ABSTRACT
In late August of 2008, just before fall classes began, Glenn Beck devoted one of his CNN programs to “Life on Campus: Problems and Solutions.” After initial introductions, Beck prepared viewers to be shocked: “Tonight, it’s going to be an hour of frank questions, frank answers. Honest, possibly a little uncomfortable. But it’s something that everybody, every parent should see. … [One of his guests, a professor] gave me … I Am Charlotte Simmons. Read that. If you’re sending your kids, especially your daughter, to college, you’ll lock her in the basement.” Most viewers probably saw through Beck’s rhetorical strategy of evoking fear about the current state of higher education in general and campus life in particular to draw an audience, but there were undoubtedly some who took what Beck presented at face value, subsequently buying into his position (emphasized throughout the program) that students on American campuses typically participate in sexually licentious behaviors on a scale rivaling that of Sodom and Gomorrah. In his zealousness to sensationalize Tom Wolfe’s I Am Charlotte Simmons , Beck exaggerated his description of the college experience and perpetuated a stereotype promoted throughout popular culture. This stereotype might provide provocative entertainment, but it sends exactly the wrong message to those unfamiliar with the collegiate experience, especially blue-collar or working-class parents who are preparing to send their sons and daughters, perhaps the first in their families to attempt a college education, to academic campuses across the country.
