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Now that the advertising years of plenty have given way to famine, media executives give the lowdown on renegotiating deals, the resurgence of one-to-one relationships, and the need to prove relevance to a cynical market.

Lorne Manly: There seems to be a hope, almost a deeply held belief, that fourth quarter budgets are going to loosen up and things are going to get better for the magazine world. Is that wishful thinking?

Paula Brooks: I think there will be some fourth quarter money, but probably not as much as we’ve seen in the nine quarters of madness we’ve come out of. What we’re seeing with our clients is that they are approving things slowly–but they are approving. I don’t think it’s wishful thinking at this point, but cautious optimism.

Michael Clinton: I agree. Advertisers are more cautious, a little more close to the vest. We’re seeing that aggressive marketers are optimistic about the fourth quarter. The aggressive, smart marketers are methodically building a very strong offensive position to grab share, grab real estate positions, to strengthen their positions at the retail level. There is a lot of shrewd maneuvering to strengthen one’s relative position.

Manly: What form does that shrewd maneuvering take? Are you seeing increased budgets?

Clinton: Yes.

Brooks: We’re renegotiating packages to get more pages. If we negotiated the whole thing at a time when magazines weren’t as flexible as they might be now, we’re renegotiating lower rates and better positioning–but for more pages. We’re ripping up the last few years, starting from scratch, and doing more business–but negotiating a better deal.

Lawrence Burstein: Maybe the fourth quarter is about managing expectations. People are hoping the fourth quarter will wipe away the difficulties of the first two quarters. That’s because the fourth quarter is always better than the first three, no matter what. The fourth quarter is always going to be more buoyant, but I don’t think it will replace what’s been diminished.

Brooks: Some companies are being run by people who have never lived through a recession in advertising or in the economy. We’ve been through a recession. Maybe those people don’t realize that we’ve lived through this before and we can live through this again.

Clinton: Both on the buying side and the selling side, it’s a different environment. I read something in The Wall Street Journal the other day that said there are more than 16 million sellers in America and more than half of them never sold in soft times. Many of the sellers in the media world, if they’re 10 years out of school, have never had to sell in a tough environment. And many of the buyers who have never bought outside of flush times also have not been able to adjust. You can’t buy the same way you bought when times were flush, arid you can’t sell the same way.

Burstein: I had a sales manager once who said to me, “Everybody’s a big shot when the business is rolling in, but the real test comes when it’s not.” So this is the point where clients and sellers are being tested. Clients have to renegotiate to get better deals for themselves, and sellers have to be more clever.

Manly: If there’s so much inexperience out there, how are people feeling their way?

Clinton: Fortunately, there’s a lot of experience around–experienced people who are running businesses and who have been through downturns. But it’s incumbent upon management to go back and remember what that was like. Think about how you managed through it and teach and train and give younger people that dimension of their inexperience.

Manly: Some categories seem not to have been hit that badly–apparel, food, drugs, they’re all up, according to the latest PIB data. But computer, tech and media are down. Why do you think some of these other categories are up and haven’t been that affected?

Clinton: You gotta eat.

Brooks: [Category performance depends on] purchase cycles. [The food or toiletries categories have] a mini purchase cycle, a five-day purchase cycle versus a three-year purchase cycle for an automobile.

Manly: Is automotive bouncing back?

Clinton: It depends on the automotive company. Overall, the category is certainly a huge spender and continues to be a big spender in print. It’s like anything, any cycle. Some companies are spending more and some are spending less.

Burstein: There seems to be a lot of activity in the luxury market.

Manly: You’d think the luxury market would be down even more so, but it isn’t. Why?

Clinton: Part of it is a lot more product in production at different price points. Ten years ago, an automotive luxury market had two or three entries into the consumer marketplace, and they were all high-priced. Today the luxury marketers are very stratified in their pricing and their offerings.

Manly: Discounting. Are we seeing that pick up now? Are advertisers putting more pressure to cut rates?

Brooks: I think it’s just as prevalent with the publishing companies that always did it, but it might have cranked up a little bit. And it’s not with companies that never did it. They’ll make up for it in other ways–better added value, more added value.

