KEY POINTS:
Beauty, they say, is in the eye of the beholder. If so, maybe Associate Professor Maureen Montgomery needs to get out - and behold - a bit more.
The national president of the Association of University Staff, she last week condemned as "banal" an article on the Massey University website about a graduate, Rhonda Grant, who had finished third in the Miss Universe New Zealand beauty contest.
The article certainly won't be winning a Pulitzer Prize any time soon, but it is not notably different in style from the other news pieces on the site. What seems likely that Montgomery, who remarks students are "taught to critique [beauty contest images] in terms of their representational function", took exception not to the style but to the fact that Grant's achievement was recognised at all.
The professor's snarky comments about Massey's "ability to train beauty-pageant contestants" were out of line. Grant, a nutritionist who promotes healthy lifestyles to schools, is a great advertisement for her trade. Good luck to her.
Beauty contests may be anathema to Montgomery who co-ordinates gender studies at Canterbury, but a university is entitled to celebrate the achievements of its alumni without this kind of hectoring.
