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Tuesday, April 25, 1972
University Daily Kansan
BGS Questions
Some educators are studying the possibility of the University offering a Bachelor of General Studies Degree. One proposal for a general studies degree would eliminate all distribution and major requirements. For this degree all a student would have to do would be to pass 124 credit hours of college classes.
It is not unreasonable for a university to require a minimal understanding of certain areas of knowledge before it grants a degree. The distribution requirements at KU are not unduly restrictive, and many courses of classes they may choose to take within each distribution area.
The common requirements for all bachelor of arts degrees—such as nine hours of elementary English composition and literature, or proficiency in a foreign language—are required to most students or are receiving enough criticism that they will be satisfactorily altered.
A general studies degree could let administrators and faculty members avoid facing questions about the necessity of certain training examples in example imagine a student being told, "If you think the speech requirement is
inane, why don't you get a BGS instead?" It would be much easier to place a student in another major class. Or to demonstrate the validity of his dissatisfaction.
In the present system, if a student is not interested in any of the majors offered, he can create a major more suited to his interest and temperament, he can also be moved to have some of the requirements changed.
There is some validity to the argument that even with these options, degree requirements still may be too restrictive for some students. If a student feels he is locked in by current requirements, perhaps it would be more logical for him not to be concerned about getting a degree. He could enroll as a special student and take whatever courses he wanted for as long as he wanted.
By sacrificing requirements and running the risk of lowering standards, educational policy committees make it easy for anyone to get a degree. They also place too much emphasis on a degree. This dilutes any value a bachelor's degree may now have—and there is no magic in having those two initials after your name.
Mary Ward
Garry Wills Catalogue Not Book But Lark
Garry Wills
The Whole Earth Catalogue was a lark, which became a good business tool for the American instititors, who know when to get out, have issued a giant last number. And some adults, playing at delayed kiddie games, are using it to award a Contemporary Affairs.
It is a Sears catalogue for the counter-culture. By praise and excerpts from the books and products offered, it is also a freaky how-to-do-it book. How to grow your own natural food, and your own marijuana. How to order a delicater. How to have your own baby, and nurse your own baby. How to take care of your baby. How to treat Buckminster Fuller as a guru. How to do your own cremation ("We went home and got out the six foot box which we had made long before them."
odd bits of plywood for five dollars").
How to do your own Whole Earth Catalogue.
Girls are told how to masturbate—the book deserts its emphasis on the "natural" (as in delivery, food, and remedies) when it includes an electric vibrator among the methods. The passage is addressed to girls too young to use the vibrator as own: "It's nice sometimes to make up sexual fantasies while masturbating."
As I said, a lark—and by people who know when they have carried a good thing far enough. But the "straight" culture blunders in on each fad of the counter-culture just when it has had its freaky moment of life. The New York Times has written that the Yale Teacher Charles Reich's claim that Kid Konsciousness was on the verge of triumph just when it was on the verge of defeat.
Harrison Salisbury—the Times editor who handles the page that went ga-ma over Reich—was included in one of the judges' panels of the Book Award committee. He is Chairman of the Committee. A memorandum to all judges stated
fairly; "Edited books are not eligible." Mr. Salisbury took the position that the judges alone should be judges of that matter—and he prevailed on a second member of the Contemporary Affairs panel.
I was the third judge, and took the position that book awards should be given to books; that books should be written; that the awards should be given to encourage and reward authors in their difficult task; that my service on the panel was undertaken with this in mind, and with the memorandum's purpose, that I give them what that gives the award to a freak-fashion catalogue just going out of fashion would be a disservice to the writers' profession.
The head of the National Book Committee tried to mediate our differences, promising the other two a special award for the Catalogue, one that would not deprive an author of the Contemporary Events prize. That met the criteria and the jury who were supreme arbiters of all rules when it came to abrogating the memorandum, became suddenly powerless and conservative: they
would not be part of any innovation in the set order of things that made for a new prize.
At that, I quit the panel, reflecting that if the judges had the courage of their quirks they should give the Book Award to the person who built the best Buckmuster Fuller done last year. (They considered the Catalogue a "must-read" book) The artifact, with a single "author" in the sense of that artifact's constructor.
It also seemed to me that the compilers of the Catalogue, if they lived by the ideals of natural integrity they profess, should refuse the prize. But when I attended a conference in any rate, they come off better than their celebrators. It has long been a commonplace that the straight culture "co-opts" the vital trends of our world. And we all did. We'd have grown when the guardians of our "civilization" must stretch and bend to guaze on the goodies of a morbid movement, death feeding on life. The National Book Award had bad for the National Book Award had to fall victim to this necrophilia trendness.
