It Takes a While,but Most KU Athletes Do Graduate
By HAL RITTER
Karen Stoll Resources
Kansan Staff Regarter
Just an average student in high school, I took course to the University of Kansas to study astronomy.
That he did—and well. He was a three-year starter for the Jayhawks and made the team in 2014.
But when commencement arrives in May, Roger will be one of many students classified as seniors who won't receive a diploma.
Roger isn't a real person, but he could be because his academic record is typical for varsity athletes on the KU football, basketball and track teams.
Only one athlete in four graduates in four years.
That figure sounds bad, but it isn't the whole story of Roger and his academic career. Nearly all the musical Rogers on TV were older than he was when KU return to school after their varsity
eligibility has ended, and more than three out of four eventually earn a degree.
Those statistics are among the most important to come out of an investigation into the graduation records of seniors on the school's track teams of the 10-year, period from 1964-73.
The investigation was made by taking all 270 students listed on KU sports rosters of the past decade and comparing them with official graduation records made available by the Office of Admissions and Records. The study showed that:
—25.5 per cent of the 270 athletes graduated after four years of college.
—83 per cent of the 188 athletes in the first seven years of the study (1964-70) have graduated (Seniors of the last three years included because nunny are still in school).
37. 3 per cent of the 244 athletes in the first nine years of the study did not graduate (0.8%).
—The basketball teams compiled the highest four-year graduation rate at 35.3 per cent and the worst rate of nongraduates, also 35.3 per cent.
years or less. (1973 seniors were excluded because they haven't had a full fifth year to complete their degree.)
The football teams compiled the worst four-year graduation rate at 22.8 per cent.
—The track teams compiled the lowest nongraduate rate at 10.7 per cent.
- No new trends in graduation rates have evolved during the past 10 years. For example, the first, sixth and seventh years used the same average scores (49) for athletes (four) who graduated in four years.
KU's five-year graduation rate for the first nine years of the survey (69.3 per cent) is considerably higher than that of the only school known to have done a similar study.
That last result of the study came from comparing the KU study with studies made
The 1968 Minnesota study showed that of 202 athletes in the classes of 1960 and 1961 at Minnesota, 53 per cent graduated within five years after beginning college, compared with 76 per cent.
by the Bureau of Institutional Research at the University of Minnesota in 1965 and 1970.
The 1970 study showed that of 196 athlete in the classes of 1966 and 1967, 50.5 per cent graduated within five years, compared with 41.4 per cent of nonathletes.
Those studies included athletes in 11 sports at Minnesota, and the KU study included only those athletes in what are considered "professional sports," football, basketball and track.
Still, KU athletes' nine-year graduation rate of 69.3 per cent was far above both the national and U.S. average.
Several other studies have been made that show how many athletes who entered college as freshmen went on to graduate, but none are comparable to the KU and
Minnesota studies, which didn't consider athletes who dropped out of school between
Unfortunately, no big Eight Conference or national statistics on graduation rates of athletes exist to compare with the KU statistics.
"I've been trying to obtain that information myself," says Commissioner Charles Niemes of the Big Eight Conference. "I put out a memo to the member schools to obtain this information, and so far only schools (including KU) have responded."
Ted C. Tow, who is director of the publicity service of the National Collegiate Athletic Association at its headquarters in Kansas City, Kan., and who also handles research studies for the NCAA, is interested in graduation rates among athletes, too.
"We've had a proposal to do a research study nationwide," he says, "and that research is part of our work."
So the statistics that resulted from the study of KU's athletes stand alone. They are useful because they provide substantive evidence for what we can learn graduate and how long it takes, but there are other questions where academics and athletes are concerned that numbers can be used.
For example, do the low four-year graduation rates mean it's almost impossible for a student on a major sport team to graduate "on time?"
What special problems do athletes experience that nonathletes don't, and how much do those problems hinder academic performances of athletes?
