Page 2 University Daily Kansan Monday, Feb. 6, 1956.
What's Wrong With The Faculty?
What's wrong with the Faculty?
Ask the 6,500 students on the campus and you'll get 6,500 different replies. Ask the individual instructors and you'll come up with 800 different replies.
But of all the comments that have been heard by this writer over the past year about faculty members, three stand out far above the petty gripes.
The first is that there are too many instructors who rely strictly on the book—and don't delve further into their subject, because they generally don't want to take the time and they don't care.
The instructors who fall into this category are of the opinion that all they have to do is recite from the text and their teaching assignment for the day is complete. They don't put the initiative for learning on the student—in fact they apparently don't know what the word "initiative" means.
Of course there are some instructors today who go to the other extreme, putting the full load of learning on the student. While the student pores over the assigned readings, the instructor sits back and relaxes until it's time to assign another group of readings for the poor defenseless students.
The second comment that reigned supreme over the rest is that there are no longer any really great independently thinking instructors on the campus.
The last of the really great independents on the campus was retired last year and farmed out to an eastern girls' school. There he may espouse to his heart's content the economic theories and teachings he enjoyed so much giving to KU students.
Of course there are some fine instructors on the campus, but they are not outstanding indi-
vidualists like Dr. John Ise. There are too many instructors who bide their time, till retirement.
There are many instructors who are afraid of administrative disapproval for too much independent thinking. The instructors who were questioned on the matter agreed that there is no stifling of independent thinking by the administration, but they agreed that many instructors don't feel secure in their job if they break with conformity.
The third comment from students was that instructors either don't have the time or they don't take the time to become familiar with their individual students. Of course today there also is the cry of too many students—but in 1947 the enrollment was a mere 9,500 compared with the 6,500 today.
It is recognized that teachers are underpaid; consequently quite a few take on outside or associated work to make ends meet. So, they don't have the time to devote to consulting with their students. They rely on counselors and guidance bureaus to get to know the student's problems.
There are instructors on the campus who are devoted to the teaching profession, but they have become so devoted they have lost sight of the objectives of education. Then there are the instructors who are not devoted to anything in particular and are just biding their time, till something better comes along.
Of course there are rotten apples in every barrel, but if we could have the men and women who are devoted, but not with blindness, and with the initiative to take the time to adequately prepare themselves and their students, we undoubtedly could have the best place of learning in the Midwest.
Give Us A Break This Semester, Prof
Sam L. Jones
Another semester is underway, and after the disasters of last final week, probably most students have armed themselves with firm resolutions to keep up on their work, study more, make better grades, etc.
This is a healthy situation, for most students realize the errors they made in the past few months, and are making a sincere attempt to prevent these errors from happening again.
We know most of these resolutions will be broken within a few weeks, but at least it shows the students are thinking. We only wish that some of the faculty members would make a few resolutions of their own, and sincerely try to keep them.
So, just for kicks, we'll offer a few suggestions to any faculty members who care to notice.
1. Try to return exam papers (and other work) to students as quickly as possible. Nothing is so discouraging as waiting three weeks to find out a test score.
2. Use common sense in assigning tests and projects. Try not to pour on the work when such events as the KU Relays, Rock Chalk Revue, Greek Week, etc. are coming up. These extra-curricular activities are part of college life, but unless you cooperate, no one will be able to take advantage of them.
3. Let your students know early in the semester what you're going to expect from them. This is something you can do right now, and it will probably save many students a great deal of misery later in the semester. Explain to your students how many tests you will give, what grading system you will use, and your policy on class attendance.
4. Try to take a little personal interest in the welfare of the students. We realize this is almost impossible in large classes, but you'd be surprised how a word of praise now and then helps morale.
5. Let the student know if he's failing.Call him in for a conference and try to give constructive suggestions to improve his work. Once again, show your interest.
So there you are. This list is by no means complete, but just from following these simple rules, you may make the semester much more enjoyable for all of us, and certainly won't hurt your reputation among the students.
A Salute To The Highway Department
—Dick Walt
Hats off to the Kansas highway department.
For the past two weeks the state has been hit by a series of snow storms and highways have been covered with a dangerous glaze of snow and ice. The danger of accidents has been far more prevalent than is normal.
The department is out on the highways in trucks and snow plows as soon as a storm abates and many times before the flakes quit falling. The orange-colored trucks can be found in the early hours of the morning sweeping and scraping the roads' surfaces.
The state highway department has risen to the occasion in magnificent style, however. It has kept the majority of the state's highways clear of ice and snow and has undoubtedly been instrumental in keeping the accident toll down.
The practice in the cities seems to be to leave the snow and ice on the roads and streets until it melts, even though this may take several days or weeks. You leave safe, ice-free highways to pass through the various towns on dangerous
On a drive south immediately after a storm last week we found the roads clear of ice and snow except in the various towns we passed through. These towns demonstrate a good comparison between the efficiency of the highway department and that of the various cities.
It is no easy job to work in the bitter cold and freezing winds such as have covered the state the past few weeks. Too often we take the highway department for granted, and don't stop to think about the service they offer to the motorists of the state
So the next time you pass a crew of workmen from the highway department, give them a wave of appreciation. After all, they are forfeiting hours which they could spend with their families so you and I can go somewhere we probably have no business going.
streets which are packed solid with a sheet of ice and snow.