Basic Health publications has issued additional user’s guides to those already reviewed (TLfDP Dec. 2002, P. 126) on specific subjects of interest to all who are concerned about health and fitness. The series is edited by Jack Challem, a respected writer in the field, and editor of The Nutrition Reporter, a monthly newsletter of abstracts from medical journals about vitamin and mineral therapies. Challem has selected qualified writers, experts in specific subjects, to produce user’s guides that are reliable, clearly written, referenced, and indexed. Each book in the series runs to about 90 pages, in quality paperback, at $5.95 in US; $9.50 in Canada. Basic Health Publications, Inc. 8200 Boulevard East, North Bergen, New Jersey 07047 USA. Each book is 3-3/4″ wide and 8-1/2″ high — a size that permits the book to be slipped easily into a woman’s purse or into the inside pocket of a man’s jacket. For those of us who always carry reading matter, these books will be used while waiting for a dental or medical appo intment, at a garage where a car is being serviced, or while waiting to board a bus or plane.

User’s Guide to Ginkgo Biloba by Hyla Cass, MD and Jim English describes how this plant, used for centuries in Asia, can improve memory, help the cardiovascular system, eyes, and ears. Researchers who have studied the active ingredients of the ginkgo leaf discovered a number of compounds in it that are completely unique to the ginkgo, medicinally beneficial, and not found in other plants. Dr. Cass combines medicine and psychiatry in her clinical practice. Her previous books include St. John’s Wort: Natare’s Blues Buster, and Kava: Nature’s Answer to Stress, Anxiety & Insomnia. Jim English writes about vitamins and minerals.

User’s Guide to Saw Palmetto & Men’s Health by Michael Janson, MD, offers information about reducing the risk of prostate disease. Supported by extensive research, the herb saw palmetto has been shown to prevent, and in many cases, reverse prostate disease. The author suggests guidelines for buying and using proper dosages of saw palmetto. He suggests seeking a standardized extract, that contains specific amounts of active components, based on the current state of research. Dr. Janson is a member of the American Collage of Nutrition and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

User’s Guide to Women’s Health Supplements, by Laurel Vukovic, MSW focuses on specific issues of menstrual cramps, premenstrual syndrome, cervical dysplasia, uterine fibroids, pregnancy, menopause, osteoporosis, heart disease, and cancer. The author suggests vitamins, minerals, herbal remedies, medicinal foods, and dietary changes that can help women adjust to the changes that occur in their bodies over the years. Laurel Vukovic, MSW has practiced psychotherapy and herbalism for more than two decades, She has written Herbal Healing Secrets for Women and Journal of Desire. She contributes to Natural Health Magazine.

User’s Guide to Sports Nutrients by Dave Tuttle, discusses how to build strength, stamina, and muscles. Body builders and other athletes commonly use natural performance-enhancing nutrients. These nutrients, used correctly help build muscle and strength. Tuttle describes the best of these nutritional supplements, and tells how to use them safely and effectively. Dave Tuttle is a body builder who has competed professionally He contributes regularly to Let’s Live, Physical, and other magazines devoted to health.

User’s Guide to Calcium & Magnesium by Nan Kathryn Fuchs, PhD discusses what is needed to know about how these two important minerals help build and maintain strong bones. Calcium does not work alone, in order to perform various functions. It requires co-factors of magnesium and phosphorus, along with vitamins A, B6, C, D, and E. The author discusses how to get enough of these nutrients, and the best forms for absorption. Nan Kathyrn Fuchs, PhD is a nutritionist in private practice. She is also a health educator. Her books include The Nutrition Detective, Overcoming the Legacy of Overeating, and The Giant Book of Women’s Health Secrets. She also edits the Women’s Health Letter, a popular newsletter.

I read your Sex News column in April, and I think your failure to report my recent conquests is a grave oversight. Please correct this matter in your next issue.

We’re sorry, you’re right. We did hear accounts of rampant bestiality in your area, but since we’re only concerned with bringing to light sexual issues that won’t enrage PETA, we thought it better left unsaid. You should too.

If you’d asked me years ago what it would be like editing a magazine celebrating its 500th issue, I might have answered: “I can’t imagine me editing a magazine that old!”

But you know what? Now that we’re here, 500 doesn’t seem so old after all. It’s more like we’re entering vigorous middle age: we’ve been around for enough years to have a perspective on our sport and the issues impacting it, but we’re still young, vigorous and feisty as ever.

