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University Daily Kansan Wednesday, Oct. 5, 1955.
A Letter-
Congratulations to the Daily Kansan! Once again I see that this newspaper (?) aptly merits the title of "masterpiece of misinformation."
Editor:
I am referring, of course, to last Wednesday's fulminations against the Western Civilization program.
The charge that the program arouses wide-spread antagonism among students is one that I certainly would not deny, but it is a rather pointless one. Any course or program that is a graduation requirement doubtless sooner or later arouses antagonism simply because it is a requirement. If the antagonism is connected with the content of the program then this is probably due to the fact that there will always be a fairly large number of "students" who will resist any form of education in the largest sense of the word.
The successful continuation of the Western Civilization "cram course" has been due to the inate (sic) laziness of those students who preferred not to do the readings themselves and wanted some-one else to do the work for them.
Another charge made was "—other students, lacking guidance and supervision, bury themselves in a wilderness of facts and flunk the course." I assume this refers to those students who, under the old system, were enrolled. They may have been flunking, but most emphatically they did not lack proctorial guidance or supervision. If the above extract refers to those students who were not enrolled formerly, then may I point out that all sophomores now have to enroll, take part in group discussions, and will receive a grade for their semester's work. It would appear that the reporter was not fully aware of these new changes, and that is sloppy reporting.
A further charge was that for the program to be effective it should be a regular five hour lecture course. My answer to this and to the monotonous charge that the administration made a mistake in starting the Western Civilization program is, in a word—nonsense. The administration is of the opinion that the group discussion technique, now being used in the program, can accomplish as much, if not more than, a regular course. Why not give it a chance to be tried out and see what the results will be?
Finally—and I do not particularly like to say this—in view of the many dreary slip-shod (sic) examples of reporting that often grace (!) the pages of the Daily Kansas. I am beginning to wonder just what sort of standards the vaunted William Allen White School of Journalism is demanding of its students.
Rupert Murrill
Director, Western Civilization
-And A Reply
(Note: The following is a reply to Mr. Murrill's letter.)
Editor:
Mr. Murrill, who seems to be as sensitive to criticism of the Western Civilization program as he is to criticism of the plays in which he is an actor, is a faculty member. Thus the editorial editor of the University Daily Kansan decided that protocol called for a reply by another faculty member, especially as Mr. Murrill, in spite of his professed reluctance, seems to give the back of his hand to the standards of the William Allen White School.
A careful reading of Mr. Murrill's letter and the editorial against which he directs his picturesque criticism reveals only one example of "dreary slipshod" reporting, if by reporting is meant factual information. That's one's mistake too many, of course, and as a faculty member of the William Allen White School of Journalism I'm the first to admit it. I don't defend the editorial. It's a poor one, filled with hasty generalizations, invalid assumptions, and violent charges.
However, let's see how logical Mr. Murrill's answers are to some of the charges, which, he implies, are "masterpieces of misinformation." One he admits, but calls "pointless." Another he admits by indirect, but blames on the "innate laziness of those students who preferred not to do the readings themselves and wanted someone else to do the work for them." Still another charge he answers, with crushing logic, by calling it "nonsense."
The University Daily Kansan reporter makes many mistakes—the mistakes which Mr. Murrill calls "dreary, slipshod examples of reporting." No one knows that better than my colleagues and I. But to me the wonder is not that he makes so many mistakes, but that he makes so few, considering his lack of experience, the way information is given to him, the tedious checking necessary, and the sifting of trivia for a kernel of real information.
But he is not a professional. He's a student. He's learning. He's trying to do between classes a hard, exacting, exhausting job which is not made any easier by some members of the faculty who seem to forget that every faculty member has a responsibility to every student.
What might be called 90 per cent accuracy, or at least 90 per cent performance, puts most students into the honors class. But a Kansan reporter whose work shows 90 per cent accuracy is not thought of as an honor student, but as a "slipshod" reporter whose work is a "masterpiece of misinformation." He's always judged negatively, not on the 90 per cent, but the 10 per cent; not on what he does right, but on what he does wrong. And that, it seems to me, is rather unjust, although understandable.
Mr. Murrill writes of the "many dreary slipshod examples of reporting that often grace (!) the pages of the Daily Kansan." To me that is splashing charges around with a reckless disregard for specific facts, and that is slipshod reporting.
The faculty members of the "vaunted William Allen White School" are well aware of the shortcomings of Daily Kansan reporters, copyreaders, and editorial writers. They must live with them. They must endure the barbed remarks of colleagues who would be highly indignant if the earnest but stumbling efforts of their own students were criticized. That's why each of us in the Journalism School keeps at the sometimes heartbreaking task of trying to make immature, inexperienced students measure up to high professional and intellectual standards.
'Dom' Gagliardo: A Last Salute
Too often, when one tries to appraise what a great university does, he is misled into thinking that the "university's actions" are primarily what the chancellor, the provost, the deans, and the department chairmen decide and do. Actually, many of the most important decisions are made by the faculty functioning through its various committees, and many major actions by administrative officers are determined by the findings of or the advice of committees of the faculty.
The men and women who quietly and patiently do the tasks assigned to these committees, therefore, contribute a great deal to the development of a complex institution like the University of Kansas.
When one measures the void left by the death of Dr. Domenico Gagliardo, one thinks first of his effectiveness as a teacher, his competence as a lecturer on labor economics, his scholariiness as an author. The University will greatly miss him for all of that, but it must also recognize the tremendous contribution he made as a member of many of the most important University committees.
