Word: astin
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Alexander Astin, an education professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who has monitored student values for three decades, attributes the change to television. Since childhood, this new generation of screenagers has been blitzed by advertising and glitzy programs, from Dallas and Dynasty to Beverly Hills 90210. "Kids in the '60s had nowhere near as much exposure to TV," Astin says. "TV's message is: You can be happy by having these products. The programming, often about rich and powerful people, celebrates greed." Violence and graphic sexuality, once rare on the airwaves, became a staple of television and film...
Once upon a time boys and girls went to college to learn the meaning of life. They ruminated on Kierkegaard and Kant, dealt with existential dilemmas, argued over war, the Bomb and whether to protest or not to protest. "Thirty years ago," recalls Alexander Astin, a professor of education at the University of California, Los Angeles, "students were preoccupied with questions such as 'What is life all about...
...goal of college freshmen. Today that objective ranks sixth, endorsed by only 42% of students. Conversely, in 1967 less than half of freshmen said that to be "very well off financially" was "essential" or "very important." Today it is their top goal, endorsed by 74%. Idealism and materialism, says Astin, who has directed the surveys since their creation, "have basically traded places...
Feminist values are now entrenched. "It is hard to believe that in 1967 fully two-thirds of men agreed with the statement 'The activities of married women are best confined to the home and family,'" Astin remarks. Today that has dropped to 31%. But a gender gap persists: only 19% of female freshmen agree. University of South Carolina professor John Gardner, head of the National Resource Center for the Freshman Year Experience, laments that the survey also confirms how "women have taken on some of our worst habits. They smoke and drink more--binge drinking has become their problem...
...Astin's supporting cast performs decently, but unfortunately the script limits their roles as well. Ned Beatty portrays Rudy's blue-collar Irish father convincingly, but he appears only early in the movie. Charles S. Dutton, as the groundskeeper of the Notre Dame stadium, replaces Beatty in the role of Rudy's mentor. Dutton, who tends to over-act (as anyone who has seen him as "Roc" on TV knows), somewhat overdoes his part of the wise old man who has to give sage and timely advice in order to motivate young Rudy...