This book explains the history behind how colleges derived their nicknames, mascots, and school colors. Gary Hudson chose to focus the attention of his book on schools that have Division 1A Football programs, because all the athletic programs at those schools will also compete in Division 1A sports. Consequently, those schools tend to get more exposure in the media, thereby drawing more attention and curiosity to the college sports fan.
Cornell University is fortunate to have as its historian a man of Morris Bishop's talents and devotion. As an accurate record and a work of art possessing form and personality, his book at once conveys the unique character of the early university—reflected in its vigorous founder, its first scholarly president, a brilliant and eccentric faculty, the hardy student body, and, sometimes unfortunately, its early architecture—and establishes Cornell's wider significance as a case history in the development of higher education. Cornell began in rebellion against the obscurantism of college education a century ago. Its record, claims the author, makes a social and cultural history of modern America. This story will undoubtedly entrance Cornellians; it will also charm a wider public. Dr. Allan Nevins, historian, wrote: "I anticipated that this book would meet the sternest tests of scholarship, insight, and literary finish. I find that it not only does this, but that it has other high merits. It shows grasp of ideas and forces. It is graphic in its presentation of character and idiosyncrasy. It lights up its story by a delightful play of humor, felicitously expressed. Its emphasis on fundamentals, without pomposity or platitude, is refreshing. Perhaps most important of all, it achieves one goal that in the history of a living university is both extremely difficult and extremely valuable: it recreates the changing atmosphere of time and place. It is written, very plainly, by a man who has known and loved Cornell and Ithaca for a long time, who has steeped himself in the traditions and spirit of the institution, and who possesses the enthusiasm and skill to convey his understanding of these intangibles to the reader." The distinct personalities of Ezra Cornell and first president Andrew Dickson White dominate the early chapters. For a vignette of the founder, see Bishop's description of "his" first buildings (Cascadilla, Morrill, McGraw, White, Sibley): "At best," he writes, "they embody the character of Ezra Cornell, grim, gray, sturdy, and economical." To the English historian, James Anthony Froude, Mr. Cornell was "the most surprising and venerable object I have seen in America." The first faculty, chosen by President White, reflected his character: "his idealism, his faith in social emancipation by education, his dislike of dogmatism, confinement, and inherited orthodoxy"; while the "romantic upstate gothic" architecture of such buildings as the President's house (now Andrew D. White Center for the Humanities), Sage Chapel, and Franklin Hall may be said to "portray the taste and Soul of Andrew Dickson White." Other memorable characters are Louis Fuertes, the beloved naturalist; his student, Hugh Troy, who once borrowed Fuertes' rhinoceros-foot wastebasket for illicit if hilarious purposes; the more noteworthy and the more eccentric among the faculty of succeeding presidential eras; and of course Napoleon, the campus dog, whose talent for hailing streetcars brought him home safely—and alone—from the Penn game. The humor in A History of Cornell is at times kindly, at times caustic, and always illuminating.
This volume offers an overview of the controversies surrounding the use of Native American mascots for sports teams over the past 40 years. It trains its attention on education to reveal the significance of the continued use of such symbols, artifacts, and identities and the efforts to combat them. A collection of primary documents and an extensive list of resources for further study are also included. Expounding the dangers and damages associated with their continued use, the editors created a guide for anyone with an interest in race relations. Sports mascots have been a tradition for decades. According to this work, once considered a benign practice, numerous studies have proved just the opposite that the use of Native American mascots in educational institutions has perpetuated a shameful history of racial insensitivity.
In this splendid book, one of America's masters of nonfiction takes us home--into Hometown, U.S.A., the town of Northampton, Massachusetts, and into the extraordinary, and the ordinary, lives that people live there. As Tracy Kidder reveals how, beneath its amiable surface, a small town is a place of startling complexity, he also explores what it takes to make a modern small city a success story. Weaving together compelling stories of individual lives, delving into a rich and varied past, moving among all the levels of Northampton's social hierarchy, Kidder reveals the sheer abundance of life contained within a town's narrow boundaries. Does the kind of small town that many Americans came from, and long for, still exist? Kidder says yes, although not quite in the form we may imagine. A book about civilization in microcosm, Home Town makes us marvel afresh at the wonder of individuality, creativity, and civic order--how a disparate group of individuals can find common cause and a code of values that transforms a place into a home. And this book makes you feel you live there.
From Simon & Schuster, The Official Cheerleader's Handbook is Rand Neil and Elaine Hart's look at the 1986 information and instruction on all things cheerleading. With a detailed history of cheerleading and the role of cheerleaders in school life, and a discussion of the basic principles for understanding sports, The Official Cheerleader's Handbook is a book worth shouting about.
Getting Real About Race is an edited collection of short essays that address the most common stereotypes and misconceptions about race held by students, and by many in the United States, in general.
A New York Times bestseller—over one million copies sold! A National Book Award winner A Boston Globe-Horn Book Award winner Bestselling author Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot. Heartbreaking, funny, and beautifully written, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which is based on the author's own experiences, coupled with poignant drawings by Ellen Forney that reflect the character's art, chronicles the contemporary adolescence of one Native American boy as he attempts to break away from the life he was destined to live. With a forward by Markus Zusak, interviews with Sherman Alexie and Ellen Forney, and black-and-white interior art throughout, this edition is perfect for fans and collectors alike.