His courage and his capacity for logical thinking helped steer the advisory committee of the University Senate, the body of faculty members above the rank of assistant professor. His distrust of the "frills" of education and his high regard for "solid" courses contributed to the judgments of the administrative committees of the College and of the Graduate School, and of the curriculum committee of the School of Business. His broad reading background and his ability to analyze complex problems gave guidance to the central Western Civilization committee.
Dr. Gagliardo served year after year, often on several committees at once, and always took the work seriously. He was always tolerant of the views of others, always willing "to be shown," but always able to marshal logic and evidence to defend his own interpretations and conclusions.
RIGHT-OF-WAY AT STOP STREETS
The members of every committee paid close attention when "Dom" explained and supported his opinion. Somehow, this erudite, taciturn, and patient educator always seemed to have a logical answer to the problem at hand.
The working of the democratic process through committee deliberation is often slow, humdrum, and irritating—especially at 5:30 p.m. Friday—but it is necessary if the faculty and the students (functioning through joint committees) are to retain their right and discharge their function of assisting "the administration" in making decisions.
For years and years, the course of the University of Kansas takes through drifts and currents and tempests will be somewhat determined because "Dom" Gagliardo, committeeman, diligently stood his watch at the helm.
It's A Matter Of Millions
You sharp-eyed mathematics majors are right, of course, about that "six million" in James R. Squires' space travel story in Monday's University Daily Kansan. Jim wrote that "a light year, to put it mildly, is a far piece." Exactly, it is the distance light will travel in one year and that is close to six million million miles." However, that important middle million got lost somewhere between the linotype operator and the proofreader. (If you're interested, we've worked out the more or less exact figure. It's 5,925,471,600,000, and printer, watch those zeros.)
One semester, or even two, does not make a finished reporter or copyreader, any more than it makes a finished teacher or engineer—or a student with a grasp of Western Civilization.
I cannot help comparing Mr. Murrill's letter with another the Daily Kansan editor received recently from an important University official who had much more cause to complain than Mr. Murrill does. The official's letter, while critical, was courteous, thought-provoking, and even inspirational. Journalism students made copies of it. Mr. Murrill's letter speaks for itself.
Emil L. Telfel
Faculty Adviser
University Daily Kansan
Trade Commission Protects Consumer
An example is the bogus correspondence school which promises you a federal job if you will just take its course on how to pass Civil Service Commission examinations.
That is because some of the offenses it wars against, if not the offenders, are repeaters.
WASHINGTON -(U.P.)-The Federal Trade Commission can never relax its efforts to expose and stop trade practices which endanger the consumer's pocketbook or even his health.
This apparently is a ripe field for the unscrupulous, a field of countrywide proportions.
On the other hand, the FTC hopes it is coming close to stamping out forever some kinds of false fur labeling. Thanks to FTC, it has got so you can hardly find American Seal, Baltic Leopard, Beaver Rat, Arctic Seal, Belgian Beaver, Black Lynx, Ermiline, Northern Scal, French Leopard, or minkeye.
Every year the commission has to make one or more schools of this kind stop implying it is an agency of the federal government, or stop making other false advertising statements such as: a civil service job (obtained through the school) automatically guarantees exemption from the draft.
It might be more accurate to say you can find them, all right, but under labels correctly identifying them as what they really are, which is rabbit.
Many FTC actions are studies in black and white; You can't advertise something as free if it isn't. You can't say a shrub is profitable and easy to grow if it isn't. You can't say your insecticide will kill insects if it won't. You mustn't tell customers your tonic will cure boils and pimples if it has no effect whatever on boils and pimples. And it really isn't cricket to tout as French a perfume made in Newark, N.J.
Perhaps the most soundreally character the FTC comes up against is the type who preys on victims of chronic and incurable diseases. The commission hits hard
at arthritis cures which cure nothing at all.
It also has little sympathy for makers of flammable clothing. Some kind-hearted ladies of Walla Walla, Wash., recently bought some bed-jackets for hospitalized veterans, One veteran thus benefited happened to spill a bit of hot pipe dottle on his jacket.
If he had been an arm amputee he would be dead. He wasn't, and so was able to wriggle out of the jacket before he was cremated. A subsequent test showed that the burning time for a 3.5-by-5-inch sample of the bedjacket was 1.5 seconds.
The jackets were recalled and the maker forced to stop distributing them.
Daily Hansan
So Se
University of Kansas Student Newspaper
News Room, KU 251 Ad Room, KU 370
Member of the Inland Daily Press association,
Associated College Press associate
vertising service, 420 Madison ave. N.Y.
Mail subscription rates: $3 a semester or
$450 a year (add $1 a semester if
kansas) every afternoon during the
university year except Saturdays and Sundays.
University holidays and examination
periods. Entered as second class
person for admission to post office under act of March 3, 1879
John Herrington...Managing Editor
Madelyn Brite, Gretchen Guinen, Irene C.
Six, Lee Ann Urban, Assistant Manage-
ment Director, John McCoy,
Bob Lyle, Assistant City Editor; Dick
K. Walt, Telegraph Editor; Marion
McCoy, Society Editor; Jane Pec-
novsky, Assistant Society Editor; John
McCoy, Sports Editor; Sam L. Jones,
Assistant Sports Editor.
NEWS DEPARTMENT
Step can ] said cation chang ment
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Ron Grandon              Editorial Editor
Ted Blankenship          Associate Editor
BUSINESS MANAGER
Paul Bunge...Business Manager
Robert Wolfe...Advertising Manager;
Chance Sledd...National Advertising Manager;
Jack Fisher...Circulation Manager.
DEPARTMENT
Mr. as a by tl
The take tures ten- and take
prope
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