Just for the record, Elvis is dead.

Or is he?

Sightings and look-alike contests aside, the sideburned rock 'n' roller is rotting peacefully in Graceland. But Elvis Presley's effect on American popular culture will always remain, no matter how hard we try to ignore it.

At least that's what Penn State professors Patrick Trimble and Bill Kelly teach.

Both Trimble and Kelly are determined to make students aware of the meaning behind sequined polyester jumpsuits, greasy pompadours and pelvic thrusts. As part of the integrative arts department, they represent a growing trend in putting the pop into the classroom. Pop culture is now subject to multiple-choice questions.

And Elvis isn't the only deceased celebrity alive and well. Long-gone pop culture figures such as Jack Benny, Babe Ruth, Judy Garland and Bing Crosby are becoming an increasingly important part of the general education curriculum.

"Pop culture's always existed," Trimble said. "Basically, Shakespeare was popular culture."

Pop culture -- which includes television, film, popular music, comic books and architecture -- is now a priority in higher education. Giving classic figures such as Sir Isaac Newton, Christopher Columbus and Virgil a run for their money are less obvious popular influences such as bumper stickers, graffiti, window advertisements, hula-hoops, pet rocks, mood rings and theme parks that didn't exist 25 years ago.

But though the Latin motto "Ars gratia artis" ("Art for the sake of art") appears at the beginning of every MGM film, Trimble said pop culture isn't studied for its own sake, but rather for the ideologies, commentaries and social values it reflects.

"Culture is a collection of the values we share," Trimble said. "Popular culture reflects that communication, so literally anything can become popular culture."

Kelly, who teaches Arts 5 --Performing Arts and Arts 15 --Popular Peforming Arts, said the saturation of popular art on our culture floods over us.

Although most people are conditioned by this barrage of popular art, they have little idea of its effect, Kelly said.

Pop culture's influence doesn't seem as codified as formal education, but it teaches people just as much about life, said Ray Browne, chair emeritus of Bowling Green State University's popular culture department.

The courses have become so, well, popular, that every college and university now has at least one course, and 1 million students take a popular culture course every year, Browne said. Bowling Green, which boasts an independent popular culture department, offers a major, minor, master's and a Ph.D. program in popular culture.

Browne, who established the country's first popular culture department at Bowling Green in 1970, said students who major in popular culture usually follow career paths similar to those who graduate with humanities degrees.

"They are often the curious, rebellious, slightly unorthodox students," Browne said. "Sometimes it's the parents who drive them to major in popular culture."

But many students are interested in these classes because they are aware of popular culture's effects on them, and they want to take a deeper look at the things they deal with every day.

"It seemed like it would take a critical, analytic, artistic view of the things we see every day," said John Powers (junior-broadcast/cable), who is taking Arts 10 this semester.

J.D. Ostrow (freshman-business administration), who plans to take Arts 10 next semester, agreed that less obvious influences do have a great effect on how people view the world.

And with study aids such as Bowling Green's pop culture library, the University of Michigan's enormous collection of comic books and an annual National Pop Culture Association Conference held in Chicago, a degree in popular culture is starting to seem feasible.

Who knows, maybe someday there will even be class trips to Graceland.