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UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Thursday, September 28, 1967
Ich—that average student
A recent State Insurance Department authorization reducing insurance rates for "A" and "B" students, once again spotlights the plight of the "average" university man.
On the college campus, consistently brilliant students are lauded, applauded and generously rewarded for their accomplishments. And those deficient in some area are remediated either back into the university, or out of it. But the fellow in between remains the nonentity of the university. The attitude seems to be—he's here, it's too bad, but he is.
The "average" student is plagued by two careless characterizations—he is either a rather dull and dumb fellow, or he is lazy. Neither is necessarily true.
Such notables as Albert Einstein and F. Lee Bailey disprove the idea that brilliant thinkers always make good grades. They may have been lazy in school, or they simply may have used school as a supplement for other endeavors during these years.
Or, if the medium man does not have an earth-changing outside project underway, he may be one of the fringe group who still tries
to work his way through school. Especially in the case of a man who, laboring under the hot breath of the draft, must combine an outside job with a full class load; the sheer hours involved are bound to put him at a classroom disadvantage.
The term "average," however, is misleading in itself. Average, at the University of Kansas, implies a certain level on the grade point spectrum. But a student does not have to earn a "C" in each course to rate this obnoxious title. Some students are spectacular in math and chemistry, for instance, but lousy in English.
The average student, like the spectacular one, should be recognized as an individual. He even may be the one who would benefit most from the fine programs which are often restricted to his more glamorous peers.
As long as the grade system prevails, there will always be an academically average student, no matter how potentially brilliant he may be. To lump together such people indiscriminately as having like minds and like habits, is to weaken the university, its students and the society of their future.
Betsy Wright, Editorial Editor
Letters
British system clarified
To the editor:
I was interested to read your article investigating the habits of that rare bird, the British university student (only about eight per cent can get into the English universities); but I have to react with typical British understatement in that I am not too happy with some of the purported facts.
Instead of "shudderer; at the concept of a state university," each and every British student goes to a college that is part of the state educational system and dependent on it financially. The odd private "college" is usually vocational in emphasis, and its academic diplomas carry no weight.
Students at Scottish universities take more general courses, and usually stay four years, so it may
be that "the first three years are pretty relaxed." The English system, however, has more concentrated courses and all do honors degrees in three years. At the defense of my old slave-driver tutor, I might add that with the ever-looming fear of the annual comprehensive axams, I never worked harder in my life.
One's degree is usually dependent on the passing of the finals" at the end of the third year. These exams will cover two, or even three years' work, and regardless of one's class performance, no pass, no degree. Also, few students in the English system get the chance to take exams over, either due to the lack of enthusiasm of the department, or the lack of enthusiasm of their
county in providing them with some more money.
Apart from that, it was a fine article.
Brian J. Barker,
Windsor, England, graduate student
On other campuses
Graduated fee plan
A controversial in-state student fee schedule, based solely upon the parents' ability to pay, has been initiated by the Board of Trustees at Michigan State this fall.
Under the new plan, over 12,000 students coming from homes with family incomes of over $16,700 will pay the maximum rate of $167 per term (Michigan State operates under the tri-semester plan). The fee system is graduated on down, with those with yearly family incomes between $11,800 and $16,700 paying fees on the basis of one per cent of the gross parental income.
The new fee plan, under attack by university officials for its injustices, is now being revised. In its inception, the original plan made no provision for the number of dependents in the family, the number of children in college, the student's income or lack of it, or any other major expenses which might impair the family's ability to pay. A student whose parents are divorced, even though only supported by one, would have to combine both parents' incomes for a gross parental total.
K-State rights bill
K-State student senators have killed an open-housing proposal, aimed at integrating campus living groups.
The bill, centered around alleged discriminatory practices in Greek houses, called for each organized living group to include at least one minority group member by February, 1968.
K-State fraternities and sororities signed the 1964 pledge stating they do not discriminate. Supporters of the open-housing bill said this pledge was ineffectual.
Washington course critique
An Associated Students' critical review of instructors and courses, published under fire for the last two years at the University of Washington, will not go to press this year. And this time it was the students, rather than faculty or administration, that curtailed the publication. They didn't buy it last year.
When the book first appeared in the fall of 1965, administrators and professors attacked the work in both quality and philosophy—charging that the book could not enrich teacher-student relations—and asking if perhaps grades had influenced the students' ratings of teachers.
Students, on the other hand, feel that the critique could serve to improve the quality of undergraduate teaching. Plans are now underway to apply the computer to course evaluation, and produce a conceivably fairer product by the fall of 1968.
Newsroom—UN 4-3646Business Office—UN 4-3198
Published at the University of Kansas daily during the academic year, www.ku.edu/college/university-of-ku/math/annals/1986/annual_issue.html; $10 a year. Second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kan. 66044. Accommodations, goods, services and employment advertised offered to all students are not necessarily those of the University of Kansas on the State University website.
Managing Editor—Dan Austin Business Manager—John Lee
...quotes...
Assistant Managing Editors Will Hardesty, Jerry Klein,
Paul Haney, Gary Murrell, Rich Lovett
City Editor John Marshall
Editorial Editors Betsey Wright, Allan Northcutt
Associate Editorial Editor John Hill
Sports Editors Chip Rouse, Don Steffens
Wire Editor Don Walker
Aesop in "The Shepherd's Boy": "The boy called out 'Wolf, Wolf!' and the villagers came out to help him. A few days afterward he tried the same trick, and again they came to his help. Shortly after this a Wolf actually came, but this time the villagers thought the boy was deceiving them again and nobody came to his help. . . . A liar will not be believed, even when he speaks the truth."