Lander, WY – Wyoming Catholic College’s once-a-semester all-school seminar was “quite different” yesterday. Rather than having all students read some great work of literature from the Western Tradition, learning from the Great Authors who wrote the Great Books themselves, the school chose instead to have all students watch and discuss the recent blockbuster monster movie Godzilla Versus Kong. It’s not to say, of course, that nothing can be learned from film, or that deep questions can’t be raised from cinematic productions, but the choice still struck many students as “a bit odd” as one freshman put it to IIT reporters. “Here I am thinking that we’re different out here in Wyoming, that we’re not just out to follow the latest trends and gimmickry. No, we’ve gone corporate. Student Life never cares about anything more than keeping people out of the phone booth room, or how to to add more nepotism to the prefect selection process. Admissions only cares about making us look like NOLSeys, professors only care about the students who will fight their way into dominating a conversation, the OLP only cares about turning everything into rock climbing, and all-school seminars… We’ve dang gone been corporatized,” he said, finishing his rant.
School officials told IIT that the seminar discussion yesterday was “quite successful” and led to “deep discussions about the relationship between Godzilla, the representation of scientific progress, genetic engineering, and the “Modern Project” and Kong, who represents nature, evolution, and ages of ages of the past.”
“What’s so amazing, however,” said Professor Cleanut, the school’s dean, is how Godzilla also is a stand in for creationism. In the film we see creationism in the light of the modern project and evolution rather as symbolized by nature and tradition. It’s an amazing inversion of how we’d typically expect these concepts to be placed in proportion to eachother.”
Students who IIT contacted about the seminar reported mixed experiences about the overall experience, except that the “discussions were awkward, interesting, and modern all at once.”
WCC plans to double down on interesting all school seminar choices with “Hot Rod” scheduled as the topic for next semester and “Legally Blonde” for next spring.