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University Daily Kansan
Fridav. Nov. 8.1963
And Now...
A hint of what is to come in South Vietnam's difficult and bloody war may emerge Monday when the former Vietnamese ambassador to the United States speaks in the University Theatre at Murphy Hall.
Tran Van Chuong, 65-year-old father of the controversial and recently widowed Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu, will present his views concerning the overthrow of President Ngo Dinh Diem's autocratic regime.
Chuong told an audience at the University of Missouri several weeks ago that the people of Vietnam were more than just dissatisfied, they were "in revolt" against the Diem regime. Not many days later a junta composed of about a dozen generals swept into power and began making what appeared to be encouraging moves toward reform.
CHUONG IS a tiny, gentle man, who has to stand on a raised platform to be seen over a speaker's lecturn. But the strong opinions he holds about the future of the country he represented in Washington for more than eight years give him a stature that easily compensates for what he lacks in height.
SINCE THEN he has been an active opponent of the repressive Diem administration, traveling around the U.S. covering up what he called "the trail of stench" left by his estranged, pro-Diem daughter. Madame Nuhu's husband was a guiding power in the South Vietnamese government until both he and Diem lost their lives in a military coup.
Last August he resigned his position in a huff, saying that as long as Diem stayed in power there would be "not one chance of winning the war against the Communists."
Chuong has said the U.S. probably played no direct role in the overthrow of the Diem dynasty, but he found a parallel in his resignation and the pressure of withdrawal of-U.S. aid in the days leading up to the coup.
"The REMOVAL of foreign aid may have had some effect, just as my resignation was a real blow," said Chuong. "But similarly, my resignation does not mean that I had any part in the coup." He said the Diem government fell because it was "blind to realities."
Having proved himself a competent forecaster of events, it should be enlightening to hear what he thinks of the now-organizing power structure in Vietnam.
The question marks are numerous.
HOW EFFECTIVE will the new government be in the war against the Viet Cong? Will the Communist propaganda offensive spurred by the coup weaken the national resistance? Can the provisional regime eliminate oppression and gain the loyalty of the people? What are the chances that reforms will be instituted to provide better lives for Vietnam's 14 million inhabitants?
What will be the best future policy for the U.S. to follow?
In his halting, accented English, Tran Van Chuong is likely to provide many clues toward the solution of the complex puzzle. Of more emotional but less practical interest, he may also reveal what is in store for Madame Nhu and her four children.
CHUONG HAS been avoiding a meeting with his daughter since her arrival here in October.
But, no matter what Chuong has to say, we should feel fortunate that the opportunity to hear him arose in the first place. In this respect a round of applause should go to the All Student Council current events committee and the Student Union Activities featured speakers committee for their initiative.
As interested students let's make known by our attendance that we appreciate these campus visits and would like to see more of the same in the days to come.
Larry Schmidt
How to Con Your Professors
"Grades are your means of getting into graduate school; your means of keeping your parents happy; your means of avoiding the Army," says a student publication at the University of California at Berkeley. But, it adds with splendid canard: "Do not give the professor reason to suppose that your interest is in the grade. You must always act like an interested intellectual, no matter what your motive."
Here speaks an authentic voice of U.S. education, in contrast to the stately bromides of college presidents. It sums up the art of conning the professor for higher grades—a sick art that grows more feverish as more collegians compete for more degrees at ever more crowded campuses.
THE OLD apple has to be polished a little more discreetly than it once was. The sweet Southern thing who sighs, "Ah'll do anything to get a good trade," is now likely to be told: "Try studying." Symbolic of the times, a Michigan State professor last year ruined the short-skirt bit by ordering all coeds to the back of the room. "I don't let myself get close to any student," says a grim Houston professor. "I try to look at all of them as enemies."
Yet, faced with 700 yawning faces, the big-campus lecturer yearns for one passionate learner—and this is what the good con man impersonates. "The very first lecture, the one everybody cuts, is the most important in the course," says a Wisconsin senior. Moving in fast, the con man lovingly establishes his own name with the prof.
AT THE UNIVERSITY of Michigan, fraternity houses are
stocked with not only old exams but also "teacher psych-outs"—dossiers compiled by A-students on professors' likes and dislikes. This allows con men to lug around the prof's favorite magazine, or to ape his lingo.
Con men rely heavily on "respectful disagreement" — tantalizing the professor who pines for ardent student protest. Really daring grade grubbers go much farther. "If his poli-sci prof is an outspoken liberal," says one Yaleman, "the imaginative con man adopts a fascist interpretation in his classwork. Since most profs like to compare themselves to Voltaire, they will give the little fascist every benefit of the doubt."