Copyright, 1972, Universal Press Syndicate
Readers Respond
Greece, Faculty, Petition
Kilpatrick
To the Editor:
to the book of *Papa John's* editorial on April 20 stank. It was prejudiced, bigoted, slanderous and ignorant. He calls the only honest Greeks "rascals," because they oppose the tyranny of the jounta. By the time Jefferson was born, Jefferson, Franklin and other fathers of the American
Revolution are also racsals. He accuses Antares Pandreurol of advocating violent overthrow of the jouta. Since when has it been possible to take a crime? The answer is, since it conflicts with somebody's interest. It seems Kilpatrick dreads the thought that Greece under wasted its resources in withdraw from NATO and go socialist). So, it is better
James J. Kilpatrick
Primary Reform Urged
PHILADELPHIA — The Democratic presidential hopefuls take two more jumps today in the Grand American National Steeplechase, entries limited to lumacats and other politicians. Surely, surely, there must be a better way.
The metaphor seems apt. According to the Tom Jones tradition, the steeplechase began as a wild race among the landed gentry of 18th Century England. They lined up their horses, took off in a canoe and went—over stone walls, chicken coops, and picket fences. They took water jumps, mud jumps, and brush jumps. They terrified the livestock and left the native open-mouthed. They left a trail of cracked skulls and metal bones. They won winner limped home on a winded horse. It was, in its way, great sport.
What remains of this year's field is plunging on. The betting
in Boston is that George McGovern will sail over the chicken coop of Massachusetts, while Hubert Humphrey runs around the jump instead. Here in Pennsylvania, Edmund Muskie ran galloping through a fog of intrapolitics toward a wall, George Wallace, the gray fox from Dixie, has been harking in Pittsburgh and Wilber-Barre in Ohio. It is too late to halt the madness now. The candidates are doomed to race on to the richest prize of all—the California stakes in early June, when 271 delegates will be drawn from the ballot. After that, Miami. The exhilaration winner will have made promises he cannot keep; he will have lost support he sorely needs. The candidates collectively will have raised and spent—or borrowed money, and the neighborhood of $20 million, and the money-raising task must then
begin anew.
Twenty-three separate primaries have been scheduled this spring. They are not wholly meaningless; they are telling us something: The remarkable vote for Wallace and McGovern is a manifestation of discontent that cannot go unheeded. But the two candidates provide the measure of statesmanship; they measure stamina instead. The primaries do not clarify; they confuse.
Two proposals, one old and one new, are being advanced by way of reform. Senators like Mike Dainik and George Aiken of Vermont have revived the idea of a single national primary. Senator Robert Packwood of Oregon is offering a five regional primaries instead.
The Mansfield-Aiken proposal is cast in the form of an elaborately detailed, 1,300-word amendment to the Constitution.
to have as ally a nation of slaves rather than having a free state among the poor, dissuiring to see that the only freedom that Kilpatrick cares about is American freedom, and as he did so in 1864, as a piece of information, Antreta Papandreau was never premier before. His father, who he dead is.
Viewing their resolution as a bill, many observers will find the proposal attractive. Mansfield and Aiken recommend a single bill to approve each presidential year. If none of a party's candidates received a plurality of at least 40 per cent, a run-off would be held four weeks later. If each president's plan has the virtue of simplicity; it has the defect of nationalizing a political process that until now has rested with the States, and it raises the expensive prospect of elections in a three-month span.
As such, their resolution is plainly preposterous; they have written a statute, not drafted an Constitution. A statute in constitution truly is required (authorities disagree), a single sentence would suffice, vesting in Congress the power to provide by order for a national primary system.
Packwood's alternative
proposal envisions five regional primaries, one month apart, beginning on the first Tuesday in March. A five-man commission of city officials supervise the balloting. Convention delegates would be awarded on a basis of proportional representation. The Commission would vote if the vote would name one-third of the delegates. The Packwood plan would retain not only the basic federal structure but also the diversity of its vast improvement over the steeplechase madness of 1972.
Neither proposition is likely to be considered in Congress this year. But next year, when the president signs a new sober thought must be given to a sander scheme for 1976. That year will mark the 20th anniversary of the great American revolution, making it 'high time for another.'
Copyright, 1972, Washington Star Syndicate, Inc.
It is alarming to see a man with the power of the pen behind him such a misinformed bigot. I wonder how many people his editorial has influenced. If it has influenced even a single person, in favor of tyranny, then his label of tyranny on should be labeled poisonous.
Parking
Costas Orundontiotis Senior
To the Editor:
Monday night's meeting regarding the proposed new parking arrangements was announced, consequently could not be attended by persons having previous commitments. This is why who nevertheless consider it important to have inputs to the efficiency and comfort of our work setting. Because of time pressures, several of us are required to letter, rather than individually.