Swimming World has always been the magazine of record in the sport of swimming. Indeed, The New York Times dubbed us the “Bible” of the sport, an appellation that has never been challenged. Over the years we’ve chronicled both the personalities in our sport, from age groupers to the superstars, as well as its major events.

We’ve always been ahead of the wave, spotting trends before anyone else, picking the stars of the future. If you’d subscribed to Swimming World back in the 1960s, for example, you could have read about 10 and unders Mark Spitz and Debbie Meyer, or 12 year-old Donna deVarona. If you’d subscribed in 1996, you’d have read a story predicting great things for two young Australian lads-one 13, the other 14-long before most swim-crazy Aussies had even heard of Ian Thorpe and Grant Hackett.

We’ve also published groundbreaking articles on technique, from the early studies by Doc Counsilman in the 1960s to recent insightful analyses of the “new Australian crawl.”

But what has distinguished Swimming World not only from all other swimming magazines over the years, but also from all other sports magazines, has been that we have always been an outspoken advocate for our sport.

* Way back in the ’60s-long before Title IX-we were advocating equality for female swimmers, arguing that women’s high school and collegiate swimming should become a reality.

* More recently, we blew the whistle on the Chinese when no one else, save a few intrepid coaches, were willing even to whisper that the Chinese were engaged in widespread doping. And we stayed the course amidst a deafening silence until events proved us right.

* We called it right on the Michelle Smith-DeBruin case, explaining long before she tampered with a urine sample and tested positive for andro, why her performances were suspect.

* We were the first publication in the world to print files from the East German Secret Police proving that all world-class East German swimmers were systematically doped. And we took the position-against opposition from U.S. Swimming, the USOC and the IOC-that athletes victimized by the GDR’s state-sponsored cheating, symbolized by Shirley Babashoff, should be recognized for their achievements in the 1970s and ’80s.

* Today, we are leading the fight to save men’s collegiate swimming, which is threatened by the cynical misuse of Title IX and by university athletic directors more interested in their “revenue sports” (the vast majority of which actually lose money) and the bottom line, than their supposed roles as educators of student-athletes.

In the world of big-time college athletics, academic reform is now a mandate. Why? Because the National Collegiate Athletic Association says so. And what the NCAA says for its member institutions goes. The same is true for smaller, less profitable programs and schools. But with less money, small schools, including most historically Black colleges and universities, have fewer resources to allocate to the NCAA’s academic reform goals.

Recent sanctions and scholarship losses at some HBCUs have led to questions about the disproportionate impact of academic reform on current and future student-athletes at those schools. Because of the historical mission of HBCUs–educating Black students when no other schools would–some experts have suggested that the NCAA allow for exemptions, protecting HBCUs and other minority learning institutions from unequal punishment under the new rules.

The NCAA is the umbrella organization that governs almost all intercollegiate sporting events in the nation, ensuring standardized rules enforcement and fair play, among other things. With the exception of college football’s postseason bowl games, the NCAA controls the championship games of every collegiate sport, including the immensely lucrative men’s basketball tournament. In 2005-2006, the NCAA’s budgeted revenue exceeded $521 million. But part of their mission is making sure the student-athletes who bring in all that money are actually getting their money’s worth, both academically and athletically.

Before the passage of Proposition 48 in 1983, coaches and athletic administrators seemingly had carte blanche to exploit top athletes. The “student-athlete” designation was, and to some degree still is in many cases, a misnomer, as colleges regularly recruited prized athletes who had no real hope of succeeding in the classroom. As long as the programs were winning, it didn’t matter to many athletic departments that the students were not going to class or graduating. Proposition 48 changed the landscape by adopting eligibility requirements and tracking graduation and retention rates for the athletes. Although “Prop 48″ has dramatically changed the nature of intercollegiate athletics, compliance problems still persist. At many big-name institutions, little advancement has been made in the graduation rates of Black and low-income student-athletes. Men’s basketball programs like the University of Nevada-Las Vegas Runnin’ Rebels in the 1990s and the University of Cincinnati Bearcats this decade became notorious for recruiting–but rarely graduating–topflight players, most of them Black. Many schools circumvented Prop 48 guidelines by offering majors like “Turf Management” and “Recreational and Leisure studies.” Courses in some programs are actually taught by assistant coaches. Three years ago, the University of Georgia suspended men’s basketball coach Jim Harrick and fired his son, Jim Harrick Jr., in part because the younger Harrick, then an assistant coach, taught a class to three players. All three of the players received As, even though none ever attended the class. The senior Harrick resigned amidst an NCAA investigation.

