Student Life Archives

This is Halloween…trick or treat ’til the neighbors die of fright,” the famous song said. But, what it didn’t say is, “This is Halloween, every girl act a skank.” Why, then, is it such common practice for girls around our age to bare it all on this ghoulish occasion?

It is an interesting trend: Every year as we get older, more and more girls put on less and less clothing and call it a Halloween costume. They are French maids, pixies and that odd concoction of items that doesn’t really make anything. This last category is the one I find the most infuriating. It is nice to dress sexy, flash a little leg here and there, maybe a little cleavage. But, when someone throws on a bra and boy-cut underwear with a witch’s hat and claims wicked witch of the west, I have a problem.

We are all smart girls here at Wash. U. At least if you are going to wear nothing, come up with something that at least makes sense, like a lingerie model. Be straight with me; if you want to show off as much skin as possible, then at least admit it.

The most ridiculous part of all of this is that the same girls who dress in this manner are the first to get offended when someone thinks they do, in fact, look like a skank. If they really didn’t care and that was their purpose, they would just shake it off and that would be the end of it. Instead, these scantily clad girls get angry and pick fights, throwing their hips to one side, sticking out their overflowing cleavage and cocking their pigtailed heads to one side, mouth in a pout.

Unfortunately, in society, the way you dress is an advertisement of who you are; not that it is always accurate, but if you truly are dressing nearly nude because you enjoy it, then you have to be prepared for a backlash. As it was so aptly pointed out to me by a guy friend, “Just like when you run up to a cop for help, you don’t expect him to say, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, just because I’m dressed like a cop, doesn’t mean I am a cop’; you shouldn’t expect a girl who is barely dressed to say, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, just because I am dressed like a skank, doesn’t mean I am a skank.'” What reaction did you expect to get? It is giving off mixed messages.

What I am very clumsily trying to get at here is that what you wear, Halloween or not, is a reflection of who you are as a person. This goes whether you like it or not. If you don’t care what people think, continue to wear whatever you want. If you are not, however, able to let comments like “Slut” and “Skank” roll off your shoulders, you might want to rethink a couple of things.

I’m not saying I hate anyone who dresses promiscuously; I have friends who do so, even when it’s not Halloween. I’m saying don’t throw fits, start fights or cry if people misconstrue your sexy little number as an invitation. I respect anyone’s decision to dress as they want as long as they respect their decision as well.

So, here is my suggestion: Dress like a skank, come up with a clever title for the costume that actually makes sense and wear it with pride: no tears, no threats, no pouting. Happy Halloween!

Chelsea is a junior in the School of Art and a Forum editor. She can be reached via e-mail at forum@studlife.com.

I read with interest the article in Student Life (“Climbing the Academic Ladder,” Sept. 27, 2006) well-written by the student reporter, Josh Goebel, but clearly reflecting the University’s point of view. This was most probably intended as a response to, “Students Protest Removal of Lecturer’s Job,” in the same issue (please see also “Lecture Positions Valuable to Students,” Sept. 29, 2006). As one of the affected Lecturers, I must respond.

The title, referring to an “academic ladder,” suggests a hierarchical, competitive model of academia, setting the tone for this “just-so story” propagated, ironically, by the two anthropologists quoted in the article. The Lecturer’s Policy, and the position of senior lecturer, is not mentioned, nor is the possibility of earning tenure for college teaching, until recently practiced by several top-rated schools (e.g. The University of Chicago, Washington University in St. Louis).

The article insists on the importance of the Ph.D. degree and notes that this may take from four to six years, depending on the discipline. My discipline, Indology, requires much more time. A degree earned four to six years after college graduation would usually not be taken seriously, because it takes much longer to achieve basic competence in the necessary languages. Even so, universities put pressure on graduate students in these disciplines to finish their dissertations too soon, leading inevitably to spurious, ideologically driven work, for the sake of quick academic success.

The Ph.D., even an honest one, is not strictly necessary. Some of the most distinguished professors at my alma mater, the University of Chicago, did not have a doctorate (e.g. Edward Shils, Helen Harris Perlman and Mortimer Adler). A doctoral program, although often little more than indoctrination or sycophancy lessons, may be valuable as a training program in professor craft and a test of one’s political skills. But any lecturer who has successfully performed the duties of classroom teaching and mentorship for seven years, or 11 years, does not need a Ph.D., and may be better off without one (although administrators of a Ph.D. factory such as Washington University are unlikely to admit this).