To the Editor:
Dear Chancellor Chalmers;
Future plans call for a consolidation of the present T, R, L, H, D, and Q lots, as well as the existing parking buildings, into a single "Blue" parking zone. The sticker for this zone will cost $30. The addition of new parking spaces can be expected to increase the demand for such spaces as exist in the "Blue" zone. However, the number of such spaces which will be available for faculty and staff parking, since many will become alleviated by other zones, since the "Blue" zone sticker will be alleviated by other numbers of "Blue" zone stickers issued sufficiently exceeds the number of parking spaces allowed under the "top priority" parking and will be forced to park off-campus. This amounts to raising the price from about $40 to $75, reducing the parking privilege
Those of us who work in building on the east side will benefit by the plan to disadvantaged by the plan to make Jayhawk a serious, seriously
We feel that the proposed changes in the parking situation have come upon us rather suddenly. We, the faculty
and staff, have not had an opportunity to express our views. We do not know whether the proposals are the result of a cause or are simply traffic patterns and parking needs or not. At first glance, we feel that it is a costly and major revision which may prove no more satisfactory than the usual evacuation, and may even be worse.
We therefore urge that no change be made in the present parking system until considered feasible, and that least for another academic year. If it has not already been done, it might be wise to employ a research firm to study the trait which might be pertinent in making a decision. Thus, if we find that a change is warranted, we can implement a policy that will best preserve the entire academic community.
J. Mistler-Lachman Department of B
J. Mistler-Lachman Department of Psychology
Resignation
Ms. Dehon's letter in Thursday's Kansas was, I am afraid, an exercise in total mistrust with the petition for the resignation of Senators David Miller and Louis Osom from both the Senate and House between myself and several other Senators before we decided to go ahead. Since then many other Senators have endorsed the petition.
The reasons motivating us as a group are not that they voted "no" on the resolution to legalize same-sex marriage, but because reasons they gave for so voting cause us considerable concern over their fitness for membership in our community. We committee in the University. We desire only their resignation from SenEx, not from the University and would be grateful for Senate. While the reasons for our concern are too lengthy for this letter we invite anyone to visit the University and talk with us personally if they are interested in the quality of student representation on the committee at KU.
By Sokoloff
Students on SenEx (there are only three) have input far out of proportion to their numbers and have been appalled. Apparently during the past year the former student members of the council have achieved peaceful solutions to two campus crises in which many faculty and administrators have been unnecessary and unneeded police intervention. Thus, who the failure affects us all, and we feel it quite legitimate to question those selected if we have doubts. After a couple of months Royalty does not exit at KU.
Griff and the Unicorn
As for me, personally, yes, I do believe that their vote against the resolution to legalize pot, pardon marijuana violations, and have a student opinion poll over the issue this Spring, was sufficient for me (though not necessarily all those who are serious about them) they have no business serving on SenEx. My reason is a very basic moral one. I believe that every man must be responsible for his or her own interests as he or she deems best, so long as neither force nor fraud is initiated against another person. And the vote of "no" by Miller and Scotty to be a highly immoral act.
in a peaceful non-violent way.
along with many other activities,
smoking, possessing, or selling
not is such an activity.
Our resolution was essentially an act of self defense. Students have been arrested, humiliated, and killed in the Middle River here in Lawrence for the "crime" of smoking pot. We will not support such actions which our action might have significant political impact to defend ourselves and others by being present on campus or present and future Senators and Representatives from Douglas County to Topeka that would legitimate forum in the capitol.
All the Student Senate resolution basically affirmed that people should speak up and be served when they are partaking of an activity
Miller and Scott could have abstained from voting, they did not vote in the legitimacy of our attempt at self-defense. A vote is not the expression of opinion carrying only the power to persuade. It has no coercive force. A vote in a democratic body is an act, an act that is neither coercive nor over the minority regardless of the latter's opinion. A vote is coercive to other voters, and so are obvious in that a major defense of democratic voting is "At least voting is better each other. It is less wasteful."
In voting, "no" Miller and Scott tried to destroy our only legal force against him. He was reasonably expected to bring strong pressure to bear on some of our political leaders—by telling them not to position clearly and then having the students vote on the issue. If they did not deny them through no fault of theirs, I do not deny them their right to voice their opinion. But I don't deny that they have the right to vote in a manner as to destroy, trample upon, or to attempt to attack the basic right of personal persons. To confusevoice with speaking is a serious logical error with grave consequences for the rights of people.
N F
in Senators Miller and Scott could not see the principles involved in this issue, principals taken in the Student Senate, then I feel they are not perceptive enough to serve on SenEx. Further, there is no shortage of students who have felt
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Some issues are so basic as to transcend even personal friendship.
Gus diZerega Lawrence Graduate Student
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