What motivates athletes who don't earn degrees in four years to return to KU when the document that so often brought them to college has become a place toinate in collegiate athletics, no longer exists?
In reply to the first question, Tommy
Forecast: Partly sunny and cooler, High near 50, low in the 30s.
See TAKES Page 8
84th Year, No. 100
The University of Kansas—Lawrence. Kansas
Thursday, February 28. 1974
Paxson Resigns Amid Dispute Over Chairmen
See Story Page 9
Kansan Photo by GENE NICK
Stone blocks serve as a frame for the landscape reflection on a window on the east side of Wescoe Hall. The scene shows part of Fraser Park.
House Okays Energy Bill; Veto Expected from Nixon
Window with a View
WASHINGTON (AP) - The House passed emergency energy legislation yesterday, which provides for an oil price rollback and gives President Nixon the authority to order
THOMAS GORT, dean of the School of Fine Arts, said, "Our experience has been that the courses have very low standards. They are just bull sessions and I can't see much intellectual activity. It's a fringe kind of activity that snacks a free university."
Gorton asked he thought the quality of the courses was closely tied to the calibher of
The measure now goes to the White House where it faces an almost certain veto.
Nixon said the bill's rollback provision, which "immediately popular," would lead to further shortages "which would require a serious question, radiating all over the country."
Nixon said at his Monday news conference that he planned to veto the legislation "if it reaches my desk in its present form."
Earlier, the House reversed its Rules Committee and voted down a parliamentary bill that would limit their powers.
According to figures from a House committee the rollback provision would
The vote on final passage was 238 to 151,
short of the two-thirds vote that would be required.
Final passage came after motions to strike several of the bill's more controversial provisions, including the price for gasoline and other authority, were defeated by roll call votes.
reduce gasoline prices by up to four cents a gallon at the pump and cut propane prices
Instead, it adopted a compromise rule proposed by House Commerce Committee Chairman Harley O. Staggers, D-WVA, who made the fallcore rollback votes on the price rollback, rationing authority and a section giving the president temporary authority to put energy conservation plans into effect and first seeking congressional approval.
Most L&A® courses are offered for three hours credit, applicable toward a degree. The course is limited to enrollment to one course per unit, but the School of Fine Arts, registering its disapproval of the program, has stipulated that all course may be applied toward a degree.
A motion to strike the rollback section from the hill was defended 238 to 173.
The House turned down the parliamentary rule on a 259 to 144 vote.
—The Federal Energy Office acknowledged serious deficiencies in its crude oil allocation program and announced plans to audit the oil imports into the United States.
A federal appeals court in Washington turned down a bid by the state of Maryland to increase its gasoline allotment, reversing a lower court decision that had directed the FEO to increase the state's allotment by 16 million gallons.
provision on the grounds that it was drafted by a Senate-House conference and was never voted upon by the full House. *Notes: related development*
Under the original rule, a challenge to the legislation could have come on the rollback
Fund Cuts in College Threaten LA&S Courses
Since its inception five years ago, the program has come under attack by critics. Arguments have centered on the choice of topics, the quality of teaching, the grading system used by those teachers and the awarding of academic credit for the program.
Kansan Staff Reporter
By LINDA HALES
Cutbacks in the 1974 College of Liberal Arts and Sciences budget may have serious consequences for the LA&S program if funding cannot be procured elsewhere.
—More than 12,000 coal miners were reported off the job in West Virginia in a spreading walkout to protest a gasoline shortage.
The program, which for five years has offered interdisciplinary courses on contemporary topics, lets its Student Senate govern the university. The senate's contingency fund ran short.
"Everyone has begun to realize it is the University's responsibility to fund the program," Richard Paxton, Baxter Springs associate vice president of a committee member, said yesterday.
But whether the college budget, which will be cut by $277,000 to $151,000 and result in the elimination of dozes of faculty and staff, is cost-effective or an additional funding burden is uncertain.