The article defends the value of “short term” non-tenure track appointments, in today’s competitive job market, but neglects to mention that here at Washington University, much of the real work is done by year-to-year contract lecturers who are strung along for years with no job security and no real career path and then terminated on a whim or a pretext, especially if they try to stand up for themselves. This is immoral and should be illegal. The academic competition extolled by the article favors people with certain personality traits, especially those incapable of relating to others in a non-hierarchical way. Many of the most successful Research Faculty and administrators are politicians of the worst sort: the ones who could never get elected. At least we can vote out of power politicians who don’t tell the truth or keep their campaign promises. In our universities, no such checks exist. Nevertheless, those whose true vocation is teaching persist, in, but not of, this cutthroat environment.

Our students need heroes, mentors who set a worthy example. Here are two of mine. First, the late David Hadas of Washington University, who never published anything but became a full professor here for his dedication to college teaching. Professor Hadas refused chemotherapy, lest it interfere with his teaching, and died halfway through a course on value formation. Second, Herman Sinaiko of the University of Chicago, who resigned from a powerful administrative position and took a steep pay cut to return to his job as college teacher in general humanities. His book, Reclaiming the Canon, consists of essays obviously based on many years of class notes.

I ask all Washington University administrators to consider doing likewise. Are your jobs really necessary? Do we really need so many deans, to administer a needlessly complex system? Please, open the curriculum and join us in teaching. You would be happier, and the students would benefit from greater choice. Let’s abolish departments in the college, to eliminate petty turf wars. Let’s give the college greater autonomy and grant tenure for good teaching and mentorship. Let’s keep unfit teachers out of our classrooms; let them stay in the library or laboratory. Let’s establish Washington University as a leader in cooperative education. And please, nobody ever pull rank on anybody else.

Jerome Bauer is a lecturer in religious studies. He can be reached via e-mail at jhbauer@wustl.edu.

If there’s anything distinctive about college, it’s the weird hours at which people function – suddenly midnight has become the new 7 p.m. and 1 p.m. seems like a normal time to start one’s classes and work for the day. This means that students often find themselves eating at irregular times. Eating the third meal of the day later at night is a regular occurrence and often times lunch falls in between classes and the beginning of homework somewhere in the middle of the afternoon. For some students this isn’t only a lifestyle choice, but also a forced phenomenon that results from packed class schedules from early in the morning until the afternoon. In general, Wash. U. has done a good job accommodating the odd schedules of students by having Danforth Campus lunch options like Subway or Whispers open into the afternoon and keeping places on the 40, like Bear Mart and Bear’s Den, open respectively until the early hours of 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. Despite the general successes of the Wash. U. dining options, there remain a few changes that could make eating more convenient for students.

The first of these changes would be expanding the hours of the dining hall in the Village. Though Village housing was originally made up largely of married and graduate student housing – a population with a potentially slightly more normal eating period – it has become home to more and more undergraduate students throughout the years.

Particularly this year, as a result of the University’s fall housing crunch, the Village houses a significant number of undergraduates who keep the same hours as those living on the South 40. The infiltration of undergraduates into the Village means more people hanging out in the Village and that hungrier students want food after 8 p.m. Sunday through Thursday. If the midnight rush at Bear’s Den is any indication, keeping the Village open later would be profitable for the University and also an asset to students who live on the North Side of campus.

Let’s face it, food is vitally important to late night study sessions and student existence in general, walking across campus to the South 40 in the middle of the night is extremely inconvenient, (not to mention cold) and it seems keeping the Village food venue open later would only benefit Wash. U. While providing students who live on the North Side an option for eating on campus late at night and in the afternoon is critical to many students, opening Bear’s Den or Bear Mart earlier in the morning would help other students. Though being open at this time may not be as profitable as other times because it isn’t a high rush period, there are athletes who really should be able to eat a solid breakfast before they go to practice.

Not only is breakfast “the most important meal of the day,” but for athletes who are burning a lot of energy, it seems especially important. The University should provide some place on campus where athletes and anyone else who might happen to be up at a normal hour on the weekends can eat breakfast. Though providing some food options in the morning is important because some students do have weekend lives that begin before lunch, it’s understandable that the University has been hesitant to do so. Extending the Village hours, on the other hand, seems like one of those rare ventures that would allow the University community to have its cakeand eat it too – past 8 p.m.