Little Green River

Dear Scripps College,

You seem to be under the delusion that you are a finishing school.

The largest chunk of the recent funding campaign, “Campaign for the Scripps Woman,” went to maintenance and grounds, so we could continue to overwater our fake green lawns in the middle of the desert. About half as much went to scholarships and financial aid for actual Scripps women, burdened by the unending tuition increases. One would hope that admiring pretty flowers would not be our main reason for being here.

Your literature touts Scripps as a place that fosters strong, confident, engaged women. In reality, being an activist at Scripps is a painful, disheartening process for virtually anyone who tries it, with bureaucratic hoops and unhelpful administrators at every turn. It is telling that the only activist organization that you have promoted on the front page of Scripps’ website (to my knowledge) is a glorified bake sale, and that the only other established “activist” organization at Scripps is Babes and Blankets, a knitting circle. How feminist is this?

And then there’s the favorite policy of Scrippsies everywhere: the escort policy. It is paternalistic and unrealistic.

I can understand some students’ fears of evildoers lurking around the dorms. Apparently the cases of Scripps students stealing from other Scripps students have not alarmed them into actually locking their doors, however. The escort policy is security theater. It lulls students into a false sense of security even though talking one’s way into the dorms without a key card is not hard at all–heck, my 40-year-old aunt has done it. Rather than improving security, its main effect is to alienate men–the only people that dorm residents can reliably identify as non-Scrippsies. No wonder none of my Mudd friends ever want to hang out at Scripps–even when I’m with them, they are the subject of wary, even hostile looks from my dorm-mates. Come on. As women (and, for some, as minorities) we ought to know something about the experience of the unwelcome stare. Is this progressive?

If I’m hanging out with the guys, and one of them needs to use the bathroom, is it really such a big deal for him to cross a hallway on his own? Our security would be far better improved if dorms had a semblance of community life so that we actually knew who our neighbors were, could identify male *and* female strangers, and could confidently challenge them if they were poking around suspiciously.

As a result of these policies, Scripps students have to go off campus for any social activity that includes males, merrily leaving their doors unlocked behind them. Being that the majority of us aren’t man-hating harpies or cootie-fearing little girls, on Friday and Saturday nights Scripps’ campus is usually dead. Congratulations.

Scripps is amazingly good at not listening to its own student body. Even when complaints against certain Scripps housing staff reached such a tempo that Scripps Associated Students tried to take action, nothing really improved. Even though 80% of the student body signed a petition calling for replacing the dining hall’s styrofoam containers with biodegradable ones (as other Claremont colleges have done) and a campaign for it has been going on semester after semester, the administration has still refused to do it, claiming the five-cent increase in price was too much. The administration even scoffed at students’ suggestions of raising the student fee to cover the difference. Scripps College spends its fundraising money on unsustainable, environmentally-unsound landscaping while refusing to put a pittance towards reducing its ecological footprint. We have spoken. But apparently Mother knows best.

The administration at Scripps has a choice. It can commit itself openly to its apparent finishing-school outlook (and delete the empty “feminist” rhetoric on its recruitment literature). Or, it can fix these and many other problems by a.) fixing its policies to be realistic and supportive of student freedoms, b.) actively hiring staff who treat students as adults, and c.) creating opportunities for students to actually have a meaningful contribution to the above. I personally would much prefer the latter. At the risk of sounding truly arrogant, the administration is in our collective employ. It is to serve students’ needs, not mother us. But what does my opinion matter?

Actions have consequences. I don’t know about the rest of my class, but I came here to be a dedicated student, have a supportive base for activism, and grow socially. To be completely honest, Harvey Mudd College has served those needs far better than Scripps has, and I don’t even go there. I don’t trust the Scripps administration as a whole; I don’t believe its priorities best serve its students. If I donate any money to Scripps College after I graduate and enter the professional world, every cent will be conditional. My money isn’t watering any flowers.

Sincerely,
Karen

Today was my first session of Human Sexuality, an anthropology class I’m taking with Kathleen over at Pomona.

This year, the class is supersaturated with the fairer sex. About four or five girls to every guy. According to the prof, the class is normally equitable, or at least as close as it can be expected to be in a liberal arts education (around 60-40). So why would it be 80-20 this semester? Is it only girls who tend to look at the anthropology department’s offerings (or hear about the class through word-of-mouth)? Or do this year’s frosh guys think they already know everything? Even more…interestingly…, of the few guys who are in the class, half of them are Easties from Mudd. Including East Dorm Jesus. Oi vey.

But anyway. It looks to be a very good class–so far, the prof seems to hold up to the rave reviews Lexie gave him frosh year. He opened with a few sex jokes and encouraged students to speak out during class if they were comfortable–no small feat when there’s 70-some people enrolled. The syllabus includes a lot of guest speakers–including a panel of the Claremont Colleges chaplains for the next class, “God and Sex.” The prof has a dog, Cody, which he always brings to class. The dog seems to know the class so well he could probably teach it himself–at the very least, he knows to growl and whimper when the prof brings up circumcision.

Which was today’s lesson. We watched an anti-circumcision movie with actual footage of the procedure, then a 20/20 piece on the same topic. Let me just get this out of the way:

WHY THE **** were they performing these things *without anaesthetic* until only like TEN years ago?!? “Newborns don’t feel pain”? Who in their goddamn right mind believes that?!

*breathes*

Other than that bit, I don’t really feel that strongly about the topic. Before today’s class, I was vaguely pro-circumcision–alright, it might have some hygienic benefits, and everybody else does it. Okay, I guess my hypothetical sons can have it. Now I’m vaguely anti-circumcision–going without is really not rare at all anymore, so unless someone can convince me that the statistically-significant-but-nevertheless-tiny health benefits are large enough to seriously outweigh the risks of a botched surgery/infection (not to mention the money and the pain), or the father is really adamant about it, I’m saying nej tak. No thanks.

But for all my lack of passion about the topic, I did find it interesting. Wangs are not something girls tend to get much of an education about–I’d never even seen a diagram with a foreskin before. In fifth grade we girls went into one room to talk about periods and boobs and babies while the guys went into another room to talk about…golf.

We’ll see how much golf there is in this course.

When I left for Claremont, I had little clue how exactly I was going to get my stuff out of the storage facility and into my room several miles away. I’d emailed my storage-mates to ask how they were going about it and to offer to carpool, but no one even replied. Poo on them.

Eventually that part worked out, as Mike (Firewizard) generously offered his car and Kathleen and Andrew helped me haul stuff. However, it has been something like seven months since I originally put my stuff into storage. I don’t remember whose stuff is whose. I didn’t label all of my boxes and bags, and no one else labeled at all. Thus, I accidentally grabbed some other people’s stuff–hangers, a laundry bin, and a bag with what appears to be a blanket and pillow inside.

By the same token, I have now finally opened all of my boxes and I am missing some very key items. My power strips. My coat. My towels. Most importantly, my bedding. All I’ve got is a pillow and an afghan and my room is friggin’ freezing. Maybe that’s why I’m staying up blogging instead of going to sleep…

*sigh*

I haven’t seen ANY of my suitemates since I got here this morning. I’m sure part of that is because I was hanging out with Andrew, Kathleen, and other Mudders this evening, but it still sucks–I don’t know, say, whether I can put my toiletries in the bathroom, or if we have to keep them in our rooms. I’d be really happy if it were the latter, because there’s really not enough shelf space at comfortable heights in this room. Or any of the other suite policies that might apply. Or–hell–what the people I’m living with even *look* like–I don’t know either of the girls on my side of the suite.

I’m cold, tired, and not home yet.