Rump Roast
BRIEF BUT MEMORABLE EPIDEMIC OF FULL MOON
fever struck Stanford U. in June when resource-
ful psychology students turned a class project
into a Guinness record. Well, almost.
Pre-
College
Rx
T HESE DAYS, IT'S NOT
a question of ifyou
are going to college
but where - four-year uni-
versity or community col-
lege? But what if even that
choice was taken away?
Outrageous? Not to the Califor-
nians for Community College Equi-
ty, who have proposed to eliminate
all freshman and sophomore classes
at state universities and shift them
to 107 community colleges.
"Community college transfers are
outperforming the people who start
as freshmen at University of Califor-
nia and California State University
schools," says Robert Oliphant,
executive director of CCCE. "You're
nor only saving money, hut you also
improve the quality of the upper-
division programs."
U. of California, Berkeley, senior
Mark Leong doesn't see a problem
with the proposal. "I went to com-
munity college first, and I don't
think the experience diminishes my
education," he says.
Could this signal the end of
freshman life as we know it?
"I think this idea sucks," says
Deidra Hale, a freshman at CSU,
Northridge. "Being forced into a
community college regardless of
how well we do in high school is
unfair because it takes away our
choice."
"If I'm smart enough to get into
a university, I should be able to go
to that university," agrees Cecelia
Waring, a CSU, Sacramento,
sophomore.
"There are a lot of myths sur-
rounding this idea," says Charles
Lindahl, associate vice chancellor of
the CSU system. "Where they
implemented it, it failed."
Florida put the concept to the
test in the '60s by creating four
upper-division-only universities, but
they weren't equipped to adapt to
Go Speed
Racer, Go!'
S OME KIDS SETTLE FOR TEE BALL AND MAJOR
league dreams. Others dribble on the play-
ground, hoping for dunks in the Final Four.
The group of students tested the
limits of marketing influence by
publicizing Moon at Noon, an orga-
nized protest against university poli-
cies and an attempt to set the record
for mass mooning.
What the mooners and gawkers
alike didn't know was that the
"protest" was actually part of a
research project testing theories of
influence used by advertisers and
salespeople. The students had to use
social-influence techniques to
encourage people to do something
they wouldn't ordinarily do.
With a tempting lack of
mooning records in the Guinness
Book to inspire them, the stu-
dents posted fliers and contacted
local newspapers and radio sta-
tions to maximize coverage and
interest in the event.
And unwitting students at Stan-
ford took to the idea as a rebellious
move against what they felt were
increasingly strict rules set by the
university.
"Moon" organizers had to grin
and bare it along with approximate-
ly 220 cheeky drawer-droppers and
700 witnessing jaw-droppers who
showed up at the crack of noon to
lend their buns to the cause.
Photo by Teressa Ann Trusty, The
Stanford Daily
Not Adam Friend. He found
inspiration on a race track in
Maine andpursued his dream to
race stock cars - and New
Hampshire College picked up
part of the tab.
Friend, a junior at New
Hampshire College, persuaded
his school to give him an athletic
scholarship - worth more than
$15,000 - to race.
"When I went looking for a
sponsor, I knew I couldn't ask
Pepsi or Pennzoil, because they
probably weren't going to give
that kind of money to a raw
rookie," says Friend, who's 21.
"So I said to my parents, 'What
about the school?' They thought
I'd flown over the cuckoo's nest,
but that only made me want to
do it 110 percent more."
Armed with plenty of enthusi-
asm and a detailed proposal,
Friend took his dream straight to
the president of the 1,100-stu-
dent college. Friend sold the
administration on his unique idea
for representing the college, and
they gave him the green light and
some cash. Although the Maine
Ford Dealers give Friend some
financial support, New Hamp-
shire College is his main sponsor.
From the cuckoo's nest to the
American-Canadian 18-race tour
circuit, Friend's proposal has
taken off. He's probably the only
driver to show up at races with a
Ford Thunderbird bearing his
school's name and blue-and-yel-
low colors.
"I knew if I could make this
thing fly, it would be good for
the school," Friend says.
And with the exception of the
all-too-frequent speeding ticket
he gets when he's feeling compet-
itive on the highways of New
England, Friend says he has tried
not to let racing change his life as
a student.
"People don't look at me like a
celebrity or anything," he says.
"And I don't expect them to. I go
to college and people see me every
day. I'm just a regular person."
Ryan D'Agostino, Middlebury
College/Photo courtesy Bill Weston
The Buzz
" Gina Grant will attend Tufts U. this fall. Grant was initially accepted by Har-
vard U. and Columbia U., but both universities rescinded after admissions officials
discovered that in 1990 she had pleaded no contest to manslaughter charges for
the death of her mother.
" Remember the Harvard murder/suicide from last spring (junior Sinedu
Tadesse stabbed her roommate, junior Trang Ho, 45 times and then hanged her-
self)? Been wondering what more has come out (especially since before the inci-
dent, the school newspaper had received a note and picture of Tadesse reading,
"Keep this picture. There will soon be a very juicy story involving the person in this
picture.")? Keep wondering. The Harvard Crimson turned over the note and photo to
police, and the Middlesex County district attorney's office has nothing new to
report on the case, says D.A. spokesperson John Towle.
* U.S. District Court Judge C. Weston Houck ruled in June that Shannon Faulk-
ner, the first woman member of the Citadel's all-male cadet program, will not live
in the school's infirmary - apart from the male cadets - or receive a less strenu-
ous training program. Citadel officials withdrew their request that Faulkner shave
her head in the fall when she begins the cadet program.
" During promotions of its college football coverage, ABC Sports is airing music
performed by the Michigan State U. marching band. Eighty-five of the band's 285
members recorded a fight song in June to be used in the spots.
10 U. Magazine "August/September 1995
the state's rapidly growing popula-
tion, says Alan Stonecipher,
spokesperson for the Florida State
U. System Board of Regents.
"We had to keep changing and
adding on to the university system,"
Stonecipher says. "So in 1981, the
legislature authorized lower divi-
sions for those four universities."
Under the new system, students
could save some serious cash, but at
what expense?
"If they do this, there isn't any
incentive to do well in high school,"
Hale says. "I studied hard, helped
out in student government, volun-
teered, and I don't know if I would
have done it if someone told me the
only place I could start was at a
community college."
Amy Zukeran, Florida A&M U./
Illustration by Korey Coleman,
U. of Texas, Austin