“There are a number of major colleges that have historically done nothing more than take in these athletes for the express purpose of excellence in the athletic program, with little regard for what happens to them afterward,” says sportscaster James “JB” Brown, the new host of CBS’s NFL pre-game show, “The NFL Today.” Brown played collegiate basketball at Harvard University and has signed on as a play-by-play announcer for CBS’s college basketball coverage.

To combat the problems that still plagued the league, the NCAA instituted landmark academic reform measures in 2004. The new rules, to be implemented over three years, are aimed at improving academic progress, retention and graduation rates for member institutions. The new system introduced the Academic Progress Rate (APR), a real-time measurement of how student-athletes are faring in the classroom. This year’s minimum APR score was 925 out of 1000. Teams failing below that number face sanctions, including lost scholarships or exclusion from postseason play. The first APR report, published last month, listed 99 teams at 65 colleges that will lose scholarships (see Diverse, March 23).

The new plan was adopted unanimously by all Division I member institutions, including HBCUs such as Prairie View A&M University, which could be penalized eight scholarships because of sub-standard APRs in five sports (baseball, football, men’s basketball, men’s golf and men’s indoor track). The APR tracks retention and eligibility rather than graduation rates, awarding each player four points per academic year–one point per semester for being on scholarship and one point per semester for being academically eligible.

Charles McClelland, athletic director at Prairie View, says the university’s overall graduation rate of 60 percent is the third highest among public institutions in Texas. But the university was penalized for scholarships the administration awarded to some student-athletes. McClelland says the university now has a better understanding of what goes into the APR and has added an additional academic counselor to look specifically at the new guidelines. It is not unusual for students at many HBCUs to leave school and work for a semester before re-enrolling, which led to some of the problems at Prairie View.

As a cross-cultural universal, sports are frequently examined by anthropologists in terms of how sporting behavior embodies and expresses the cultural logic of societal norms and expectations. In contemporary Western society, sports are often premised on cultural precepts of “fair play” expressed through gaming rules that ostensibly control factors that allow for the expression and comparison of competing skills. We examine the behavior of men’s college basketball referees as choreographers of staged fair play and suspense versus objective enforcers of rules. To this end, we test the hypothesis that when games are televised on national television, referees in men’s Division I college basketball call a disproportionate number of fouls against teams that are ahead in the score of their respective games, resulting in more competitive games which maintain an edge of suspense for viewers. We suspect this to be true even though trailing teams typically exhibit more aggressive play to remain competitive or get back in the game. We observed the behavior of referees involved in a total of 2,441 foul call events in 67 randomly selected Division I college basketball games during the 2000 basketball season. Results demonstrate that college basketball referees call a significantly higher number of fouls against a team that is leading a game when the game is televised on national television. This pattern does not hold when games are televised regionally. We suspect that “fair play” behavior on the part of referees helps promote dramatic suspense to attract and maintain television viewers.

On March 11, 2000, the University of Connecticut men’s basketball team played St. John’s University for the Big East Tournament Championship before a nationally televised ESPN audience at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The second half of the game begins with 20th ranked St. John’s leading 22nd ranked Connecticutby nine points. The first six fouls of the second half include two offensive charges, two defensive fouls, and two loose ball fouls, all of which are charged to St. John’s, who starts the half with a nine-point lead. In fact, no fouls are called against Connecticut until a full seven and a half minutes into the second half, despite the fact that they are the aggressors seeking to get back in the game. Moreover, St. John’s is clearly outplaying Connecticut.

On January 11, 2000, an early season Atlantic 10 Conference match-up sees Xavier visit Dayton before another nationally televised ESPN audience. In a four-minute stretch in the middle of the first half, Dayton goes on an 11-4 scoring run that clearly tips the competitive balance in its favor. However, in less than a minute of play following this 11-4 run the referees call three straight defensive fouls against Dayton, muting their advantage and allowing Xavier to remain in the game.

