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University Daily Kansan Thursday, Oct. 10, 1963
Attitudes Are Wrong
One of the biggest stumbling-blocks to receiving a full education in college is also one of the basic building-blocks of any collegiate structure—grades.
The arbitrary letter designation is often crucial in deciding membership in social organizations, honor organizations and, in some instances, an invitation to return to school.
What earthly good do grades serve? None.
THE RATIONALIZATION for grades is that they measure a student's knowledge. They don't. It is not too difficult to pass most courses at KU without doing more than committing the book and lecture notes to memory the night before the examination. This might be satisfactory, except that no one retains this crammed knowledge long after the examination.
Grades also have some hindering effects on a student's pursuit of knowledge.
First, the student is held within the bounds of assigned work, simply because the assigned work will be on the examinations. Much information stored in magazines and good books never makes it on the required reading lists, and it comes down to a matter of time. The reading material which will be on the examination usually wins out over the outside material, no matter how desirable.
THE GRADING SYSTEM encourages cribbing and leaning on others for work which the student should do himself. Granted, this is the fault of the student, and points up a basic character shortcoming, but it is helped by a grading system which puts the symbol above the knowledge.
THIS CAN BE POINTED up by the dependence of students on printed study notes. It is quite possible to pass examinations—the Western Civilization test is a good example—by studying the skeleton outlines prepared by enterprising students. But it is quite impossible to understand the message of most great works without understanding the context and atmosphere in which they were written. Yet with the emphasis on grades, students often feel that study notes are enough.
The problem of the grading system is not simply a problem of the college campus. The grade system is an outgrowth of an American characteristic—the search for tangible evidence of an effort exerted.
Unless he is able to inform others of his accomplishments, man is unable to enjoy those accomplishments. He must have his status symbols.
Few individuals are content to labor for a cause, be it academic or social, without the idea of recognition in the back of his mind. This recognition might come in the form of a letter grade, a plaque, or a feeling of importance.
THE PERSONAL FEELING of accomplishment seems to have been filed in the archives of time, along with the pride a cobbler gets from a perfectly crafted pair of shoes.
The solution to all this is not as simple as abolishing the grading system—this would accomplish nothing but chaos.
Basically, the solution is scrapping the American search for public recognition. It is substituting a feeling of personal pride in accomplishment for a feeling of accomplishment for its own sake—something like trying better to understand a history topic simply because it is satisfying to do the work involved.
The Europeans seem to have come up with a rational solution—the use of comprehensive examinations. The examinations are given immediately before graduation, and test what students have learned in four years—not just what he crammed in the night before the exam.
This system would eliminate the scramble for grades and the attendant disadvantages, and substitute a system in which a student's success in achieving the real goal of college—attaining an education—could be judged.
THE FIRST ARGUMENT against this system is the probable overcrowded conditions. No one would be flunked out of the program.
A way out of that problem would be stiff entrance requirements. But while this would work well in a private college, it would be impossible in a state-supported school.
The solution returns to a question of attitudes.
Only through an emphasis on learning and a feeling that knowledge is more important than grades can this problem be solved. The goals of college must be redefined with an emphasis on knowledge.
Or perhaps a new grading system could be evolved which would accomplish essentially the same thing.
If the "A" through "F" grades were cut down to either pass or fail, the dog-eat-dog fight for grades would be minimized. To make this at all fair, passing would be "C" or above. A "D" or an "F" would be failing.
The outstanding student still will be recognizable.
Under the pass or fail system, students would still be challenged to study enough to make the equivalent of a "C" but would be given freedom for outside study.
This puts great confidence in a student's ability to discipline himself, but perhaps a little confidence and a little less regulation would condition to American college student for his place in American life.
After all, what is college for?
Mike Miller
Exchange of Freedoms?
With the Omnibus Civil Rights Bill pending in Congress, it is time to examine the controversial Title II, public accommodations. We hope it will be defeated, not because we disagree with the spirit or intent of the section, but because it is unconstitutional.
THE SECTION explores the interstate commerce implications of discrimination in hotels and eating accommodations, and finds that such discrimination burdens traveling Negroes, the interstate entertainment industry and fraternal, religious and scientific conventions.
The bill claims federal jurisdiction under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment because these businesses are licensed by the states in which they operate.
This is obviously a strained interpretation of the meaning of the Constitution. Private businesses should not be forced by the federal government to accept customers simply because they import their mustard or business envelopes from another state. Congress has been stretching the meaning of its jurisdiction over interstate commerce a long time, but this is the most dangerous abuse so far.