AMBROSE SARICKS, vice chancellor to academic affairs, said, "As of right now, I don't think the college budget can be expanded."
to some people, the question of whether to fund the LA&S program from college allocations may be tied to the question of the program's academic value relative to established departments and appropriateness.
A belief in democracy in education, according to George Waggoner, dean of the college, is the idea behind allowing undergraduate students to teach courses. He
instructors and he objected to under- undergraduate students' teaching.
JERRY LEWIS, associate dean of the college and director of the LA&S program, admitted that grades averaged above the University norm. Three years ago, he said,
Alvin Dewey, assistant director of Centennial College and of the program, said six seniors, or 25 per class, to teaching force, teach a teaching, to remainder, he said, were being taught by graduate students and faculty members. All instructors are sponsored by faculty members.
WHEREH SPOONORING professors actually take part in the course depends on the class. Fewer than half the sponsors of this semester's classes participate actively in the course, and these classes about once a month or remain in contact with the instructor by phone, offering suggestions and exchanging ideas, instructors said. The remainder act exclusively as "nameplates," signing papers and preparing materials needed for a class printed.
said he trusted students and his belief in maximum student participation was his justification for letting students teach. In 2015, the chairman is needed to lead a discussion.
Cautions and psychiatry
See FUND Page 3
WAGGONER SAID THAT the LA&S program was an outgrowth of the honors program and that adaptation of seminar materials to honors and honor students led to LA&S courses.
Gorton said his experience was that students on probation were likely to receive 'A' grades in LAKS courses. Students should refer to the courses as pursuit or enjoyment.
"We have tried to worry more about maximum development of talents than on minimum."
Fear of low standards, however, has been a central issue among those who oppose the program and a central concern of those involved in the program's administration.
"If you're saying that self-awareness shouldn't be taught you are discounting
grades were running high enough to warrant concern and a study was done to determine just how many "A's" were being given.
"They've come down to more nearly what one would expect now," he said, but still
BOTH LEWIS AND Dewey agreed that the trend in course topics was toward self-awareness. Thirteen of 27 courses taught this semester deal with human relations.
Course content, which this semester ranges from Innovation in Marital and Other Intimate Relations and Male Awareness to Britain Today and The Natural History Museum as an Educational Resource, has raised eyebrows.
However, Lewis said he thought grades in classes of seminar size, generally ran higher than large lecture classes because there was more contact between students
Illegal Gift Discussed In Milk Co-Op Letter
SAN ANTONIO, Tex. (AP)—The largest U.S. milk cooperative made an illegal $100,000 political contribution to President Nixon's re-election campaign in 1969, according to a letter by the co-op's chief antitrust attorney.
The letter was introduced into evidence yesterday at the deposition of George L. Mehren, general manager of the MILK Association Associated Milk Producers Inc. (AMP).
The letter was written Jan. 21, 1974, by attorney E. C. Heiniger of Chicago to Kenneth Parkinson, a lawyer for the Committee to Re-Elect the President.
The letter details the intricate AMPI transactions that surrounded the con-
clave.
Heiniger said the purpose of the letter was to recoup $100,000 from the committee.
"This confirms our telephone conversation of Jan. 15, 1974, with respect to a political contribution in the amount of $100,000 to the Committee to Re-Elect the President, your client, from the corporate client, Associated Milk Producers Inc."
Federal law prohibits political contributions by corporations.
"The rather complicated factual recitation which follows establishes an
unlawful contribution from AMPI funds and, accordingly, we would like the committee to return the $100,000 to AMPI on a voluntary basis." Heininger's letter said.
The letter said a $100,000 contribution was delivered to Herbert Kalmbach, President Nixon's personal lawyer, and "it appears that he has received an offer from the Committee to Re-Elect the President."
Heininger's letter said the $100,000 was originally charged to a bank account of the Trust for Agricultural Education, the political arm of AMPL.
SUA Votes to Bring Erotic Films May 7
"The Erotic Film F celebration",
canceled at KU on Jan. 20, has been
rechieved, according to Jim Milo.