Are officials keeping these games close by calling a disproportionate number of calls against the leading team? If so, how might it relate to the social and economic circumstances within which college basketball is played in the United States? In addition to considering these questions, we discuss the cultural logic associated with refereeing, college basketball, and its socioeconomic character that reflects a more general American cultural notion of “fair play.” Rules and circumstances that encourage fair play allow Americans ostensibly to interpret achievements in career success, economic prosperity, fame, and sports stardom as a byproduct of individual achievement based on skill and hard work. Americans are somewhat aware that class and other factors, such as ethnicity, gender, and age, create or impede economic opportunities. Consequently, they prize arenas where rules of fair play are assumed to be empirically present to objectively discern, observe, and admire true individual mental and physical achievement.

In this paper, we discuss the cultural notion of fair play and its relationship to the reality of the American sport of college basketball. Specifically, we examine the behavior of men’s college basketball referees as choreographers of fair play versus objective enforcers of officiating rules. To this end, we test the hypothesis that when games are nationally televised, referees in men’s Division I college basketball call a disproportionate number of fouls against teams that are ahead in the score to keep games “fair” and maintain an edge of suspense for viewers. We suggest that the commercialization of college basketball into a multibillion dollar industry could be creating an atmosphere in which “fair play” means encouraging closely competitive games that are suspenseful for television viewers rather than creating objectively equitable conditions where individual and team skills are comparatively displayed.

“Fair Play,” Anthropology, and Sports Research

In “The Common Denominator of Cultures,” George Peter Murdock (1945) provided a list of universal traits found in every culture. Athletic sports were among the 70 or so cultural traits he found in all known cultures. Sports continue to be a subject of sporadic anthropological attention, perhaps tempered by the view that sports are of lesser value when compared with pressing social, economic, and political issues, particularly in applied anthropology (see Dyck 2000). Nonetheless, anthropologists have contributed to a range of sports inquiry along with historians, scholars of popular culture and American studies, sports sociologists, journalists, communication studies scholars, not to mention a constant stream of popular books by former athletes or sports industry professionals. The cultural importance of sports in the United States is evident from daily conversations on buses and street corners, the millions of weekend spectators of multibillion dollar sporting spectacles, and the constantly fomenting debate about the place of sports in institutions of higher learning.

In May of 2003, Wal-Mart elected to cease the sale of three popular magazines–Maxim, Stuff, and FHM: For Him Magazine. In justifying this decision, they cited customer complaints about the magazines’ depictions of scantily clad women on their covers (Carr & Hays, 2003). By banning these three titles, they effectively banned an entire genre of magazines, one that is relatively new to the United States–the lad magazine. Targeted at young men, these magazines are known for being “salacious but not pornographic” and for their “bawdy” humor (Carr, 2003). Given the popularity of the magazines in this new genre, as well as their overtly sexual content, it is possible, even likely, that they may play a role in teaching their young male readers about sex. In the present study, content analysis was used to explore what is being taught.

Current theories of sexuality emphasize that sexual behavior is, to a large extent, learned (Conrad & Milburn, 2001; DeBlasio & Benda, 1990; DeLameter, 1987; Levant, 1997). Although certain aspects of sexuality are physiological, the question of what is considered arousing, what behaviors and which partners are appropriate, when and in what contexts sexual behaviors can be carried out, and what are the emotional, social, and psychological meanings of these various factors are must be learned.
The answers to the questions about sex posed above often differ based on one’s gender. Numerous scholars have observed these differences, which seem to emphasize different roles and priorities for men and women in sexual encounters. Men are generally expected to be assertive seekers of sex and to value sexual frequency and variety; women, on the other hand, are expected to be sexual gatekeepers, recipients of men’s attention, and to value sex only as part of committed romantic relationships, if then (DeLameter, 1987; Fine, 1988; Holland, Ramanzanoglu, Sharpe, & Thomson, 2000; Levant, 1997; Phillips, 2000). Empirical evidence indicates that these expectations are often realized, as differences between men’s and women’s sexual behaviors, attitudes, and reactions to sexual stimuli, where observed, tend to be consistent with stereotypical expectations (Andersen, Cyranowski, & Espindle, 1999; Aubrey, Harrison, Kramer, & Yellin, 2003; Baumeister, Catanese, & Vohs, 2001; DeLameter, 1987; Schmitt et al., 2003). Men in general seem to hold more permissive attitudes toward sex, to desire a greater variety of sexual partners and behaviors, and to seek sexual sensations more frequently than women do.

