University Daily Kansan
Mondav. March 20.1978
5
Student governing merits care, interest
By DAVID A. AMBLER
Guest Writer
The headlines last week carried the news that the students at the University of Texas had voted overwhelmingly to abolish their student government. The news came as no great surprise, for it is just another number on the growing list of universities across the country at which students have taken such action. And there are many again of the future viability of student involvement in university governance and self-governance.
Let me state my bias at the outset. Many changes occurred in universities during the '60s that revolutionized the relationships between institutions and their students. Students were probably for good reasons. But most of them had a profound and positive effect on improving the quality of higher education. The freedom and responsibility that came with the demise of "in loc parentis" have fostered greater student involvement among strong students. A student's ability to influence decisions on academic programs and student life has enriched all of us in the academic community. Most of these gains have been accomplished through organized student activity. We should want to see these hard-won involvement diminished because of
year for services and programs they think you want. They represent students not only in Strong Hall, but also in Topeka. They work to improve everything from your academic advising to your health service to your parking lots!
THE SYSTEM is not perfect, but it has served you well. It probably needs to work harder at communicating with you, but the lion's share of that responsibility is yours as a student and a citizen. You exercise that responsibility not only with your ballot, but with your involvement in the issues and people who represent you.
apathy or the shortcoming of our present system. In short, let's not 'throw the baby out with the water.'
useful without in that percent
of Texas were abolishing their student government, Dartmouth students were reestablishing their after an eight-year absence. As in so many other aspects of the University of Kansas, we have had a long tradition of high quality in our student representatives and their organization. Perfect? No, but the "baby" is healthy and just needs your constant care and concern. Does anybody care? I do and I hope you do.
aduate of the rate and
TO BE SURE, there are troubles in the River City of student politics. The vast majority of students here and elsewhere annually elect not to vote in their student government, but instead is president of their student body. Student government and its leaders are frequently branded as "sandboxes for infant politicians" or "do-nothing" and, worse yet, "no one will vote." Student politicians frequently neglect their homework, fail to achieve their lofty campaign promises or speak without proper qualifications on complex issues of policy and governance." Student politicians, they want to vote for every appropriation and against all taxation.
I end where I began—with a note of optimism. While the students at the University
I suspect that on any campus there is an element of truth to some of these charges, but can any of us deny the temptation to use such a rule? I cannot, because of our state and national political leaders? Can the adult society boast of a better voting record than that of the student body? Are not all guilty of failing to keep ourselves informed and involved with the government? How can we from our government without increasing our commitment—or taxes—to it? And do
we not react with pious amusement when our leaders seemingly fall to reflect our best interests? It should be no shock that we occasionally have our Watergates, but it is my assessment that we usually get a better government than we deserve.
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SUCH, I think, is true with student government at the University of Kansas. In my short tenure here, I have been extremely impressed with the maturity, quality and accomplishments of the students in our leadership. We had the oppo- tunity to know three student body presidents, and each has a distinguished record of recording of a
your interests—as best they have been able to ascertain them. The same kind of knowledge of the institution can be attributed to many students. Student Senate, University committees and other governmental bodies. Unfortunately, students are often asked, "Does 'nobody care?' I hope you do."
I hope you do because what your student leaders do can make a difference in your academic life and pocketbook. Those of us involved with the University administration take them seriously and have no other alternative, they represent representatives. They do affect our thinking and decisions. Additionally, they allocate more than $400,000 of your fee money each
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David A. Ambler is vice chancellor for student affairs at the University of Kansas. He came to KU in July after serving as vice president of the college and student services at Kent State University.
Senate nonissues spark apathy
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Editorial focus on
Student Government
Faculty,students demanding little
Grades, one of the issues occupying the time of KU University Council members, pressures students in a way that is comparable to how faculty members have been forced to worry about the effects the uncertain future will have on their jobs.
Students and faculty are interested in their places in the economy. Students worry about entering the work force. Faculty members know declining enrollments over much of the country have made teaching more difficult, making them harder to keep in the future.
One does not need to be told that KU students have their expectations more firmly aligned with the status quo than they do in most other universities, preconditions of further economic constraints of the 70s in their eyes. Of course, KU is not the only campus that has endured the wrenching changes from activism to democracy. It has always been with the upheavals of almost a decade ago.
BUT STUDENT government participation has declined sharply during the past several semesters. At the past two meetings of the council, only four student members were present. Faculty participation has not declined at the same rate.
