...................................................................................................................................................................

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]
 
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]
 
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]
 
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]
 
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]
 
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]
 
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]
 
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]
 
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]
 
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]
 
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]
 
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]
 
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]
 
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]
 
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]
 
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]
 
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]
 
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]
 
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]
 
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]
 
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]
 
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]
News Releases
NewsSmith
AcaMedia
College Events
Campus Update
........................
 
Archive:
Back to current month
 
April, 2000
March / February, 2000
January, 2000 / December, 1999
November, 1999
October, 1999
September, 1999
August, 1999

..............................................................................................................................................................

SearchSite MapIndexWebmasterDirectoryHome

Smith College // Northampton, Massachusetts 01063 // (413) 584-2700

© 2000 Smith College // Please send comments to:
webmaster@smith.edu.
Smith College
Notice of Nondiscrimination // Last update: 5/23/2000.