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University Daily Kansan Tuesday. May 22, 1956.
0.25 0.3
It's Almost Over
The Final Word
Well, it's all over but the shouting and finals, or vice versa. And it's been quite a year, combining both the good and the bad. There have been glorious moments, and there have been dark ones, but many which will always be remembered.
There was the great occasion when the K-State Wildcat was captured, and the subsequent let-down when the Jayhawk failed at the football game. The basketball team lost out in the classroom, but from all indications, it looks like we picked up a winner in Philadelphia.
But we're digressing. What we're trying to say to you is that all in all things haven't been too bad this year, in spite of all the setbacks. Sure, we've all flunked a few tests, had a few worries, missed a few classes, etc. But that isn't all there is to college.
Of course, it isn't over yet, and we're not recommending that you quit studying for finals, or stop trying to make your grades, for those things are important.
And a couple of other KU standouts—Phog Allen and Wes Santee—fell by the wayside, but Bill Nieder, Bill Easton, and Al Oerter appear to be ready to take over.
So, to those of you who will be around again next fall—well, take it easy, be careful, and we'll see you in September.
But again we're getting carried away. All we want to say is that we've enjoyed putting out the editorial page for you for the past eight weeks, and hope we've interested at least a few of you. This is our last day at this desk. Next fall this position will be held by Ray Wingerson, whose excellent work you've been reading all semester.
And to you fortunate few who are graduating, our congratulations—but we still think the big bronze bird is worthless.
-Dick Walt
Going Home?
The nation's worst automobile accident toll in history was recorded in 1955, it has been announced after an insurance company survey.
Don't Be In A Hurry
Traffic deaths totaled 37,800 last year compared with 35,500 in 1954. The injury-count reached 2. - 158,000 compared with 1,960,000 in the previous year.
"IF IT'S TOO CROWDED UP HERE FOR YOU-THERE'S MORE ROOM IN BACK."
These figures are taken from "Fatal Fallacies," the twenty-second in an annual series of traffic accident data booklets published by The Travelers Insurance Company. Accident facts from every state in the nation are collected and analyzed for the booklet by Travelers statisticians.
Excessive speed was the most dangerous driving mistake in 1955, killing 12,700. The 1954 total was 12,380 persons. The injury total resulting from excessive speed was 702,560, compared with 659,000 in 1954.
The pedestrian record was the only bright spot in the 1955 accident picture. It reflected improvement for the fifth consecutive year. Pedestrian casualties were reduced to 230,400, compared with 235,060 in 1954.
Weekend crashes accounted for 15,730 killed and 766,090 injured. The 1954 weekend record was 13,980 killed and 678,000 injured.
One out of every 75 persons in the United States became a traffic casualty in 1955.
Crossing between intersections, "jay walking," and stepping into the street from behind parked cars are the chief causes of pedestrian deaths and injuries.
Eighty-five per cent of the vehicles involved in accidents were passenger cars.
Twenty-two per cent of the deaths occurred on Satdurdays.
Other interesting statistics:
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS by Dick Bibler
The year 1955 reveals that traffic deaths and injuries are on the increase. There were 57 injuries to each death, compared with only 37 injuries per death in 1941.
Four to 8:00 p.m. are the most dangerous hours of the day.
Don't be a statistic
... Letters ...
Editor:
Perhaps we ought to have a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Students. It seems to me that every year we take away a few more of their rights. I am much distressed to learn that the evaluation of professors by students is going into effect at KU.
I have talked with several of my colleagues about the matter and have been shocked by the attitude they take. These learned and upright men seem to be thinking only of themselves—of the small benefits which they as teachers, may derive from such "evaluations." They do not seem to take into consideration the incalculable harm it will do a student to participate in such an unnatural procedure.
I am hardly entitled to an opinion, I suppose, since I am only a visiting professor in the English department. Still, this matter has come up in other universities and is a subject of concern for teachers everywhere.
I think that while a student is attending the University it is his right to have the opportunity of learning certain disciplines which will stand him in good stead when he goes out into a world which is much tougher than the curricula of the modern university would indicate.
It is the teacher's duty to help him in every way he can to learn these disciplines. Evaluating the student's work has been regarded since time immemorial as one of the best ways of helping him. If a student is capable of giving an official evaluation of a teacher's work he is wasting his time by taking that particular course.
There is another kind of evaluation which has always gone on among students; criticisms, grumbles at real or fancied injustices—students have even gone so far as to burn their professors in effigy. When that happens people usually conclude that where there is that much fire there has all along been smoke and are inclined to accept the students' judgment of such a teacher. But official evaluation of a professor's work by his students is quite another matter.
In the old days a pupil who did not learn his lessons was sometimes asked to put on a dunce cap and stand in a corner. We think of that as a bad pedagogy and would not dream of doing it to a student nowadays. But we do it just the same.
Only we reverse the procedure. Nowadays, on every campus—at least according to my observation—the professor is asked and over to put on the dunce cap and stand in the corner while the students keep the school. It may be good for the professor's soul—but it won't do the school any good. In fact, you
might as well dismiss school, once you get the professor in the corner, with the dunce cap on his head. Nobody is going to learn anything that wav.
For a student, after all, is only human—a fact which he and his professors tend to lose sight of nowadays. He is also, in most cases, immature. The professor whose classes are crowded is not always the one who is doing the most for his students. After one has been out of college one's judgments of one's teachers usually undergo a radical revision.