WE LIKE A COUNTRY where the federal government cannot wrest powers for itself. We would like a country even better where it did not try to do so, no matter how lofty the issue. There remains the point that once the government has won this power to dictate to private business, it will have such power even when the issue involved is not so lofty and the customers forced on shopowners do not have such a meaningful claim to service.
-In the Minnesota (University) Daily
The People Say...
Mr. King last Friday in your editorial section you wrote an article criticizing the Hootenanny that SUA is presenting to the campus this Friday night. The decision to have the Hootenanny was made by the fifteen students of the SUA Board reinforced by a student questionnaire that showed the campus wanted a concert of this nature. You criticized this Hootenanny, but you didn't mention that
Hootenanny Hoot OK
you have ever seen a Hootenanny or that you know anything about music especially folk music According to Webster there is not a necessary connection, as you imply, between folk music and hillbilly music. Even if there was, what gives you the right to speak contemptiously. The reason I am writing this letter is to show the students that anything they see on this editorial page they should read only for the humor in it.
It is a sad state of affairs when someone can in a position in a newspaper where they can put their own sometimes uninformed warped opinions in the editorial page where it may affect the minds of other people.
Bob Moutrie
St. Louis, Mo., senior
Bob Moutrie
St. Louis, Mo., senior
(Editor's note: The above letter was printed exactly as Mr. Moutrie submitted it.)
review
Guest Actor Corbin Powerful in 'Emperor'
Clayton Corbin was the Emperor Jones last night, giving a most convincing performance in the opening production of Eugene O'Neill's suspenseful drama.
"The Emperor Jones" is a compact story of an American chain-gang refugee who, in two years, became "emperor" of a West Indies island. Threatened with a revolution of his native subjects, Brutus Jones flees into the jungle, attempting to escape from the island.
In the jungle, the pursued Jones meets several "haints." products of his own imagined fears. These apparitions represent episodes of his personal past and of his racial heritage. In the continuous scenes of the one-act play, the powerful Negro envisions a man he killed, his chain gang, a slave auction, prisoners in a slave ship, and the dance of a primitive witch doctor.
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More important than any message of the play is the sheer dramatic impact, implemented by the cumulative suspense of the plot and by theatrically impressive sound and lighting effects. Unfortunately, neither of these two elements was quite carried through in last night's performance.
THE MESSAGE of "The Emperor Jones," if there really is one, is that civilized man is in reality a ferocious, fearful savage. In each scene, Jones is progressively stripped of part of his costume and even more of his worldliness. Finally he is killed by the silver bullet which symbolizes materialism and the white man's civilization.
The audience was partly to blame for the breakdown of the growing suspense, as there was strained applause during the act and a general giggling, tittering, and restlessness between scenes. In "The Emperor Jones," the action takes place in eight continuous scenes, bridged by sound effects. Thanks to the audience-supplied sound effects, the suspenseful atmosphere lost a great deal of its gripping effect during the hour-and-a-half performance.
ANOTHER PROBLEM was that the play had a slow beginning and an anti-climatic ending. In the first scene, the dialogue was difficult to understand. It may have been O'Neill's intention, however, to convey the absurdity of "civilized" conversation. The last scene dribbled away after the death of Jones.
Corbin's part—and Clayton Corbin himself—dwarfs the other characters, both in O'Neill's focus on the character and in the professional actor's superb interpretation of the part. Corbin, a Broadway actor who has portrayed "de Emperor" many times, played the physically-demanding role with a high degree of conviction and skill.
The sound effect of the tom-toms was poorly done. O'Neill's intention was that the drum beat should start at the rate of the average human pulse, 72 per minute, and rise gradually to the pitch of a frenzied, fevered pulse. Last night's tom-toms began too fast, increased too rapidly, and then simply got louder.
"The Emperor Jones," directed by William R. Reardon, was the season's first University Theatre production. The play will be given tonight, Friday, and Saturday at 8:15 in the University Theatre of Murphy Hall.
The "ghosts" sometimes had trouble communicating the stiff, marionettish movements which O'Neill intended, and some of the scenes were not as dreamlike and unreal as necessary. And the masquerade-party "crocodile god" was completely grotesque.
ALTHOUGH THE FIRST setting did not convey the grand "audience chamber" of the Emperor, the yellow and whiteness of the bright afternoon was effective. Truly impressive, however, were the jungle scenes. Massive black tree trunks and the filtered moon-light created a setting of reality.
On the whole, last night's performance was quite impressive, effectively demonstrating and unrivaled dramaturgy of Eugene O'Neill and the splendid acting ability of Clayton Corbin.
Henry Smithers, a Cockney trader, was portrayed adequately if not always convincingly by James P. Coulson, Tucson, Ariz., graduate student. His was the only major speaking part besides Corbin's.
— Margaret Hughes
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