Not bad. Catchy and cheerful and it looks like they're having fun. I liked Cal's dog better, though (it was clear the he(?) was *really* having fun. It helps to have a little stubby tail to wag furiously).
Big Grand Valley State ads were all over the Chronicle and other job-ad locales for several years while I was on the market. I can see why; from the style of the buildings and the proliferation of recently-planted trees, it looks like a place that has recently experienced considerable growth -- not too different from the place I ended up, actually. But boy oh boy does GVS look, at least by comparison, lily white. Okay, there was a majority black gospel choir (?) about halfway through, and a display of a dozen or so national flags a bit later, but other than that, the student body looked very, very ethnically homogeneous. I didn't realize such places still existed. On the other hand, the clothes, activities, etc. didn't look so different from what I'm used to (give or take a hijab). I'm not sure whether that is evidence that American culture has been influenced by many others, or that the melting pot continues to be a more apt metaphor than many who would prefer a salad bowl or other less homogenizing alternatives want to admit.
CC, Allendale Michigan is 93% white. There are LOTS of places that are majority white. I'm in the middle of Wisconsin which is, you guessed it, majority white. This means that my campus has a few African-American students, a few Hmong students, and a few Indian students(Native American, if you want to be PC). The rest of them are white. And it's not a big deal. We even have a Multicultural Club. Being white doesn't mean that they're uninterested in other cultures or even want homogeny.
"Being white doesn't mean that they're uninterested in other cultures or even want homogeny."
@BC: I understand this. Actually, I was remarking more on the fact that the 1.5-2nd-generation mostly non-white (though one could, of course, debate that term) American students on my campus are very identifiably "American" in a rather homogenized, brand-conscious way, with interests, habits, and clothes not unlike those of the overwhelmingly-white kids in the video. If I'm remembering some of my early-20th-century history correctly, that actually may be part of an established pattern; their children (even those who marry outside of their ethnic group) may actually be more interested in and comfortable with exploring their families' ethnic heritage.
But it is also interesting for me to note, after having grown up in an almost all-white community, and still attending a mostly-white church (11 a.m. still is the most segregated hour), that a campus that is overwhelmingly white looks noticeably odd to me at this point. If I were to get a job somewhere like GVS, I'd probably feel discombobulated looking out over my first few classes (and have even more trouble than usual putting names and faces together, since at this point I'm no better at telling white people than those of other races/ethnicities apart, and having a wider range of phenotypes in the classroom does help with the process).
Not bad. Catchy and cheerful and it looks like they're having fun. I liked Cal's dog better, though (it was clear the he(?) was *really* having fun. It helps to have a little stubby tail to wag furiously).
ReplyDeleteBig Grand Valley State ads were all over the Chronicle and other job-ad locales for several years while I was on the market. I can see why; from the style of the buildings and the proliferation of recently-planted trees, it looks like a place that has recently experienced considerable growth -- not too different from the place I ended up, actually. But boy oh boy does GVS look, at least by comparison, lily white. Okay, there was a majority black gospel choir (?) about halfway through, and a display of a dozen or so national flags a bit later, but other than that, the student body looked very, very ethnically homogeneous. I didn't realize such places still existed. On the other hand, the clothes, activities, etc. didn't look so different from what I'm used to (give or take a hijab). I'm not sure whether that is evidence that American culture has been influenced by many others, or that the melting pot continues to be a more apt metaphor than many who would prefer a salad bowl or other less homogenizing alternatives want to admit.
I loved this. [I loved Styx as a kid.]
ReplyDeleteCC, Allendale Michigan is 93% white. There are LOTS of places that are majority white. I'm in the middle of Wisconsin which is, you guessed it, majority white. This means that my campus has a few African-American students, a few Hmong students, and a few Indian students(Native American, if you want to be PC). The rest of them are white. And it's not a big deal. We even have a Multicultural Club. Being white doesn't mean that they're uninterested in other cultures or even want homogeny.
"Being white doesn't mean that they're uninterested in other cultures or even want homogeny."
ReplyDelete@BC: I understand this. Actually, I was remarking more on the fact that the 1.5-2nd-generation mostly non-white (though one could, of course, debate that term) American students on my campus are very identifiably "American" in a rather homogenized, brand-conscious way, with interests, habits, and clothes not unlike those of the overwhelmingly-white kids in the video. If I'm remembering some of my early-20th-century history correctly, that actually may be part of an established pattern; their children (even those who marry outside of their ethnic group) may actually be more interested in and comfortable with exploring their families' ethnic heritage.
But it is also interesting for me to note, after having grown up in an almost all-white community, and still attending a mostly-white church (11 a.m. still is the most segregated hour), that a campus that is overwhelmingly white looks noticeably odd to me at this point. If I were to get a job somewhere like GVS, I'd probably feel discombobulated looking out over my first few classes (and have even more trouble than usual putting names and faces together, since at this point I'm no better at telling white people than those of other races/ethnicities apart, and having a wider range of phenotypes in the classroom does help with the process).