By Kannyu B. Leevit
Seeking to expand UNC-Chapel Hill’s worldwide reputation as the leading public university in America, a group of faculty members have proposed a new minor that they say would greatly enhance cultural awareness – Yankee/ette Studies.
The new minor was discussed in a Curriculum Committee meeting yesterday, where it aroused some controversy. Still, Professor Arthur E. Wormet, spokesman for the group advocating the new minor, was optimistic that it would be adopted. “North Carolina is experiencing a great in-migration of northerners, known as Yankees and Yankeettes. Their numbers are so great that it reminds you of a locust plague. Why, cities like Hartford, Buffalo and Cleveland are practically ghost towns because so many of their people have moved down here,” Wormet said.
Professor Sheila Sabatikal added, “How are North Carolinians ever going to be able to understand these different people unless we study their culture? We cannot just ignore Yankettes and Yankees, or treat them like The Other. If UNC’s deep and profound commitment to cultural diversity and awareness means anything, it demands that we give our students the opportunity to study and learn about Yankee/ette culture.”
Under the proposal offered by Professor Wormet, students would earn the minor in Yankee/ette Studies (YS) by completing at least five courses out of 19 designated as qualifying for YS credit. Several of the courses would be new, while others are already in the catalogue.
Among the new courses would be:
YS 101: Introduction to Yankee/ette Culture. This course encompasses Irish-American Studies, Swedish-American Studies, Polish-American Studies and much more, synthesizing an approach to the subject that invites investigation into the mutual influence of and transculturation between different groups of northerly-situated groups. We will employ the lens of parametric differentiation to help answer such questions as “Why is Ben and Jerry’s the right ice cream to buy?” “Why are bagels different from doughnuts?” and “Why is North Dakota above South Dakota?”
YS 215: Yankette/ee Speech. This course, employing the tools of linguistic phenomenology, will investigate the meanings, both apparent and hidden, of Yankee/ette locutions such as “blizzard” and “icicle.” Time will also be devoted to analysis of the cultural significance of the failure of Yankees/ettes to develop the term “y’all.”
YS 419: Music as Culture, a History of Yankee/ette Music. This course will focus on music in the framework of its social, political, economic, and cultural contexts. Topics to be covered will include class and gender discrimination in the polka, Liberace as a victim of intolerance, and the role of the accordion in McCarthyism.
Existing UNC courses that would qualify for YS credit include Anthropology 391 (American Driving Customs, with emphasis on the understanding that Yankee/ettes are not rude, but merely “differently polite”), History 262 (Yankee/ette Colonial Experience, examining such questions as “Was Yankee exploitation of women, Native Americans, and animals all that much better than slavery?”) and English 344 (Speciesism, Ableism and Crypto-fascism in the novels of New England Writers of the 19th Century).
Professor Wormet, whose book Deconstructing the Stitches: The Hidden Meaning of Quilts Produced in 17th Century Connecticut was recently published by University of North Carolina Press, offered a grand view of the future once the new minor is approved. “It will usher in a new era of understanding between Tarheels and Yankees/ettes. And if we can get the administration to see the great value in the program, it could later become a major. In fact, I look forward to the day when there will be a doctoral program in Yankee/ette Studies.”
Students who were asked their opinions of the new minor were much in favor of it. Said Sophomore Allison Gritzmacher, “I have relatives who live up in one of those way northern states – New Hamster, I think – and if I took the Yankee/ette Studies minor, it could really help me to relate to them on a far deeper level.”
Her sentiments were echoed by Junior Craig Olderman, who said, “I think UNC students ought to have to take all these minors in cultural studies so they can eliminate all prejudices and misunderstandings with the people they might come in contact with. I’d kinda like a course in Tahitian culture. That ought to be put into the curriculum, too.”
Some faculty members, however, were not so enthusiastic about the proposed Yankee/ette Studies minor. Professor Ruthenia Goodley-Baddley, Dean of the School of Women’s Studies, said, “This is a terrible idea. Why, Yankees/ettes are not an oppressed minority. Approval of this minor would send the wrong message.” Getting into her BMW 745, she added, “Besides, it would divert a lot of money into a program of questionable academic value.”