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Tuesday, May 8, 1973
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN
The Right-Hand Man
This month many of us will be spending our last days as students at KU. For most of us, the stay will have been four years long. Some, for one reason or another—procrastination, double majors, outside jobs—will take until December to finish.
One man will be finishing his stay at KU in December. It will be the end of his 50th year here. His reasons for staying so long are a dedication and a love for the University.
Raymond Nichols has been the adviser and friend to five chancellors. He has said he wants to be remembered as always standing "at the right hand of the chancellor with specific, authentic, detailed facts."
chancellor July 1 he wants Nichols to remain as his adviser.
When Archie Dykes takes over as
Nichols says his prime regret is that he has not had more contact with students. In his recent role as chancellor he has had a chance to increase that contact. And his earlier background role shaped the KU that students of more than 40 years have known.
Regent Jess Stewart expressed Nichols feeling for KU.
"I had just gotten Larry Chalmers' resignation," Stewart said, "I walked up to Ray and asked him if he would assume the chancellor's post if it were offered to him. I think it's important to do anything you ask me to for the University. The University is my life. I love KU." —Joyce Neerman
Fingers and Toes
Today's referendum to determine whether students at KU approve or disapprove the Student Senate's activity fee is an exercise in futility.
Charles Oldfather, University attorney, has given his legal opinion that the referendum would not be binding. Mert Buckley, Student Body President, has stated before the university administration that a dum would be ruled invalid by the University administration, regardless of its outcome.
A spokesman for the Coalition of Concerned Student Organizations, the main supporter of the petition that brought the election, has said that the coalition is not really interested in having the referendum, but is more interested in getting funds for the groups it represents
And on top of all these qualifications is the wishy-washiness of the referendum question. Even if every student voted and expressed strong disapproval of the senate's allocations, the referendum binds the senate to no concrete action.
And if concrete action is to come from the balloting, it has to come from the local year, which is rapidly approaching. Student allocations have to be approved by the Board of Regents before the beginning of the fiscal
I am forced, in any case, to question the validity of a referendum (literally "the submission of a law, proposed or already in effect, to a direct vote of the people") that at best can hope to draw 10 per cent of the student body to the polls. Today, after all, is the last day of classes; finals start tomorrow. And a sufficient number of poll workers had not been found for the voting as of Sunday.
The referendum, then, is simply folly.
The senate has been inefficient enough in the past without encouraging the added burden of mock, embarrassed democracy in student government.
Perhaps the accusatory finger should point at the Student Senate as the ratifier of this folly. For it was a means to an authority for this meaningless yote.
The one encouraging note of this whole affair is that there is very little chance of a time-consuming counting of the ballots, such as during the special elections. Fingers and toes, not computers should suffice this time.
- Steve Riel
First-Rate University
Out of 386 major institutions granting Ph.D.s, only 36 ranked higher academically than KU in a recent study by the American Council on Education, putting KU in the top 10 per cent of the category.
You would have us believe, John P. Bailey, that this is a third-rate University. I submit that it is one of the finest universities in the country.
Chancellor Dykes would indeed have a difficult task ahead of him if students at KU thought the way you do. Fortunately they do not.
Among public universities, KU has produced the largest number of Rhodes Scholars in the last decade, ranks second in the number of Woodrow Wilson Fellowships and the number of National Science Foundation Awards to undergraduates for the last two years.
In your editorial of May 3 you stated that Chancellor Dykes would have to seek financial help for the students in spite of, help from the students."
Two-hundred-fifty National Merit finalists are now enrolled at KU, and half the students enrolled here were from their high school classes.
Student fees have supported from 20 to 30 per cent of the educational budget in the last few years, and two buildings on campus are now under construction with the help of student funds.
of Kansas is second only to alumni support of the entire University of California system. So John, people do care about this university.
The faculty, for the most part, is outstanding and dedicated. I have been in contact with some of KU's finest faculty members, and if they want me to be their brainpower here, the University community is indeed lucky.
The only thing third-rate about this University is the proportionately small amount of financial support.
In the same study by the American Council on Education, KU ranked in the bottom 20 per cent in average compensation for faculty at all levels among the 386 major Ph.D. granting institutions.
Why do you think Chancellor Dykes deserves sympathy is beyond me. I assure you that he is fully committed to his work and the opportunities that await him and KJL.
You sarcastically remarked that "the University can continue to earn the number of people on its payroll, on race or sex, not qualifications."
This is something I hope Chancellor Dykes can rectify.
Although race and sex can be determining factors when applicants for jobs are being considered, qualifications are considered too.
Robin Groom
8 Semesters Later
Arlington, Va., Senior
I would like to announce that I, the office Cat, will soon graduate and work at the university. It has been a hectic four years but I am ready to commence with honors.
I will leave these ivy walls a member of my school's honorary fraternity. I have a shining grade point average and have been on the dean's honor roll six out of seven. I am proud of the curricular activities (Best at the Kansas City Cat Show two years running, two bowling trophies and an understudy part in "Harvey." I recently received top honors and the
Mehitabel Award for Outstanding Work in Journalism at my school's internship, I will graduate with distinction and now a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
Fortunately some of these awards are remunerative, so now I can make my way to St. Louis, enroll in a voctch school and someday soon get a job as a key-punch operator. It's that a hard-working college student can get what he needs at school to help him get a job afterwards.
—The Office Cat
America 1973 in Cartoons
BySTEVERIEL
Editorial Editor
Each presidential inauguration brings with it the promise of new direction, of reform, of inspired leadership. Sometimes the promise is fulfilled; at other times it is difficult to even remember what promises have been made. This year, as in most years, it is not easy to make wholesale generalizations about the administration. But some certainly are warranted.
This, for example, has been a year in which all America's attention has been focused on the Presidency. The power wielded by President Nixon has been a major concern of Congress and has in the last few months also become the concern of the public. The echo of "scandal in government" has penetrated ears that earlier were unwilling to even consider the possibility that the Watergate affair was more than a routine crime. It now looks as if Watergate will make it into the history books with Teapot Dome.
Don Wright, a syndicated cartoonist who appears daily in the Kansan, has captured some of the problems of America 1973 in his sketches. The depiction of the witches and their conversation perhaps sums up the position of this country and the administration as accurately as thousands of words. On this page Wright's cartoons are used to review the beginning of 1973. The topics of the cartoons are familiar, as most continue to be problems with highly elusive solutions.
Watergate, etc.
Presidential Power
WRONT
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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"YOU KNOW, THIS COUNTRY'S GETTING DOWNRIGHT SCARY"
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- VRAH VRAH I KNOW ---- PAGE 10 AT H
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