Why This Idiocy on Campus?

 Comments.    Considerations.     Questions.               

 

                        

                     by Kenneth Bagnell

       

 

          It seems truly remote now — that autumn of 1951– when barely 17 years old, I stepped off a train in the leafy small town of Sackville, New Brunswick to begin life as a student at Mount Allison University. I didn’t even know what “Freshman –Freshette Week” meant, and in any case it was so benign it passed without a single incident I remember. Maybe it was because Mount Allison – like at least a half dozen other Maritime universities back then – was a “church university” one where the professors, including now and then, Alex Colville, would conduct chapel service. As for student conduct on campus, it was reasonable enough, once or twice quite strict: anyone caught drinking in residence, so we were advised, could have his bottle confiscated along with the added pleasure of watching the Dean of Men pour its contents down the sink. As I write, I can truly say: “That was then.”    

         How customs change. As we now know many universities, excluding a handful, are subject to welcoming incoming students with rough and ugly sexual expression or aggression, from outright assaults on female students on campus walkways at night, to ever more vulgar chants that first year female students are subject to or invited to join an ugly chorus that sexualizes the word young and begins with: “Y is for your sister… O  is for……”. The rest you can imagine or try to; it’s about as misogynist as it gets. A somewhat similar chant was used a year ago as new students – now called the frosh — arrived at a respected Halifax university, St. Mary’s. In a day or so, the reception they received, raised such national indignation throughout the country that St. Mary’s student leaders quickly apologized and just as quickly stepped down. Promptly, a highly respected Maritime legal scholar, Wayne MacKay — member of The Order of Canada and professor at the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie — was asked to head a panel which has now reported. Along with its specific recommendations, Prof. MacKay added that the St. Mary’s incident was a grim picture of position of females on campuses in general.  Sexual violence against women, he suggested, often goes unreported.

     Why should this be? In the broadest cultural terms, what’s fostered this juvenile and vulgar attitude against new and young women on campus? One thing seems obvious to me: the ugly chants, with their urging of sexual assault, are not, in the least, a reflection of public opinion, any more than urging that women should be discouraged from becoming physicians, lawyers or journalists. Does anyone for a moment think that the majority of the citizenry actually accepts — even endorses as the chants would have it — sexual assault on women? Moreover, I see no sign the public thinks that the idiotic collective chanting at women is amusing. Where did this coarse nonsense originate? Nobody really knows. It’s certainly not affirmed by the universities. Quite the opposite.      

     An insightful columnist on The National Post, Chris Selley, formerly of McLean’s, put it in context when he wrote recently: “When I showed up at McGill University 19 years ago, I found a campus that was every bit as obsessed with political correctness, in all its forms as I expected. In the nearly 20 years since, I’ve seen no evidence that mainstream society  has become more tolerant of sexual assault, or making light of sexual assault.” So the question is still up in the air: what’s driving this. It ought to have run its course by now; but as recently as early September, the usual date of what’s been called Frosh Week, one of the country’s best known universities, Carleton, is reported to have had male students sporting on campus T Shirts with anti-women slogans, vulgar and obscene. What a way for parents to have their daughter welcomed to the campus of a major Canadian university. Does this give them assurance that their daughters will settle comfortably and confidently into the university culture?   

       The vulgar and hostile practice isn’t going to vanish next week. But, I suggest, over time it will.  The reason is simply this: the young men who do this are not among the best and brightest. This is a game for non-achievers and — given today’s ever more intellectually refining culture —  young men close to the bottom rung. Professors and students I speak to from time to time, don’t shrug it all off, but they insist it’s wearing itself out. As one put it to me: “No male students of common sense and decent ambition will be part of it.”  

      Moreover, several of the respected institutions have taken reforming steps, including changing the name from the frothy if not silly “Frosh Week,” to “Welcome Week.” Along with it they provide programs to prove its purpose: Welcome Walkers who conduct campus tours of buildings and answer questions on university history or policy. Others have appointed Welcome Week Co-ordinators to help inquiries during the somewhat tense uncertain days for young newcomers. Still others select reliable students to observe campus events and act if something -– maybe alcohol — is getting out of hand. All this is positive. It also validates what was at the heart of Dalhousie Professor MacKay’s inspired comments when he spoke a week ago on the release of the findings of his inquiry into St. Mary’s sad experience: “Dark clouds often have silver linings.” There’s hope.  

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    A minor addendum: the commentaries so many of you have been kind enough to commend, will be less frequent in future for a combination of reasons. On my eightieth birthday I thank you for your interest and, for so many of you, your goodwill.         

 

 

All my past blogs are archived on my website: your comments are welcome there: www.kennethbagnell.com.