Both sides have voiced their respective concerns at meetings of the University Council, which consists of 12 student and 39 faculty members. The council introduced the idea of a grade appeals court as an outlet to protest grades thought to be unfair. Faculty have been concerned with exigency plans to provide for tenured employees enrollment drops induce teaching cutbacks.
The pyramidal structure of student government is eroding at the base. And it's being disassembled, frustrated or otherwise fervently alienated. They're uninterested. The equivocality of that adjective furnishes a clue to the underlying causes of endemic disease.
The Student Senate first petitioned the University Council earlier this semester for fair treatment of grade appeals. The spur for the petition was provided by a KU student who felt unfairly treated at grading time.
THE PETITION is symbolic. It reflects changed priorities among students. Postuniversity entry is popularly viewed in terms reminiscent of a commando parachute assault into another "real" world. The job search is not a cakewalk. Directly or indirectly, the economy and their future place in it is very much on students' minds.
Not only are the odds at a school of the immensity of KU against that view, but pure common sense also makes the idea implausible. Who may judge a professor but not a student? A student can contradict a teacher only in Socratic argument, not in judgment.
Are KU students cheated significantly by ufhair grading?
"It may be that there's no need for setting up a separate court of appeals," Chris Larson said.
THE CONCERN with grades on the part of the students is analogous to the worries of the Faculty Council, the 39-member governing assembly of the faculty.
The Faculty Council, in turn, has been concerned with avoiding possibly unpleasant legal and administrative ramifications of enrollment and economic
Student government. Some think it is a valuable student tool and effective. Others think it is a mere folly and worthless. All but the few who think it is nothing to get excited about.
trends. Enrollment figures for regional UK is in its recent enrollment increase.
But flaws appear in KU's increases. Caldwell said a survey of male freshmen grades showed that averages were the highest, while student grades students has decreased noticeably. One explanation for that decrease, that students are enrolled in fewer hours to improve their grade averages, was advanced by an emphasis on the need to correct it strengthens the view that students are worried only about the packaging of their education, not its content. Grades that are high make a former student more attractive, prevailing attitudes show.
Combined with a national forecast of declining enrollments at schools later this century, the regional picture has prodded Faculty Council members and administrators to consider revisions of financial exigencies policies.
ALTERNATIES TO unbalanced faculty repercussions because of drastic changes in enrollment include the need for a broader levels of faculty participation in hiring and firing decisions. Across-the-board salary cuts and increased alternative to widespread contract terminations.
“It’s been a pretty quiet year,” Caldwell said. “I think most everybody would agree that we should pay attention to the school’s library system and competing suggestions about what to do with ‘Uncle Jimmy’, (mere whispers concerning) demands of the 68s, the company has been like.”
On 'the students' side of future shock preparation the lack of student participation in student government has an incapable facility and problems "gelling a quorum."
A recommendation from the academic policy and program committee of the University Council on the court of appeals question is due by the end of the semester. The council also plans to consider lowering its quorum from 40 to 30 students to student attendance at meetings has not been limited to the past two monthly meetings.
Low voter turnout at the recent Student Senate elections and decreasing attendance during last year's Senate meetings have increased. The government at the University of Kansas.
The implications of the lack of popular support at University Council meetings prompt one to look for a causative change in students' consciousnesses. Although the label is philosophically, at least, a realist, students are calling themselves "realists."
It may be that student government apparatus is unwidely because of its self-mandated high levels of support, even though they are part of the increasing numbers of students on campus.
"I don't think it is good, but I don't think it is something you can change." Caldwell said.
*DOUBT that it's been five or six who has attended all the meetings.* Caldwell said.
Students are viewing their education as a commodity. Beyond aiding them to package themselves, students are demanding little from the University Council.
From the Student Senate's inception in 1969, when KU students were forcefully demanding a more effective and organized voice in University affairs, the body of representatives has perhaps moved closer to accomplishing those ideals.
At the same time, student interest has obviously waned.
ONE STUDENT who is still interested and excited about student government at KU is Reggie Robinson, student body vice president. Robinson, however, takes a more practical view of his participation than his late 1960s counterpart might have.
Although Robinson says that the Student Senate fulfills valid functions, such as providing student services and offering a vehicle for student opinion, he admits that student government is not "government in the real sense."
"You have to look at it in the big picture," he says. "You have to remember that it is trivial, although not everything about it is trivial."