In addition to information about gender roles, values, and so forth, there is a wide array of factual information pertaining to sex that can have important consequences; this includes topics such as possible unwanted consequences of sex, the prevention of such consequences, sexual disorders such as erectile dysfunction or vaginitis, the prevention and treatment of such disorders, and so on. That such information is vital is reflected in the facts that over one-third of adult women in the United States have a limited or incorrect understanding of how STDs can be contracted and that one in five adults in the United States have genital herpes (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2003).

Young people recognize their need to learn about sex. One national survey of a representative sample of young people ages 15-29 found that sexual health was the primary health topic of concern and interest among that population; 77% of the young people in the sample expressed an interest in receiving more information about sexual health (Kaiser Family Foundation, Hoff, Greene, & Davis, 2003). Further, this and other studies have demonstrated that adolescents and young adults are able to name the sexual topics about which they need to be informed–they want to know more about specific sexual health topics, including symptoms, testing, and treatment of STDs, about how to use condoms correctly, about how sex and personal empowerment and happiness fit together, and about how to communicate with partners about sensitive sexual issues (Kaiser Family Foundation et al., 2003; Treise & Gotthoffer, 2002).

READING AS A SOURCE OF INFORMATION ABOUT SEX

Adolescents and young adults receive information about sex from a number of sources; parents, peers, churches, media sources, and schools all make a contribution. When adolescents or young adults are asked to indicate their first or predominant source of information about sex, many cite peers or friends (Andre, Dietsch, & Cheng, 1991; Andre, Frevert, & Schuchmann, 1989; Ballard & Morris, 1998; Kaiser Family Foundation et al., 2003). Other research, drawn from diverse samples and conducted over many years, suggests that for most topics related to sex, however, independent reading is a more important source of information than parents, peers, or schools (Andre et al., 1991; Andre et al., 1989; Bradner, Ku, & Lindberg, 2000; Spanier, 1977). Further, these same studies suggest that this is true for both men and women, and for the sexually experienced as well as the less experienced.

Fairfield University joins schools like St. John’s, University of Massachusetts, and Howard University that have eliminated sports programs because of budget issues. With the costs of maintaining hockey and football programs escalating, the state of Connecticut considering drastic cuts in aid programs for Connecticut college students, and the uncertainty in the national economy, Fairfield decided to eliminate hockey and football beginning with the 2003-2004 academic year. The elimination of both programs will result in annual savings of approximately $570,000, not including athletic grants-in-aid. The funds will be reallocated to support the university’s student financial aid program.

Fairfield University President Aloysius P. Kelley called the decision a difficult one, yet necessary not only to strengthen the financial aid program but to maintain the quality of the remaining 19 varsity programs. (It currently costs the school approximately $7 million to run all of its sports teams.) The university ranks the importance of its sports in a tier format: Hockey and football are tier three and four, while men’s and women’s basketball are tier one. The university made a commitment six years ago to strengthen its athletic programs by providing more support for personnel, operations, and grants-in-aid budgets. The schools also provided capital funds for construction of the Walsh Athletic Center, University Field, Lessing Field, and the University Softball Diamond.

Recently, the first of a series of seminars geared to the homebuyer/ homeowner was given at the Cross Island YMCA.

Conceived and created by the Bellerose office of Century 21Laffey Associates Fine Homes & Estates, each seminar will cover different segments of the homeowner community.

The first of the series was a general seminar for anyone who owns a home or is interested in purchasing one. “I believe that housing issues are important to people of all ages and income,” said Kathy Gibbons, a lifelong Bellerose resident and manager of the Bellerose office of Laffey Associates. “All Americans aspire to safe and decent housing, and I want to give people the information needed to help with all of their housing questions.”

Featured speakers included Joseph DeVito, a real estate attorney, James Ash, Partner in Marcum Kliegman, LLP, and Irina Pashinsky, Senior Loan Officer, First Allied Mortgage.

The purpose of this constructivist inquiry was to explore the impact of socially prescribed gender roles on college men’s identity development. Ten White, traditionally-aged students were interviewed and data from the interviews were analyzed using hermeneutic phenomenology. Students discussed communication restrictions associated with scripted gender roles, fear of femininity, feelings of being overly challenged, and a sense of confusion about masculinity.