In my opinion, "evaluations" should be left to time and maturity. A student is in the university to learn, the professor is there to teach. Any reversal of those ancient roles is, in my opinion, not only indecorous but a shocking infringement of a student's most immemorial right.
Caroline Gordon.
Caroline Gordon,
Visiting professor of English
(Note: We supported the evaluation because we felt that some professors realized that they were not perfect instructors, and thought they might learn something. Naturally, professors who are perfect will not be helped by the evaluation. As to the part about standing the teacher in the corner with a dunce cap—isn't there a saying about wearing the shoe if it fits you?)
Daily Hansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
Founded in 1904, became biweekly 1904,
3rd to print. No more weekly.
Telephone VIking 3-2700
Extension 251, news room
Extension 376, business office
Member Inland Daily Press Association,
Associated Collegiate Press. Represented
Madison Advertising Service, 420
Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y.
service: United Press. Mail subscription
rates: $3 a semester or $4.50 a year. Pub-
lished. Lawrences. University year except
Saturdays and Sundays. University holiday,
and examination periods. Entered
as second-class matter Sept. 17, 1910, at
post office under act of March 3, 1879.
NEWS DEPARTMENT
International ... Managing Editor
Barbara Bell, Bob Lyle, Kent Thomas,
David Webb, Assistant Managing Editors;
Jane Peechovskaya, Gerald Dawson,
Assistant City Editors; Gordon Hudelson,
Telegraph Editor; Robert Riley,
Larry Stroup, Assistant Telegraph Editors;
Felecia Fenberg, Society Editor;
Betty Jean Stanford, Assistant Society Editor;
Robert Bruce Spears, Daith Hail Loomis, Assistant Sports Editors; Larry Hell, Picture Editor.
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Richard Hunter ... Business Manager
James Wienis, Advertising Manager;
David B. Cleveland, National Advertiser;
Kevin Hobbs, Classified Advertising Manager; Clifford Mcyer, Circulation Manager; Walter Baskett Jr., Promotion Manager.
Dick Walt Editorial Editor
Anny Kelly, Ray Wingerson, Associate
News In Review A New Farm Bill
One of the most important news events last week was the approval of a new farm bill which does not include the two-price plan for certain crops, and will not make advanced payments to farmers as the President proposed to do under the soil bank. Except for these provisions, the House and Senate Agricultural Committees have given the President everything he asked for including funds up to $1.2 billion for payments. Growers of feed grain such as oats, rye, barley, grain sorghums, will be given the same treatment as those who grow corn.
In other congressional actions, the House Foreign Affairs Committee reversed itself and voted against a provision that might have barred further U.S. foreign aid to many countries. They came close to voting a billion-dollar cut in President Eisenhower's $4.9 billion foreign aid bill, but postponed until Tuesday the final decision.
Pentagon officials were called to the White House to see what could be done about channeling defense contracts into southeastern Kansas where a critical unemployment situation exists.
The Pentagon disclosed plans for working on a new warplane in place of a superspeed long-range interceptor for which development contracts have recently been cancelled. This plane is said to have even greater potentialities than the other one. Although no details were given as to why the contract was broken, one source revealed that it was caused by lack of funds for development and research, the fact that the plane was heavier than anticipated, and the biggest problem of all, a shortage of scientists and engineers.
In southwestern and southern Missouri last Monday, the heaviest rains of the year created flood damage, and caused one death. It was reported that the moisture alleviated the area's drought condition.
Tragedy struck over the continent during the week, with the worst disaster occurring when a supersonic jet plane crashed into a Catholic Nuns' home killing 15 and injuring four others. The top-secret jet had been ordered aloft on the false alarm that a mysterious transport from the Arctic on which no flight plan had been received was flying over Canada. It proved to be a Royal Canadian Air Force transport bound for Montreal.
The United States exploded a hydrogen bomb over Bikini Atol in the Pacific after a number of postponements because of weather conditions. The purpose of this explosion was to prove that it could successfully carry the bomb in a plane, and accurately hit the intended target.
In Galena, Maryland, a series of explosions and fire wrecked the Kent Oil Co., a gas bulk storage plant, killing two firemen and injuring eight others.
T. Lamar Caudle (who headed the Justice Department's tax division in the late 1940's) last week had his name linked to oil royalties from Harry I. Schwimmer, former Kansas City lawyer, who is one of the three defendants in the federal conspiracy case being tried in St. Louis.
In the U.S., the State Supreme Court upheld the Amateur Athletic Union's lifetime suspension of Wes Santee from competition as an amateur, but sharply criticized the AAU officials for fostering lax observance of the rules. Justice Walter A. Lynch said, "He has eliminated himself as an amateur athlete, but not without an assist from some of the guardians of amateur athletics." Santee, an officer in the Marine Corps, was accused of professionalism for taking money above expenses to compete in certain meets. He was suspended Feb. 19.
Victor Riesel, labor columnist who was blinded by an unknown assailant who threw acid into his face, has the impression that the New York district attorney's office is convinced that the attack came from the trucking-garment trade area. He has stated that the day after he leaves the hospital, which probably will be the first of the week, he will be in his office banging out his column as he always has.
The second-year medical sciences building at the Kansas University Medical Center, one of the major research centers of the University, has been named for Dr. Harry Wahl, professor of Pathology, who will retire on July 1 to become professor emeritus.
At the University of California, $10,000 worth of damage was done as about 3,000 students participated in panty raids on a dozen sorority houses!
Nancy Collins