Robinson says that today's students have lost the "questioning attitude" that was prevalent during the 1980s and early 1970s. Students are becoming more job-oriented, he says, and the student leaders are becoming more concerned about providing services.
"THE SENATE reflects the student body because more practical, according to Robertson."
The contemporary student does seem to be a different breed of political animal from his "radical" counterpart, but why is that? One answer might be that the issues have changed. Student unrest over the Vietnam war and civil rights has obviously diminished.
The war has ended and the cause of ensuring rights for minorities has been moved to the mainstream of American government. But in the wake of student activism has followed a political blandness that is filled with issues students care very little about.
Robinson says that one of the reasons students are largely disinterested in student government is that the students no longer want to pay attention against the University's administration.
Of course, Robinson doesn't want to see the students raving about the administration as they did in the '60s and '70s. Student leaders have close ties with them, and there is generally much more student involvement in University policy making.
ONE WAY to excite students would be to
practice against the system again,
Johnson's rule.
Robinson said it wasn't necessary for student leaders and the Student Senate to have a management team in administration now works closely with student leaders in setting University policy, he said, and if something does happen that the Senate is the fastest means of reacting.
So KU student government is working. A more professional student governering body with more money to allocate, better access to University policy-making committees and educators that has evolved from the demands and protests that brought about the original Senate.
Apathy seems to be characterizing the political thoughts and energies of modern college students across the nation. It is nothing new.
Aside from occasional outbursts of vibrant words and action by students who are directly affected by such an issue as Vietnam, student apathy is as common on
A student who cares about not caring is Scott Morgan. Morgan file to run for student body president last fall but had to withdraw when he injured his back. Then, just before the election, Morgan can write unsuccessfully, as a writer in candidate.
BUT WHERE does this leave those not directly involved in the machinery of the engine?
He says that it isn't a bad thing that students don't get involved in student government. Students have other concerns, private concerns, and shouldn't be expected to care about the Student Senate when there are no real issues.
Steven Stingley Editorial writer
"YOU CAN'T blame them for not voting when there's nothing to vote for," he rationalizes. "You don't have a pep rally if you're not going to have a game."
"You have to face facts," Morgan says. "You just aren't going to get a majority of the vote."
Morgan takes a realistic view of student apathy, one that probably reflects the views of his peers.
Robinson says that a lack of student interest in the workings of student government is not a sign but that it does not impede their participation with the way the Senate is handling its affairs.
Robinson distinguishes between apathy—a sign that “things are going well”—and alienation—a sign that “things are not going well.” Robinson is nothing an individual can do about it.
Today's student is apathetic. The student the '60s and '70s felt alienated, according to him.
THE REAL danger of apathy, Robinson saves life in the Student Senate itself.
The gains made by the demanding students of a previous time must be maintained by students who are now in the Senate, he says—regardless of the attitudes
"Someone has to do the things that others think are fine to do."
Robinson's and Morgan's vies are in-terest. As students spend more time worrying about the risks of less time worrying about political injustice, their attitudes toward student overcrowding
Clifford Ketzel, professor of political science, can anly attest to this change.
Keltel played a major role in neogisting student-faculty-administrative differences in the late 1980s. He was on the committee that designed the basic concepts of the current Student Senate.
KETZEL says that there has been an obvious change in the attitudes of students since the time the Senate began. Fewer and fewer students are participating in student government as student's interests change academically and politically.
Although there still are major issues and
problems facing our society, Ketzel says, there are no overriding issues, such as the Vietnam war and civil rights, that are arousing student interest.
The campaigns now involve issues—such as environmental protection, nuclear proliferation and energy, women's rights, health care carried out by those outside KU, he adds.
"Maybe we're back to normal now, like
1980s. Kutzel says, "We're back to
normal now."
"GONE ARE the days when a student
administrator's office
and urinate on the desk."
"If people aren't satisfied, then they're active," he says. "If people aren't active, they won't."
Ketzel also says that the University's administration has moved toward satisfying the demands of the students. That has been facilitated by a need for students to play an activist role.
Ketzel does see a danger in student complacency, however. An increase in compliance is the result of a lack of concern for social injustice will inevitably end in a gradual deterioration of school success.
"We've all gotten fat," Ketzel warns.
In other words, allure and well-being are not all good.
When asked about solutions to the lack of interest and where the whole situation will stop or turn around, Ketzel replies with the answer, "Where did it stop with the Roman Empire?"
