Wednesday, November 1, 1967
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
3
Western Civ notes cause debate
By Monte Mace Kansan Staff Reporter
The Western Civilization Department forbids them, students rely on them, and three KU graduates profit from them.
Controversy has surrounded the anonymously-authored Western Civilization notes-An Outline of Western Civilization—since they were first sold at KU in 1959.
The director of the Western Civilization Department, James E. Seaver, said use of the notes is discouraged and they are not allowed in class.
Seaver said the department might suppress the notes if they could, but its policy was against banning books.
Notes help students
He said there had been various Western Civilization notes for "perhaps 20 years." The Western Civilization program began in 1845.
Many students say they couldn't pass the four-hour comprehensive test, required for graduation in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Schools of Education,
Journalism, and chemical engineering without the notes.
Two-thousand pages of reading in philosophy, science, economics, and political science are required for sophomores in the College, who must take the one-hour credit, two-semester course.
Calls notes inaccurate
Seaver said the notes are "very inaccurate" and full of "all kinds of idiocies."
Party seeks power-
Continued from page 1
ly the elimination of the under-representation of unorganized students.
Yet some students say they have scored "B's" in the comprehensive exam by studying the notes.
- Assistance to foreign students in finding suitable housing.
- Investigation of food prices at the Kansas Union and of means of lowering them.
- Dispensation of birth control pills on campus regardless of marital status.
Instigated library petition
Insegnated library petition
The organizers of ISP are the same group of students who instituted the recent petition to extend the hours of Watson Library to midnight.
Stocker claimed that the petition, bearing more than 2,800 signatures when it was presented to the University administration, was directly responsible for the extension of the hours.
However, Acting Provost Francis Heller said KU was granted permission from the Board of Regents to extend the library hours using money from additional student fees collected in excess of the expected amount resulting from a larger enrollment than anticipated.
Heller praised the student
action calling the petition a "commendable effort" and a "milestone in the KU students' concern for a better University."
The library hours were extended to 11 p.m., one hour short of the requested midnight closing, but Stocker remarked that the ISP organizers were "certainly not so radical that we can't accept a compromise solution."
This Friday the ISP plans to begin seeking signatures on a petition to be recognized as a legal campus political party. Such a petition must be signed by ten per cent of KU's 15,000 students before the party may be formally recognized.
In addition to Stocker, two other officers were named Tuesday to the new party's central committee. Peter Monge, Wichita junior is the ISP chairman and Kay Hedrick, Robinson freshman, serves as secretary-treasurer.
If you see news happening call UN 4-3646
Seaver compared reading the notes to borrowing another student's class notes.
Sale of notes prosperous
"The student should read the material and form his own opinions," Seaver said. "He shouldn't depend on the ideas of someone else."
Ronald Cox, Lawrence graduate student in chemical engineering, who is campus distributor of the notes, said he didn't know how many copies had been sold during their eight-year history.
Even without department sanction, the sale of the notes has continued to be a prosperous business.
But, in 1564, he estimated gross income was $15,000.
He said 800 to 1,000 copies have been sold each year the last two years at $4.50 apiece.
Cox said the authors are two former KU students. One is Gary Breneman, U.S. government lawyer in Washington, D.C. The other is Jeffrey Hadden, a Ph.D. and a sociology professor at an Ohio university. Hadden was a Western Civilization instructor at KU.
Former KU students are authors
The two have formed a partnership named Jayhawk Reference Publications to prepare the notes. They read and discuss the required readings, Cox said, and write the outline as a team. The manuscript is sent to Cox and he mimegraphs and binds the copies.
The list of books required for reading was changed this year and the notes were revived at the same time. Cox said Jayhawk Reference Publications learned which books were to be used this year from a list given to students, who want to get a head start on reading in the summer.
Notes sold mysteriously
The notes are bought by calling a phone number listed in classified advertisements of the Kanan. A secretarial service answers, takes the caller's name and address and gives it to Cox. He delivers the notes.
The notes are sold in a somewhat mysterious manner. Seaver said he didn't know identity of the authors. Their names aren't given in the notes—the preface is signed "The Authors."
But, Cox said, the operation is not secret. He said an article about the notes was published in the Kansan with the names of the authors in 1964.
"The student is given information of such a deep nature that they can't comprehend it," he said.
Cox defended the notes by saying they make the course material understandable.
But Seaver said examples of inaccuracies were calling Adam Smith a socialist and linking Thomas More with the all-people-are-good belief.
Cox said he did not know if there is incorrect information in the notes but said they contain summaries of readings and interpretation from experts in the field.
However, is mistakes were painted out to him, Cox said, he would see that they are corrected.
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