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Chronological Listing
- March 29, 2000
LOS ANGELES TIMES
In "Quest Beyond the Campus," the L.A. Times profiles
extensively Smith President Ruth Simmons and her commitment to
diversity at leading colleges and universities. Of her legacy,
Simmons, who is black, is quoted as saying: "I don't want
to squander the opportunity I have to lead a place like Smith
and look like me. Sure, I could leave Smith with a better faculty
committee structure and some new buildings. But, to me, it's
much more important to the college to be in the forefront of
those trying to educate students who most need it." [www.latimes.com]
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- March 27, 2000
THE NEW YORKER
In April, Faber & Faber will publish, for the first time,
the unabridged journals of poet Sylvia Plath '55. Karen Kukil,
a curator in the college's Mortimer Rare Book Room, where the
journals reside, has prepared the manuscript for publication.
It includes entries previously suppressed by Plath's husband,
many dealing with Plath's sexuality and marriage. Pre-publication
excerpts presented in the New Yorker include entries dating from
Plath's undergraduate years at Smith and from a subsequent teaching
post at the college. [www.newyorker.com]
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- March 15, 2000
HARTFORD COURANT
As an expert in electoral politics, associate professor of government
Howard Gold has followed closely Senator John McCain's attempt
to win the Republican presidential nomination. McCain's decision
to suspend his campaign following significant primary defeats
may be premature, Gold says. He could still win -- if affiliated
with a different party. In an op-ed headlined "McCain Ought
to Seek Reform Party Nomination," Gold demonstrates via
analyses of past third-party candidacies that the maverick senator
has arguably a better chance at winning the presidential election
than in winning the Republican nomination. "A McCain candidacy
atop the Reform party ticket could instantly transform the 2000
election into our nation's first, truly competitive three-party
race in nearly a century." [www.ctnow.com]
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- March 3, 2000
CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
Twenty-eight years since the passage of Title IX, women still
face inequity in college athletics. At the same time, Title IX
detractors have mounted a counterattack against the law, arguing
that capping the number of participants in some men's sports,
or eliminating men's teams altogether, is a form of reverse discrimination.
That may be true, argues economist Andrew Zimbalist, but unless
considerable economic investment is made in women's athletics,
or altrenative revenue streams generated to support men's athletics,
"it's unrealistic to think that expanding women's sports
alone -- while leaving men's sports untouched -- will be sufficient
to achieve gender equity in the near future." Zimbalist's
essay, headlined "Backlash Against Title IX: An End Run
Around Female Athletes," encapsulates a number of themes
addressed in his latest book, "Unpaid Professionals: Commercialism
and Conflict in Big-Time College Sports." [www.chronicle.com]
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- March 1, 2000
WALL STREET JOURNAL
At $885 millon, Smith's endowment places the college among the
13 wealthiest universities in New England, a group whose portfolios
grew an average of 11 percent in the year ending June 30, 1999.
In "Rich Schools' Endowments Beat Average," the Journal
suggests that some of the gain results from large schools' abilities
to take investment chances that schools with smaller endowents
wouldn't take. [www.wsj.com]
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- February 28, 2000
TIME
Once a theater reporter for Newsweek, Cynthia Moss '62 fell in
love with Africa when traveling there in 1967. "Since then,
without formal scientific training, she has learned more about
the family structure, life cycle and behavior of elephants than
perhaps anyone else in the world," according to a profile
in TIME headlined "You Might Not Buy Ivory If You Saw This
Family." In books and films, Moss has advocated successfully
for enforcement of poaching laws and for an international ban
on the sale of ivory. [www.time.com/heroes]
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- February 27, 2000
NEW YORK TIMES
When the citizens of Taiwan elect a president on March 18, they
will do so in an atmosphere of increasing pressure from China
for reunification. A white paper issued recently by Chinese leaders
underscores China's frustatration with Taiwan's foot-dragging
in negotiations. As Steve Goldstein, Sophia Smith Professor of
Government, points out, this foot-dragging is increasingly acknowledged
as a strategic position: "There is a growing sense of urgency
in Beijing that Taiwan independence will not be the result of
a dramatic declaration, but of a gradual drift towards that goal
as the island plays for time," Goldstein explains.
[www.nytimes.com]
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- February 10, 2000
LOS ANGELES TIMES
- In the latest in a series of op-ed
pieces, Professor of English Eric Reeves takes President Clinton
to task for failing to work toward a negotiated peace in war-torn
Sudan, whose situation he describes as "a humanitarian crisis
without rival." Sudan, Reeves argues, suffers from "the
greatest form of poverty: geopolitical indifference." Our
political leaders, he urges, must draw upon the United States'
moral and political strength to ensure that profit-taking from
Sudan's oil fields no longer takes precedence over fundamental
human rights. [www.latimes.com]
February 4, 2000
NEW YORK TIMES
College towns are most often celebrated in autumn but the New
York Times deems Northampton a "winter wonderland"
for city dwellers eager for a hike or a cultural interlude. "Snowy
Idyll in a College Town (and No Midterms)," a lead story
by Paula Deitz '59 in the paper's Weekend section, highlights
the noon-hour performances in Smith's Sweeney Concert Hall, the
pleasures of a wintertime walk around Paradise Pond and the evening
beauty of the Lyman Conservatory which, from a distance "looks
like a crystalline brooch in the snow." [www.nytimes.com]
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