The sophomore and SUA film
board member.
The SUA board voted last night to reschedule the film for May 7.
Last Wednesday the board received a petition signed by 2,100 students who urged that the film be rescheduled.
Indians See 'a Lot on Line' at Wounded Knee
By NANCY SMITH Kansan Staff Reporter
"I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked glutton as palice as when I saw a wizard and a monster, and see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A People's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream ... the nation's hoop is so large now, and the nation's hoop is no longer, and the sacred tree is dead."
The last bloody clash of the 19th century between U.S. cavalrymen and Sioux Indians came in the dead of winter, 1890, at Wounded Knee, S.D., row a dusty little village inside the Pine Ridge Sioux Reservation.
Black Elk
Nearly 300 of the 350 men, women and children of Chief Big Foot's band of Sioux were massacred on the banks of Wounded Creek by the men of the seventh U.S. Cavalry.
MORE THAN 100 indictments have been handed down against Indians who participated in Wounded Knee II. The combined trial of two leaders, Rick Means and Dennis Banks of the American Indian Association, was a way earlier this month in St. Paul, Minn.
One year ago today, more than 200 angry American Indians seized historic Wounded Knee in what has been called a move of frustration and desperation. A 71-day confrontation with federal agents followed, known today as Wounded Knee II.
"If the government wanted to show good faith to the Indians, it would drop the issue of illegal immigration and problems that caused the action," Norman Forer, assistant professor of social welfare, said yesterday. "An attempt to repress dissent by tracing the nature really lays the groundwork for future actions."
Means and Banks told the court in opening statements given Feb. 12 in St. Paul. The court did not find any evidence.
EDGAR HEAP OF BIRDS, Wichita sophomore and a Cheyenne-Arapaho who is president of the University Committee on American Indian Affairs, said he thought the government was "trying to get the militant Indians."
destanding of the provisions of the FT. Laramie Treaty of 1868 and that any illegal acts committed at Wounded Knee were the responsibility of the government to abide by the treaty.
"If Means and Banks are acquitted on treaty evidence, it could cost the government a lot of money. Now treaties aren't boned, so there are no rights. There's more on the line than just the trial," said Heap of Birds.
The Ft. Laramie Treaty is the whole defense, Heap of Birds said. If the court allows its use, a precedent could be set for all Indian treaties.
ONA MZHICKTEN Kolcher, Lawrence
graduate student and Potawatami Indian,
Michigan.
to you, "If your Constitution means anything
say, to our treaties what意思 to us?"
SHE SAID scare tactics and harassment from government officials had been a very real part of the lives of Potawatomi Indians, and of reservation Indians, in the last five years.
Keltcher is vice president of the Committee on American Indian Affairs and the first KU graduate student in American Indian education.
The Potawatomi prairie band, which has a reservation near St. Marys, has many of the same problems as the Oglala Sioux of the Pine Ridge Residence. Self-determination through tribal government is one of the most important.
"It's a great thing to try to control tribal government. If the federal government controls tribal government and tribal government controls its tribe, the federal government should intervene to claim treaty rights," said Tony Garcia, Boise, Idaho, senior and Nez Perce Indian.
"Indian people are not protected by the U.S. Constitution," Forer said.
Garcia said she thought the meaning of the trials came down to whether the federal government was influencing tribal politics or that the federal government is carrying actions through tribal governments.
Their wardship status, she said, gives the government the right to act for Indians in their best interest—as the government perceives it. Most Americans aren't aware of Indians' exclusion from Constitutional protections, he said.
ALTHOUGH WARDSHIP is the real issue, sensationalized news coverage often has obscured the problem, according to Forer. He said wardship powers over Indians were assumed long ago by the federal government, but never legislated.
Administration of Indian affairs is a part of the Department of the Interior, a part of the Department of the Interior.
said that when Indians sought
See INDIANS Page 2