kansan
Serving KU For 78 of its 102 Years
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78th Year, No. 17 LAWRENCE, KANSAS Tuesday, October 10, 1967
Salsich draws plans for freer university
By Maggie Ogilvie Kansan Staff Reporter
Civil rights freedom schools and Vietnam teach-ins are the parents of a free university newly born on the KU campus.
"Youth here want to get into something," said a KU faculty member who hopes students will adopt his idea at an organizational meeting Thursday.
"The free university will give them a statement of what's going on today."
'Open-minded contract'
Hamilton J. Salsich, instructor in English, decided two weeks ago, with a group of colleagues in many departments, that KU is one of many modern institutions wherein students can't learn as freely as they might have 100 years ago and even in ancient times. Then students sought out teachers who could help them find what they needed and wanted to learn.
"Somehow we've lost the whole concept," Salsich said.
Open-minded contract The concept, as adapted by San Francisco State's experimental college, "is based on assumption of an open-minded contract with yourself to do some learning, and
to evaluate your performance—to learn how you learn."
KU students rejected such opportunity in the recently proposed pass-fail system.
Frustrated students may be repeating history "by asking basic questions about their disciplines," said Ralph Keyes in a recent survey of free universities for The Nation.
Civil war literary and debating societies examined relevant issues outside an academic structure bogged down in anti-intellectual religious origins. Finally, members exerted enough pressure to reform the schools.
Some success lately
Slight successes have been achieved lately. Pennsylvania University, for example, offered for the first time, eight "wildly successful" seminars, conducted by top faculty members. An autonomous free university there had offered "Analogues of the LSD experience" taught by a graduate student who saw students were learning more from travel and TV than in the classroom.
Salsich has recruited several professors to deal with inter-disciplinary issues. They support
spontaneity in opposition to planned method and limited content.
"All of us want to change the University. The best way is to simply make it what you think it should be—an influential force in the community," Salsich said. "We don't teach social change and inter-relation of people."
Keyes' survey cited courses at San Francisco State which were created by a faculty member for a trial semester with only departmental approval. The courses are part of a "much looser general education program" resultant of an experimental college there
"That some faculty, administration, and townpeople are willing to involve themselves goes beyond mere youthful exuberance," Keyes wrote.
'Involve themselves'
Culture clichés called misleading
"I would bet there are an awful lot of professors who would be
WHAT'S INSIDE
Lange spoke yesterday to a
(Editor's note: Victor Lange, who was born in Leipzig, Germany, has studied at the University of Leipzig, Oxford, the Sorbonne, the University of Toronto and the University of Munich.
John Hill talks about the hippies' image. Page 2.
Pepper Rodgers praises
Bobby Douglass. Page 6.
Formerly the chairman of the German department at Cornell, Lange has been at Princeton since 1957.
He has taught as a visiting professor at Smith College, and the Universities of Chicago, California, Michigan, Columbia, Cologne, Heidelberg, Munich and Toronto.
The student directory will be out in November. Page 10.
Other sports stories. Page 7.
See Salsich outlines, page 8
The author of nine books an numerous articles and reviews, Lange is a member of the editorial boards of several scholarly journals and is also on the Fulbright Commission.
By Linda Fabry Kansan Staff Reporter
small group in the Kansas Union Forum Room.)
Lange said the only way we can understand a foreign culture is to practice it.
Other civilizations may be influenced by entirely different cultural patterns without being barbaric. Lange said.
"We must work in it and on it" said Lange.
and executive director of the program; Corbin College, John Myers, assistant dean of men; North College, Elliot Gillerman, associate professor of geology; Oliver College, Mrs. J. B. Stroup, associate dean of women; and Pearson College, William Balfour, professor of comparative biochemistry and physiology.
In the first Humanities Lecture this year, entitled "Understanding Another Culture," Victor Lange, chairman of the Germanic languages department at Princeton University, said liking certain aspects of a foreign culture doesn't mean we understand it.
Avoid deceptive appearances
Just because you like Bridget Bardot, Chanel No. 5 and French bread doesn't mean you understand the French. And you may well love Pizza and be completely unable to understand the Italian culture.
Lange said we must also avoid deceptive appearances when trying to understand another culture.
The only problem is "a tremendous amount of paperwork that had to be done at the last minute," according to William Balfour, Pearson College director. He said 25 per cent of the freshmen who didn't take placement exams during Previews took them on Monday of orientation week and these tests all had to be graded, transported to the five colleges and placed in folders by 9 a.m. Tuesday in time for the deans' meetings.
However, from the point of view of the directors of the five colleges, the program has been highly successful so far this year.
Directors term CC 'successful'
"Mutual understanding" Lange said, "can not be promoted by any means but a systematic study carried out in the nation itself."
The "Colleges-Within-the-College" program, involving all freshmen in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences plus last year's pilot group of Centennial College (CC) students, is for keeps at KU but its success or failure can't be accurately evaluated yet.
Lange said we must also get away from cultural clichés, such as thinking that all Italians are extroverted and all British are snobbish.
The freshmen don't have any other college experience to compare this year with and the results of questions asked last year of Centennial College students and a randomly selected "control group" haven't been completely evaluated.
By Beth Gaeddert Kansan Staff Reporter
See Directors term, page 3
The colleges and their directors are: Centennial College, Jerry Lewis, assistant dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
The directors attributed smooth enrollment to pre-enrollment during Previews, and a vastly simplified process of enrolling. Students enrolled in 20-person
Lots of paperwork
Most directors said "things went better than we expected, especially enrollment."
Lange said through such a study we will realize that the pursuit of happiness is not limited to our own civilization.
WEATHER
20-student blocks
The U.S. Weather Bureau has issued a frost or freeze warning for tonight. There will be clearing with diminishing winds tonight and freeze or frost likely by early Wednesday morning. Wednesday should be clear to partly cloudy and warmer. Low tonight, 23-32. High tomorrow in the 60s.
Former Kansan editor confused after war tour
By Ted Bell Kansan Staff Reporter
"I went to Vietnam because I was confused. I left there even more confused."
In 1963, Scott Payne was the city editor of the University Daily Kansan. Probably because journalists see too many sides of too many questions, or perhaps because the questions and heated debate were beginning to rise over the U.S. build-up in Vietnam, Payne had anything but a settled mind.
Whether joining the Army was the most logical thing to do, by contemporary standards, Payne enlisted, was assigned to Army intelligence, and went to South Vietnam to try to straighten out his thinking.
What he found wasn't exactly what he had read and heard.
The real story
"The real story isn't getting to America. It's not the tactical war of Marine and Air Cavalry units and the big battles splashed in the headlines, Payne said, although he does anything but blame the press. Editors must give priority to the battles and bombings, he said, because this is where American boys are getting killed.
"The war is basically a political battle with fear and influence the weapons.
"The real war is similar to Mao Tse-tung's successful guerrilla revolt in China from 1945 to 1949. All wars are political, but this one is more obvious than most. In fact, it's almost solely political."
There are two real sources of power—the army and the peasants, Payne said.
Peasants are source
But that doesn't help explain much: the government has the army, but the army is made up of
See Editor, page 9
SCOTT PAYNE ON THE JOB
This former editor of the Daily Kansan has served in Vietnam in Army Intelligence. The pencil holder on his desk is made from a mortar shell.