HW 41

Gomstyn, Alice. "Top Colleges Mum on Legacy Admissions." abcnews.go.com. 11/4/08. ABC News, Web. 26 Feb 2010. .
This article talks about how despite the fact the ivy league colleges are accepting less people the rate of acceptance among legacies has stayed rather consistent. Furthermore I think that this article is also trying to say that even though the legacy rate has stayed constant that doesn't mean the legacy are any less capable of doing the work.


Gasman, Marybeth. "Perspectives: A “Legacy” of Racial Injustice in American Higher Education." diverseeducation. 12/1/08. Web. 2 Mar 2010.
This article is different from the one above because in this article they discuss how legacies of wealthy and important families have caused racial descrimination within the ivy league system. Also this article shows how the financial contributions of a family to a college affect the chances of a family member beeing accepted.

Karabel, Jerome. "The Legacy of Legacies." Longview Institute. Longview Institute, Web. 2 Mar 2010. .
This article provides a brief history of legacy admissions and then talks about how universities have been forced to be much more selective with legacies forcing them to take the legacies that overpreform or come from very wealthy background

Golden, Daniel. "Admissions Preferences Given." WSJ. 13/1/03. Wall Street Journal, Web. 2 Mar 2010. In this article the author shows the parallel fight between affirmative action and legacy acceptance. In other words how legacy admission has overwelmingly favored whites and afirmative action has overmelmingly favorved minortities. Furthermore the author also shows how students at ivy league schools have been less and less in favor of legacy admission.

Cohen, Carl. "Race Preference in College Admissions." Heritage Foundation. 29.4.1998. Heritage Foundation, Web. 9 Mar 2010. .
This article published by the conserative advocacy group the Heritage foundation provides a contrast to the arguement that forced racial diversity is either morally correct or an ethic necesity. This is helpfull in my work because it helps me better understand the two sides or the spectrum.

Shagall, Yelena. "Racism Plagues College Campus." Chicago Flame. University Of Illinois, 21/1/03. Web. 10 Mar 2010. .

This article talks about how racism exits throughout the higher education system and how upcoming affirmative action cases could affect college racism. The article also talks about how despite the perception of a color neutral education system racism is still quite prevalent.

HW 40

ME. Q. What do you think is the main reason behind teachers feeling that they have to absolutley dominate the classroom?
A: I think that it's a combination of tradition and a feeling that without a feeling of fear in the class the teacher won't be respected, furthermore the domination complex seems to be more potent in female teachers.
Q: How important is studet teacher relations i determing grades?
A: Teachers are human, therefore they make personal judgements. I thI ink that if someone shows a positive attitude towards the teacher and creates a bond with him/her they are much more likely to succeed. (Participation is a nice way they like to put it)
Person 2 (student with low grades): Q. Why do you feel that you have done poorly throughout your high school career?
A. Because all of the material that we have learned in school has no relevance in my life, and because I spent so long procarstinating about how school hasn't really done anything for me so at times when I have wanted to care my work ethic hasn't been developed enough to thuroughly complete all my work.
Q. Overall do you think that teachers are fair people?
A. Some of them are but a lot of them seem that they just want to live up to societies expectations above improving the education of individual students.
Person 3 (student with high grades) Q. How have you been able to stay succesfull throughout your high school career?
A. My parents are constantly on me about doing well in school beause their true believers in the "American dream" or whatever and basically if I want to have any kind of social life I need to do well in school, furthermore I think that one thing I've been able to do well is block out all the b.s. that comes with school and try and think of the long term.
Q. Do you think that because you do well in school your social status is tainted?
A. Absolutley, especially with the "party crowd" they seem to equate good performance in school with social mediocrity.
Person 4 (adult) Q. Do you think that the public school system gives an overall fair experience to all parties involved?
A. No, I think that students get bogged down in a bureacuracy and cheap political stats while teachers are forced to teach material that they don't find interesting and their students don't value.
Q. How do you think your school experience matches up with the modern school experience?
A. I think that it's pretty much the same thing. Maybe there's more racial equality in the school system but the economic equality is just as bad if not worse. Also when I was in school there was high stakes testing but not as much from the state much more in school testing.

For this assignment what I wanted to do was compare and contrast how different prospectives feel about school. Generally the feeling that came across the strongest was that people don't feel that their learning very important information. Something that would be interesting to investigate from that would be do that many people really feel that way or is that just something that the media and people around us say. Furthermore another thing that I noticed not only in these interviews but in life is that seldom do you find a student who is inspired to do well in school just because they want to, in other words no outside pressure or circumstances in ones life that would make doing well in school a necesity.