Gilligan’s (1982) landmark self-in-relation theory of women’s development inspired important challenges to traditional views of human development and led to the reevaluation of many of the theories that undergird the practice of student development. Student affairs scholars and practitioners no longer rely solely on theories that have been constructed primarily by and about men. Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, & Tarule (1986), for example, developed a conceptual framework that helped student affairs practitioners better understand women’s cognitive development. Josselson’s (1987, 1996) and Jones’s (1997) investigations allow student affairs professionals to hear women’s voices in the context of identity development. The findings in these studies demonstrate the need for student affairs practitioners to become familiar with the ways that gender affects

Although researchers have begun to investigate how gender affects women’s identity development, there has been relatively little written about such impact on the psychosocial development of college men. One reason for this lack of research may be based on a faulty assumption that most traditional scholarship regarding human development has already been about men. At first glance, this assumption seems obvious and well-founded. After all, Gilligan (1982) and others have convincingly argued that developmental research has too often viewed the male sex as representative of humanity. However, as Meth and Pasick (1990) point out, although psychological writing has been androcentric, it has also been gender blind [and] it has assumed a male perspective but has not really explored what it means to be a man any more than what it means to be a woman. (vii)

Researchers need, therefore, to more closely examine the development of men through the lenses of gender.

Researchers’ understanding of identity formation is commonly attributed to Erikson’s (1968) developmental theory. According to Erikson, individuals gain a sense of who they are by confronting a universal sequence of challenges or crises (e.g., trust, intimacy, etc.) throughout their lives. Marcia (1966) operationalized Erikson’s original theory and similarly suggested that identity formation is the most important goal of adolescence. Marcia viewed identity development as a process of experiencing a series of crises with one’s ascribed childhood identity and subsequently emerging with new commitments. That is, as individuals consider new ideas that are in conflict with earlier conceptions, they weigh possibilities, potentially experiment with alternatives, and eventually choose commitments that become the core of a newly wrought identity. Those successfully transcending crises and making commitments are said to have an achieved identity. Individuals avoiding the process altogether, neither experiencing crises nor making commitments, are in a state of identity diffusion. Individuals may also be somewhere between these two possibilities by either simply maintaining a parentally derived ideology (foreclosed) or by actively experimenting with and resolving identityrelated questions prior to commitment (moratorium).

Josselson’s longitudinal research (1987, 1996), based upon Marcia’s framework, investigated women’s identity development. Josselson (1987) categorized participants into all four identity statuses and found that women

internalize the central priorities of their mothers as the issues to feel the same or different about. As college-age, late adolescents, these women judge their distance from their families by whether and how much they carry on family religious traditions, whom they choose as friends, what sexual values they adopt, how they dress, whether and when and whom they plan to marry. These were the central points of negotiation in the separation-individuation drama. (p. 172)

For the women in her study, relationships with primary family, partners, children, and friends were what Josselson (1987) called key “anchors” (p. 176) that mediated making new commitments.

Whereas Marcia (1966) found decisions involving occupational choice, religious beliefs, and political ideology to be predictive of overall identity statuses, especially with men, Josselson (1987) and Schenkel and Marcia (1972) each found that crises and commitments in the areas of religion and sexual values to be more indicative of women’s identity statuses.

Recent models of identity development have gone beyond these more epigenetic conceptualizations, with their emphasis on cognitive processes of development, to increasingly focus on the dynamic interaction between individuals and the social systems in which they function. Chickering and Reisser (1993), for example, in an update of Chickering’s (1969) work, added a section to the establishing identity chapter entitled “sense of self in a social, historical, and cultural context” (p. 181). In addition, Josselson (1996) recently suggested that identity is “not just a private, individual matter . . . [but] a complex negotiation between the person and society” (p. 31). Similarly, D’Augelli (1994) conceived identity as “the dynamic processes by which an individual emerges from many social exchanges experienced in different contexts over an extended historical period” (p. 324). The construction of identity also depends, therefore, on the cultural, social, and political context in which these processes occur. A recent model offered by Jones and McEwen (2000) reinforces this idea. In their model, sexual orientation, race, culture, class, religion, and gender are identity dimensions that circulate around one’s core identity. The salience of a particular dimension to one’s core identity depends on changing contexts that include current experiences, family background, sociocultural conditions, career decisions, and life planning. In the current investigation, we examined one of these dimensions-gender-in an attempt to understand how college men internally experience externally defined gender roles.