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May 1990 • UGA: An Independent l ook • Page 29
While condom sales have increased
significantly in the last 10 years, with
women now accounting for 40 percent of
national sales, there is little conclusive data
on whether their use has increased, he says.
The only noticeable behavioral change seems
to be that students establish committed
relationships at an earlier stage now.
Pollack says that 65 percent of incoming
University freshmen have had sexual
intercourse, and it appears that the age at
first intercourse continues to drop. But
students are now talking more
conservatively than they are behaving.
Data collected by Ira Robinson, an
associate sociology professor, and other
researchers in an ongoing survey of the
sexual attitudes and behavior of college
students found that when asked to respond
to the statement “A man who has had sexual
intercourse with a great many women is
immoral," 26.5 percent of male respondents
agreed strongly in 1980, while 31.7 percent
agreed strongly in 1985. Among women, 38.9
percent agreed strongly in 1980 and 51.8
percent in 1985.
Responding to the statement "A woman
who has had sexual intercourse with a great
many men is immoral," 41.8 percent of 1980
male respondents strongly agreed while 51.4
percent agreed in 1985. Among female
respondents 49.6 percent agreed in 1980,
while 64.2 percent agreed in 1985.
1 his data reflects a move back toward a
double standard in sexuality which reflects
GROWTH
From page 27
serious problems," Miller says.
One downtown business that has
weathered the storms of the past decade
— the past 51 years in fact — is George
Dean's gentry store at 227 E. Clayton St.
Wavne Dean, a University graduate who
has worked with his father George for 20
years, thinks the mall has helped
downtown more than hurt it.
The mall is good for Athens," the
younger Dean says. "It's bringing a lot of
revenue to the city, but I would rather be
downtown near the University.
"If we didn't have a university across
the street, I don't know if the downtown
would survive," he says.
He brought up a more optimistic note
for downtown Athens' future. The
perennial parking problem, known all-
too-well to residents and University
students alike, should be relieved by the
construction of the 345-space parking
deck at the corner of College Avenue and
Washington Street. The deck is
scheduled to be completed in March
1991.
Another construction project that
an increasing hypocrisy in all aspects of our
society, Robinson says.
• • •
The '80s also appears to have been a
decade in which University students began
to focus less on community service and more
upon personal success.
Mary Hepburn of the University's Carl
Vinson Institute of Government says
students remain cynical about politics even
though there is no evidence of our political
system being "pervasively corrupt," she says.
"Every example they see of corruption in
government is then used to reinforce this
perception," Hepburn says.
Robinson sees the lack of community
involvement among students as indicative of
a whole society which has come to be based
upon greed."Character is not important to
our society any more, there's just winning or
losing. Students no longer choose their
majors based upon their interest in the field,
but according to how much money they will
make," he says.
Robert Ellis, professor of Sociology at the
University since 1972, agrees that students
are more concerned "with the workaday
world" they will soon enter, but he says it
reflects a return to certain "core values"
which were abandoned in the late '60s when
students rebelled agaiast the middle class.
"Many of my students tell me that they
identify strongly with President Reagan,"
Ellis says. During his presidency, Ronald
Reagan came to personify the "family values"
downtown merchants are hoping will
spruce up the Classic City is the
proposed $22 civic center in the Foundry
Street district. Construction is scheduled
to begin in February 1991 and be
completed in August 1992, despite some
tangles in the land-purchasing process.
New civic centers and parking decks
are not the best of news for everyone,
however. The Athens-Clarke Heritage
Foundation dedicates its time to the
preservation of the classic buildings and
neighborhoods of the area, which are
often swept aside to make way for
progress.
Sheila Hackney, director of the
foundation, recalls some of the victories
and defeats experienced by the
organization during the '80s.
"A triumph was the passage of the
preservation ordinance of 1986,"
Hackney says. The ordinance prevents
the demolition or alteration of buildings
designated as historic landmarks, or
building that are part of a designated
historic district.
"A defeat would be the Hull-Snelling
House not being listed as a local
landmark, nor was the district that it's
located in recognized," she says.
Residents in the '90s can expect to see
which students had come to value again, he
says.
Reagan's popularity has helped the
Republican Party make significant inroads
into the majority status that the Democratic
party has enjoyed since the 1930s, and
although more 18-to-21-year-olds still
consider themselves Democrats, the GOP
now has more support in this age bracket
than in any other demographic group.
"When this generation was becoming
politically aware of national government, it
saw failure," says political science professor
Loch Johnson in a January issue of Trends
magazine.
Today's University student grew up in the
"lap of luxury" and now enjoys expensive
cars and nice apartments, Johnson says. The
nation's economic health is the most
important factor in determining which party
people will support.
• • •
The condom-carrying, conservative-
talking students of today differ a great deal
from their 1980 counterparts. The decade
has brought a great many changes to which
the current generation has had to adapt. As
products of the Reagan era, the AIDS crisis
and the higher drinking age, they, like every
other generation, will leave the University
with their own special legacy.
David fohnston is front-page copy editor for
The Red and Black.
continued conflict between
preservationists and developers. With
the civic center and the downtown
parking deck on the way, rumors of
Athens-Clarke County unification in the
air and an ever-changing student
population, the next decade should prove
to be just as interesting as the last one.
Spratlin sums up her feelings about
the city, which are positive despite her
fears about too much progress, in this
way:
"Athens has been able to maintain a
small-town flavor while providing some
of the things you would find in a big
town," she says. "Athens is a good place
to live."
Carl Smith, manager of Barnett's
Newsstand on College Avenue and
lifetime Athens resident, has a slightly
different view of the city.
"Athens is a sort of comfortable trap,"
he says. "Sometimes you know you
should move on, but you don't.
"The more things change, the more
they stay the same," he says. "You just
get more chain stores."
Clark Hubbard is a former front-page
copy editor and news editor for The Red
and Black.