the Sam Jackson College Experience

Yalies who thought that gender issues were a relic of the past should have had a rude awakening last year, after the mess surrounding some highly public misogynistic frat behavior known as the ‘we love yale sluts’ incident [YDN]. However, after the anger at the Zeta Psi pledges and hatred towards the Women’s Center had subsided, things seem to have gone back to normal – issues of sexism and the question of gender in general subsided once again into the background, consigned to the shadows again.

At the same time, the class of 2012 now seemingly holds a record for the greatest gender gap in Yale admissions history, or something close to it– 2,281 more women than men applied to Yale for the class of 2012, but men were 68% more likely to be offered a spot. The adjusted admissions rate: 9.8% for men, 7.5% for women.

It’s in this climate that a great new blog popped up, called Graphic Feminism. The authors talk about feminism as it applies to higher education and Yale, but also are putting up some really well done posters around campus on a weekly basis highlighting certain issues that seem to go unmentioned, unquestioned, and undiscussed. There was a really powerful one called ‘Your Comments Here‘ which reprints in full form many of the comments from that YDN article — and it is shocking, horrible, and deeply informative all at the same time.

Definitely worth checking out — just some pictures you can look at quickly, won’t take much of your time! I’m having a meeting this weekend with some other Yale bloggers to talk about the future of blogging at Yale. More updates to come soon.

Some of you may be familiar with the concept of naked parties popular at college campuses across the nation but perhaps especially Yale; in any event, I thought I would attach a relevant email sent to the freshman class about something its anonymous author purports to be the first Pundit-sponsored prankish naked party of the year. I was out all afternoon participating in a fun Trumbull-freshmen-only scavenger hunt across campus, and came back to find this:

Dear Freshmen,

Some of you were visited several nights ago by upperclassmen who delivered to your suites invitations to “The Masquerade.” The invitations read:

“You and one guest are cordially invited by a distinguished group of peers to attend the Masquerade on Saturday, the Fifteenth of September. Please arrive in formal attire at the gates to the Hall of Graduate Studies at nine thirty post merediem. Tell no one and do not be late. Non Ducor, Duco.”

An image of the invitation, for your reference, is attached. Some of you may be under the impression that you have been tapped for something, or invited to a gathering hosted by a secret society, such as the Yale Society for the Exploration of Campus Secrets (YSECS).

Sadly, this is not the case. Your ‘hosts’ are the Pundits, the infamous Senior pranking society.

Should you choose to go to the gates of the HGS this evening, here is what will happen:

1) You will be led to an off-campus location by the Pundits.

2) There will be a party there.

3) Before very long, and at a certain cue, the Pundits will take off all of their clothes.

4) You will feel rather awkward, unless you’re into that sort of thing.

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First, I got a callback for one of the improv groups that I tried out for last night, The Purple Crayon! The Purple Crayon is the only group on campus that does long-form improv, which is where they take one suggestion and then create a whole show out of it. I think it’s absolutely fantastic and was blown away from the two shows of theirs that I went to. I tried out for the Ex!t Players too but that apparently didn’t go quite well enough to merit a callback. I am surprised to have gotten one for Purple Crayon as is. I don’t expect to make it past this next round of culling, but who knows? We shall find out soon enough. Icannot gush enough about how much I love the Yale improv groups, they’re all pretty uniformly fantastic.

I was also up much much too late last night working on a website for the Freshman Class Council elections, which you can see at http://www.samjackson.org/FCC. If you’re a freshperson in Trumbull reading this, please consider voting for me and joining the Facebook group! If you’re in Trumbull at all, consider voting for me for the YCC–many of my same ideas apply to both. And if you’re not in either, check it out anyways, I put a lot of time into it and puppies are involved.

I haven’t been blogging much because I’ve been really busy here at Yale, in a very good way. Many nights so far I have looked at my schedule of things to do on any given night extracurricularly etc., things that I am interested in–and find that I have four or five things happening concurrently. There are some tough choices to make in that respect but I’m relishing the amount of things to do, I’m not overwhelmed at all.

Today I had class (conversational french, intro psych, intro cognitive science) until around 4 with a short break for lunch–my first class was at 11:35 (Before you start envying me, I got up really early to fight Ticketmaster in an attempt to buy my mom springsteen tickets). When I got back to my room this afternoon I wrote up statements for my Freshman Class Council and Yale College Council campaigns. Tonight I will have to skip the Yale Record meeting because I am going to be trying out for two improv groups from 7 to 11 pm. I’ll also be missing the Yale ACLU and Democratic club meetings for the same reason. Tonight I may start work on a column for the Yale Herald, too. All in all, a lot of very fun things to do. My only regret is that there was more time to do more things!

I have to go run to buy some course packets now for classes, so I’ll end here.

Again, I have trouble emphasizing enough how awesome Yale is.

Today was the first day of classes at Yale, and I decided it was time to finally start getting back into the blogging spirit. What better way to start than a proclamation of my love for this new place?

I don’t know that I can sufficiently articulate my supreme delight and excitement for the next four years here at Yale. Based on the last 10 days this place and these people are proving to be amazing and awesome in every respect possible. Aside from the fact that I have the smallest suite at Yale, sharing my small room with someone 6′ 9″ (that is not hyperbole) , everything is better than I ever imagined.

The upside of the ultra-cramped room is of course that I am forced out of the room to get out and do things, socialize, study in other places, etc. Excepting those times, like right now, when I’m blogging from my room…

The list of reasons why Yale is so excellent would be obscenely long, as everywhere I look I find new reasons to be in love with this place. The classes today? Superb. I liked most of my professors that I was shopping today and was even impressed with the ones that I wasn’t so fond of (personality differences?). All the courses looked interesting, though the French that I was shopping turned out to be too easy, but my very cool professor there recommended me some other very neat courses to take which I will shop post haste.

I have some more fantastic courses to look at tomorrow, too. The only problem where classes are concerned seems to be a lack of time to take all the ones that I want.

I will try to make more posts in the coming days about specific interesting / super fun things that are happening / have happened; there are almost too many to keep track. I wish Yale had a Wesleying equivalent; maybe I will have to think up a clever name and start one. In the meantime, my adventures continue!