We see the police department has a gift from some student to one of his female acquaintances. Maybe we could clip the story from the Kansan and send a copy to each of the girls we forgot at Christmas.
—John McMillion
Former President Truman says thoughts of Vice President Nixon make him want to swear and "punch somebody." Relax Dickie, you're not the first.
Maybe Mr. Hitt says the IBM system went smoothly, but the line we were standing in looked rougher than some of the KU football games.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS by Dick Bibler
"UH-OH--LOOKS LIKE ANOTHER MOVIE TODAY."
Book Review
Millions Of Fans Loved Ed Harris, TV's Great Man
"The Great Man." By Al Morgan.
New York: Dutton. 1955. 319 pages.
Book reviewers the country over have been very careful in dealing with "The Great Man." It sounds too much like a fabulously famous radio-television personality who shall remain unnamed in this review as well. "The Great Man" is beloved of millions of fans, he has his own "family" on his daily morning show, he tells stories, he trades jokes, he treads the perilous road between funny and smutty.
"The Great Man" deals with five groggy days in the life of Ed Harris, rising young man on a local station of the Amalgamated network. He comes to work one day and is given the assignment of writing a one-hour tribute show to the memory of one Herb Fuller, who has just been killed in an automobile accident. There is the implication that if Ed comes through he will be groomed for the Fuller spot himself.
Then he begins to wonder if he's that special kind of obscenity that he slowly discovers Herb Fuller to have been. Something that could have crawled from under a rock, thence to hypnotize the nation.
Garway? Steve Allen? Linkletter? Herb Shriner? Probably none of these. Who else? It's up to the reader to decide.
Fuller arose out of obscurity on a Worcester program, where he caught the attention of a pious station manager after reading off an impromptu sermon. He gets the build-up, becoming a network great, the man whose sponsors are toothpaste people, soda cracker people, cigaret people.
Ed Harris learns these things. He learns a lot more. And he wonders if he has enough of the Herb Fuller in him to become another Herb Fuller. He worries about it. At book's end he still hasn't decided.
And meanwhile he's knifing everyone in the back, going from bed to bed, making physical or spiritual prostitutes out of everyone who comes into contact with him.
There are numerous sharply etched vignettes. One of the episodes occurs in a specially prepared studio of Amalgamated, where the body of Herb Fuller lies in state as thousands of the "unwashed," as one character refers to his fans, file past, looking solemn, sobbing, remembering "The Great Man." The studio was a movie house in the days of the silent pictures, and on the
Al Morgan, author of the book, is senior editor of NBC-TV's Home program. He has filled "The Great Man" with sharp, cynical dialogue. "The Great Man," in fact, is one of the most cynical books this reader has read.
office walls are the faces of Hoot Gibson, Colleen Moore, Ramon Novarro, Karl Dane and George K. Arthur.
There is the story of how Herb Fuller took blood plasma to France during World War II, how he supposedly recorded the story at the front of the giving of the plasma to a wounded GI, and how he actually was back in Paris doing the brothels. There are the scenes in which Ed Harris and station engineers take tape recordings and patch them together so that what emerges is hardly what was intended originally.
"The Great Man" is not a great book, and it's scarcely for the fastidious. It spends perhaps more time in bedrooms than is necessary, but that's the literary fashion of the 1950s. Those of us who are still so unsophisticated as to watch television or listen to radio (horrors!) 'saxops auos sujuē auos Āmā and maybe find that a bit of life is reflected in this sometimes frightening novel.
C. M. Pickett
The Mail Must Go Through
PORTSMOUTH, N.H.—(0)P.-City Tax Collector J. Warren Somerby was puzzled when he received a birthday card six months after his birthday. It developed that the card had been mailed four years earlier.
UNI JOURNAL DAILY HANSAR
Telephone VIking 3-2700
University of Kansas student newspaper
Founded 1889, became bweekly 1904,
published in New York City.
Extension 251, news room
Extension 376, business office
Member Inland Daily Press Association,
Associated Collegiate Press. Represented
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service: United Press. Mail Subscription
rates: $3 a semester or $4.50 a year. Pub-
lishes in the area noon during the University year except
Saturdays and Sundays, University holidays,
and examination periods. Entered
as second class matter Sept. 17, 1910, at
March 3, 1879.
NEWS DEPARTMENT
Marion McCoy Managing Editor
Larry Hell, John McMillion, Harry Elliott, Jane Pecinovsky, Assistant Managing Editors; Harbara Ball, City Editor; David Webb, Telegraph Editor; Daryl Hall, Assistant Telegraph Editor; Ann Kelly, Society Editor; Felecia Fenberg, Assistant Society Editor; Kent Thomson, Sports Editor; Bob Lyle, Assistant Editor; John Stephens, Picture Editor
GRIPAL DEF.
Sam Jones Editorial Editor
Dick Wait, Associate Editor
MARKETING
JACK WEST, Associate Editor.
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Jim Wiens Business Manager David Cleveland, Advertising Manager; Dick Hunter, National Advertising Manager, Griffith, Circulation Manager, Walt Baumett, Classified Advertising Manager; Clifford Meyer, Promotion Manager