What could cause some of the smartest college students in the country to do such bizarre things as run naked across campus as a form of protest or ignore a chemistry final to frolic naked in a hot tub?
Playboy Magazine, of course.
The opportunity to be a featured model in Playboy's "Women of the Ivy League" October 1995 pictorial has stirred up reactions ranging from outrage to apathy throughout the Ancient Eight.
For instance, at Yale University a group of students offered to pay women selected by Playboy $600 not to pose.
But since Playboy photographers began interviewing Monday at Harvard, there has not been any protest against the magazine and "no one really cares," said junior Sarah Scrogin, The Harvard Crimson's managing editor.
Playboy has currently interviewed and photographed women at four of the Ivies -- the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia, Princeton and Yale Universities. Playboy photographers are scheduled to come to Dartmouth on May 8 and 9.
The pictorial will appear in Playboy's back-to-school issue this fall. The magazine shot its last all-Ivy pictorials in 1979 and 1986.
Sarah Johnston '97, who is leading an effort at Dartmouth to formulate an "oppositional response" to Playboy's visit, said she is not sure whether Dartmouth students want to respond as radically as other schools had.
"I'd say that some people seem to be interested in a more radical approach, but I have not heard of any solid plans yet," Johnston said.
Yale University
The reaction at Yale, where Playboy recently finished its shoot on April 7 and 8, has been the strongest --and perhaps oddest -- throughout the Ivy League.
Despite heavy protests, Playboy took photos of at least three Yale women who now have a chance to appear in the magazine.
"I know men will go out and buy the magazine and masturbate while looking at my breasts, but I will be okay with that," Yale sophomore Teresa Dahl-Bredine, who posed fully nude, told the Yale Daily News.
The two other held out on giving Playboy consent to use the photos until they found out if posing would threaten their eligibility to compete in varsity athletics under National College Athletic Association guidelines.
Under a bylaw of the NCAA codes, varsity college athletes may not appear in a publication for money, endorse products or allow their names or photographs to be used in an "implied endorsement of a product or service."
After Playboy prepared a modeling release that guarantees that Yale freshman Jennifer Groszkowski, a varsity gymnast, will not receive compensation for the shoot and will not be presented exclusively as a Yale athlete, Groszkowski gave Playboy the green light.
During Playboy's visit, about two dozen men and women dashed naked across campus to protest a photo session that the magazine set up with four Yale women, according to this week's Chronicle of Higher Education.
A group of students working through the Yale Women's Center definitely appear to have learned their economics lessons -- they organized an effort to raise funds to pay women not to pose.
Yale senior Sarah Haan and junior Susan Wetstone mailed letters to alumni to raise more than $1,000 for their anti-Playboy fund, according to the Yale Daily News.
The group circulated a flier that said, "You've invested $80,000+ in your education. Why accept $500 for your body. Is posing for Playboy really such a good deal?"
Once they offered women who were selected $600 not to pose, Playboy raised its offer to match the amount.
The Yale Women's Center this fall will also publish its own "Women of the Ivy League" magazine -- an arts and literature magazine to parody Playboy's spread of the same name -- just as a group of Yale women did the last time Playboy visited in 1986.
The group working on the magazine wrote an editorial to the Yale Daily News to justify their alternative pictorial, which aims to make room for "free expression."
Brown University
At Brown University, where Playboy will visit on April 26 and 27, students voiced their concerns about the "quintessence of female exploitation," according to the Brown Daily Herald.
Brown's Sarah Doyle Women's Center held a forum last month at which students could debate the implications of the planned shoot.
Some of the topics discussed were power relations with successful Ivy League women and how pornography relates to physical violence and eating disorders.
Robert Reichley, Brown's executive vice-president for university relations, declared the magazine would not be allowed to recruit on campus.
"Our space is to be used in keeping with our educational purposes, and this is not one of them," Reichley told the Brown Daily Herald.
A small band of students co-sponsored by the Brown International Organization and Students for Choice distributed posters and table slips with excerpts from some of Playboy's recent articles, such as one written by an evolutionary biologist in the magazine's March issue.
"It's completely natural for men to treat women as property, though this does not mean the inclination is good or beyond control," the article reads.
Although the editorial board of the Brown Daily Herald criticized Playboy, several women called the newspaper's business offices to express their dismay that the newspaper ran an advertisement for Playboy last month.
"The decision was made carefully with great consideration," Herald Editor-in-Chief Joshua Albertson, a junior at Brown, told the newspaper.
U. of Pennsylvania
Playboy's visit to Penn on March 14 and 15 was marked only by minor protests, said an editor at The Daily Pennsylvanian.
According to the newspaper, Playboy photographers conducted preliminary interviews for the first two days they were on campus.
About 78 Penn women either brought spring break photos of themselves in bathing suits or were photographed in bikinis at the interview.
Women who made the first cut were called back the next day to be photographed in both bikinis and see-through body suits. Three days later, the accepted applicants were taken to separate sites to be photographed for the issue, The Daily Pennsylvanian reported.
Playboy photographer David Chan, a 26-year veteran of the magazine, made sure the women were not allowed to meet each other, and coordinated their salaries.
The ruckus across the Ivy League is causing diligent students to do things they normally wouldn't.
When Playboy told Penn senior Susane Colasanti that she was among the small number chosen to represent her esteemed university, she had a tough choice to make.
"They said, 'We're shooting today'," Colasanti told The Daily Pennsylvanian. "I told them I had to study for a chem test. Since they had to shoot on Sunday, I didn't study for the test."
Colasanti, who was photographed naked in a hot tub, told The Daily Pennsylvanian the magazine would pay the model according to which photo they chose to use in the pictorial -- $100 if the woman is wearing clothes, $250 for a topless shot and $500 for baring it all.
Columbia, Cornell, PrincetonReaction at Columbia and Princeton -- where Playboy has already visited -- has been more subtle. Chan told the Daily Princetonian that 65 students applied from Columbia and 47 from Princeton.
The Columbia Daily Spectator did not run any stories about Playboy's visit on March 22 and 23. According to a Spectator editor, "there were a few jokes around campus ... but there weren't any outspoken groups."
The Daily Princetonian reported Playboy's visit to Princeton's campus on March 30 and 31 "passed without any controversy."
Chan said executives at Playboy's offices in Chicago will make the final decisions on which women will be selected to appear in the magazine, and he will return to campus for a final shoot, the Daily Princetonian reported.
Playboy is scheduled to appear at Cornell University on April 27 and 28.
Despite one editorial written to the Cornell Daily Sun after the newspaper reported Playboy's impending visit, there "hasn't really been any major outcry" said Cornell junior Josh Holbreich.