WHETHER current student attitudes are good, bad or healthy, sick, remains to be seen. It will be easier to look back with a historical perspective on our own time and experience.
What is certain is the fact that students are playing an increasingly more passive role in participating in the policy-making machinery available.
Scott Lampae, a former student senator,
summed up the situation:
"As long as things run smoothly there is no need for the majority of students to be concerned or to get involved. Potentially that's a dangerous situation, but one that will be hard to change until an issue of sufficient magnitude arises."
What is an issue of "sufficient manitude" and when will it "arise"?
Perhaps those kinds of issues are here right now, and the student is merely choosing to overlook them. An “I don’t care” attitude can be a comfortable one.
Summer Orientation Program 1978 STUDENT STAFF POSITIONS
DESIRED QUALIFICATIONS:
...leadership abilities
... interpersonal communication skills
. . .enthusiasm about program
. . knowledge of University programs & activities
. . undergraduate student in good academic standing
JOB DESCRIPTIONS & APPLICATIONS AVAILABLE IN ADMISSIONS & RECORDS, 126 STRONG HALL APPLICATIONS DUE BY FRIDAY, APRIL 7 AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER
UK TVListings
Monday
6:30 Hollywood Squares 4
Wild Kingdom 5
Tattered Tails
MacNeill Lerber Report 11,19
Conversation with Kansas Farmers
10
Mary Tyler Moore 27
Newly Wed Game 41
Oral Roberts 4, 13
Good Times 5
Easter Bunny is to Town 9
Daniel Foster, M.D. 11
Consumer Survival Kit 19
Luke on the Prairie 27
Joker's Wild 41
7:30 Baby I'm Back 5
Turnabout 11
Alaska Oil: America's Pipe Dream 19
Hollywood Connection 41
8:30 One Day.at a Time 5,13
0:30 Movie—"The War Between Men and Women" starring Jack Lemon 4, "M A*S H:5, 13
Movie—"Doctor's Private Lives"
Made for TV 9
Onedin Line 11
Meeting of the Minds 19
Melissa The Spy with a Cold Nose"
starring Harlaver 49
9:00 Lou Grant 5, 13
Originals 11
Last of the Mohicans 19
9:30 Anyone for Tennyson?11 Sources of Country Music 19
10:00 News 5, 4, 9, 13, 27
Classic Guitar 17
Dick Cavett 19
Star Trek 41
10:30 Tonight 4,27
Medical Center 5
Mary Tyler Moore 9
McCallan Wife 11,19
McCullain Wife 11 and 13
11:00 Odd Couple 9
Tyron Guthrie Theatre 19
Police Story 41
1:00 News 4
11:30 The Untouchables 5
Forever Fernwood 9
1:10 Movie—"The Spy with a Cold Nose' starring Laurence Harvey 41
2:30 News 5
2:40 Love, American Style 41
12:00 Tomorrow 4,27
Merv Griffin 9
12.10 Wrestling 41
12.30 Movie—"The Angel Wore Red"
starring Ava Gardner 5
3:00 Art Linkletter 5 Dick Van Dyke 41
3:30 Night Gallery 41
4:00 Thriller 41
5:00 Untamed World 41
5:50 Wildlife Theatre 41
TV Trivia
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Despite talk of a possible "fourth network," it is unlikely one would threaten CBS, NBC or ABC for years.
He said major problems facing creation of a fourth network include huge costs of regularly scheduled programming and a lack of affiliates.
"You can't have a network without stations carrying your programs," he said. "Now, stations are looking for
So save A.R. Van Cantfort, the new president of the Association of Television Program Enthusiasts major industry group of 1,030 station executives, producers and program officers.
"I don't say it couldn't happen," she said. "I don't see any teacher who doesn't see any teacher, organization, group or system that could be a serious threat to the existing three schools."
He said an example was last year's "Operation Prime Time," set up by 85 MBA students who first-run programs equal in star names and production values to伯尔森学院。
alternatives to network shows. But they're looking for selective alternatives."
OPT, as it is called, aired a miniature testimony of Tymethon of Mary, as a teenage girl, to make three more miniseries for broadcast this year in May. July and August.
OPT has been considered by some writers as the prelude to creation of a fourth network.
But Van Cantfort said, "there's a big difference between 'Operation Palm' and 'Operation Sandy', providing network services to 10 to 12 hours a day, seven days a week."