RUN-OF-THE-MILL FLATTERY includes tape-recording the professor's lectures, pretending to shift one's major to his field, and inviting the wretch to speak at one sorority house after another.
"A professor will write a paper for you if you just give him a chance," says a Berkeley student tip sheet. "Take in a draft or outline, and tell him you are having trouble with it; then take his criticisms and comments to heart. This will eliminate midnight panic and at least one grade's worth of errors."
GOOD CONNING necessarily includes a range of ingenious excuses. No.1 seems to be infectious mononucleosis, which is
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hard to diagnose and can be feigned to excuse weeks of goofing off. One Yaleman comes down with it at exams, which he then takes in the infirmary with his notes under the mattress. A Chicago professor notes the prevalence of "unspecified emotional disturbances," such as "the traumatic experience of a boy, who, discovering his roommate was a homosexual, just wasn't able to study."
EXAM TIME gives the con man his last chance—and perhaps the best instructions on how to seize it came from David Littlejohn, who last year was a Harvard teaching fellow, and is now an assistant professor of English at Stanford. Littlejohn set out to rebut an annual Harvard Crimson piece on how to fool the grader on exams by "use of the vague generality, the artful equivocation, and the overpowering assumption."
"Your only job is to keep me awake," wrote Littlejohn. "How? By facts. Any kind, but do get them in. They are what we look for, as we skim our lynx eyes over every other page—a name, a place, an illusion, an object, a brand of deodorant, the titles of six poems in a row, even an occasional date. Name at least the titles of every other book Hume ever wrote; don't say just 'medieval cathedrals' — name nine. Think of a few specific examples of 'contemporary decadence,' like Natalie Wood.
"KEEP US ENTERTAINED, keep us awake. Be bold, be personal, be witty, be chock-full-of-facts. I'm sure you can do it without studying if you try. We did."
— Reprinted from Time
HERBLOCK
THE WASHINGTON POST
"We're Agreed, Then, That The Senator Is The Front Runner"
Problems in English
(Editor's Note: The following article is the text of the speech given by Alvan Teragawachi Wednesday in the Campus Problems Speaking contest.)
As you all know, we at the University of Kansas pride ourselves in sending educated people out into the world. In English each student who is graduated from this University must pass the English Proficiency examination.
Theoretically, an adequate preparation for the examination is the requirement of four semesters of concentrated English study—but about one-third of the students fail at each examination. It would seem that either the English instruction is insufficient or that the administration of the proficiency examination is not very proficient itself.
WHY DO SO many people fail the English Proficiency? Some even have to take the test a fourth or fifth time.
First, poor instruction is one possible answer. Many English courses are taught by graduate students who might benefit from taking the course themselves. A straight "A" record at Oshkosh University does not insure a fundamental knowledge of grammar such as KU students are required to have. Even the grammatical knowledge of a George Waggoner (Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and a professor of English-Ed.) would insure neither a complete mastery of composition nor an ability to communicate this information to others.
BESIDES, THE AVERAGE graduate assistant is much more concerned with changing baby's diapers and conning professors in his orals than with the problem of his struggling students in freshman and sophomore English.
Secondly, the method of instruction itself may be inadequate. Most of us have had papers returned with written comments—concerning the illegibility and lack of neatness—covering the paper. Often, however, it takes several minutes of study to decipher the instructor's own comments. The rest of his hen-scratches and abbreviations may resemble nothing more than Sanskrit, the ancient Persian Language.
Some instructors charged with grading the exams must have their own correspondence corrected by their secretaries. And there are graders who are lenient and others who, after long periods of grading, become more severe and pass no one.
LASTLY, PERHAPS the instruction has been good and the student is well prepared for the English Proficiency examination. Here he must face the perils of subjective grading. A borderline student who expresses extreme rightist views is running a good risk if the grader's mother-in-law happens to be a Goldwaterite-Fascist.
This, I realize, is a complex and difficult problem to solve, but the following suggestions may serve to improve the situation.
THE ENGLISH Department should not depend so heavily on inexperienced graduate instructors to teach the important freshman-sophomore classes. Perhaps teaching assistantships should be limited to advanced graduate students and more freshman-sophomore classes be taught by Ph.D.'s.
Because the University feels that proficiency in English is important enough to make graduation dependent on passing an English examination, it must be important enough to necessitate a larger appropriation of money so that the present number of English professors may be greatly increased.
J
IF THE ENGLISH Department were enlarged, all grading could be done by members of that department, thus equalizing grading procedures somewhat.
Of course, students could continue to rely on the tried and true method—luck—in drawing good teachers and lenient graders.
I feel that no definite or precise answers can be given until the matter is studied more carefully by both the student body and the administration of the University of Kansas.