institutions accomplish great things, but alums instantly become part of that network.  But then she has to turn negative and attack men.  Honestly, is that where she is in her professional development that she has to claim the glass ceiling argument to believe the institution she’s running is worthwhile?  When are these women going to grow up, get past this and embrace true empowerment where it’s about doing it for ourselves and not just trying to beat up on men?