Art Project Photos Part 2

The photos that I listed above are all people who have influenced my view of cool. Overall they all fit the mold of a masculine male who generally uses minipulation and violence to get what they want. Even though many of the people whos photos are listed aren't commonly refered to as "hip" these days I think that they all can go under a general societal view of cool. The reason being is they all fit into at least one of four very important catagories.
1. Physically fit/ Good looking
2. Relaxed, calm collected
3. Good skills with woman
4. Ocassional violent outbreaks

Art Project Photos

http://eric.b.olsen.tripod.com/images/bogart1.jpg

http://faculty.smu.edu/dsimon/AAAAAAChange06/Dean1.jpg

http://img2.timeinc.net/ew/dynamic/imgs/041209/142618__dogs_l.jpg

http://orgtheory.files.wordpress.com/2007/03/quentin_tarantino.jpg

http://www.mcnblogs.com/filmfatale/samjacksonpulp.jpg

http://www.fanboy.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/clinteastwood.jpg

http://michaelmanning.tv/blog/uploaded_images/inmcqueen-790331.jpg

Cited Works

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/apr/01/tobacco-industry-marketing
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1904624,00.html
http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/patc/marlboroman/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAExoSozc2c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHy7RXJ7W8Y&feature=related

Final Draft

Cigarettes have traditionally been a driving force in shaping someone’s image. People who want to create an image of the laid back sophisticated urban intellectual; or at least that’s what it once represented. Today it takes on the role of the badass, cutting school and living the party life, but still a form of cool. So what is it that makes smoking so unique that it can represent the socially acceptable intellectual and the delinquent underage badass? Maybe both of those categories can fit under one umbrella category. Above the pack and distinguished; a cigarette says that I have a firm clear identity and I am living up to it. So therefore cigarettes fill a void of emptiness by solidifying an identity and proving independence.
Much of the cool image that cigarettes hold can be traced back to the glamorous 1950’s movie era. Actors such as Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne and James Dean showed smoking as a symbol of masculinity while actresses such as Audrey Hepburn gave smoking a sensual and attractive. People love role models and those are some of the most influential people of their generation and cigarette smoking was a big part of their image and personality. People viewed these role models as people to shape their own personalities. People allow celebrities to shape them with misguided deadly devises because for many it’s a better option than having to come to terms with their own personality and their own faults.
Another thing to think about when talking about smoking is how it’s been able to keep its social acceptability. Even in the age where the link between smoking and serious health problems is beyond a doubt. For example our current President Barack Obama is a smoker even though in most states it’s illegal to smoke in a bar. Also its been widely shown that the health risks of marijuana are much less then cigarette smoke but using cannabis is still viewed as taboo by much of society. Truly something to be in awe of, a product that kills half its users gets taxed to death but can still hook one of the most well educated Presidents in the history of the United States. Now if that’s not cool then I challenge anyone to find a better example, because our sense of cool completely overrides our bodily needs which tell us that we should not throw something like that into our body twenty times a day. So in short cool versus health? Cool takes the prize every time.
So if we’ve already established that we’ve been sucked into this pointless exercise the real question is how did we get there and what were the tobacco companies able to do to get us into smoking? Cigarettes were first marketed as a product for the rich urban elite and were very expensive and were viewed as very white collar and sophisticated, but when world war two came around everything began to change. Troops were given cigarettes for free, starting a whole new generation out to look for the best smoke. The real driving force however has been the relentless and brilliant advertising done by the tobacco industry. The most famous and successful of ads was Philip Morris’s Marlboro man advertising with the catch phrase “Come to where the flavor is come, to Marlboro country.” Marlboro was conceived as a cigarette marketed towards woman because it was one of the first brands to have a filter on it, so after seeing sales continuously drop a change was done. Marlboro began to reshape itself as a symbol of masculinity. The cowboys ride into the distance as they light up a cigarette or the ladies watch in awe as a “Marlboro man” lights up a smoke.
So now that we’ve established the masculinity part to smoking what about people’s health? People may do stupid things to look cool but not in the same numbers as smoking. It would seem the remedy has been generational smoking and arrogance. The cigarette companies rely on people to do their advertising for them these days. A parent lights up a cigarette in front of her kid who then picks up the habit and starts smoking in front of a friend and so on and so forth. Everybody who starts smoking goes in with the mentality that “I’ll be fine, I’m going to quit really soon.” Well the reality is that it’s quite the roll of the dice, there are no guarantees, and the only guarantee out there is the likely hood of your survival drops every day.
Now the reason that I have been able to talk so much smack about smokers and the reason that they pick up the habit and how their suckers is because I am among the crowd myself. Now maybe it’s because I’m a big fan of old movies and such but it seems to go a little bit farther than that. I think that I smoke for the same reason everyone else does, it fits my role. Cigarette smoking has become a tool that I can use to project my image without ever having to say anything or even look at anybody. In a lot of ways the cigarette speaks for itself. If mixed with the proper attire and/or other physical traits you can tell someone more about yourself then you probably could in a simple introductory conversation.
One final thing that comes to mind with smoking is the actual physical act of smoking. I think simply that people don’t want to appear as though they have nothing to do. Smoking can appear as a buffer to loneliness. If someone’s outside by themselves smoking then the smoker is probably thinking that as long as I’m out here with a cigarette it appears as though I have something to do and I’m important. Also I think that the look of cigarette smoke has been planted in our brain as cool and even if you’re against smoking you can appreciate the mysterious look of billowing cigarette smoke.
To try and wrap this all up I think that we as a people have been not only feeding into this deadly habit but fueling it with our desires to reach the unreachable dream of euphoric cool-ness. Smoking went from Native Americans to the intelligencia through a transformation to something that crosses racial, economic and social boundaries. The only thing that John Wayne and Jerry Garcia had in common? A relentless smoking habit.