Why Should Second Semester Seniors Take Finals?
It seems to us to be the function of a student newspaper to sound out student opinion and present it—as intelligibly as possible—so that something may be done.
And after some preliminary sounding, we've found an area in which KU could take some lessons from universities elsewhere.
Our school offers very few senior privileges. Outside of being dismissed from 10 a.m. classes for convocations and waving pennants at football games and enrolling early—all important, to be sure, but not so very earth-shaking—KU seniors might as well be KU freshmen or sophomores.
It isn't that way at other schools. Down at Arizona, senior women have extended closing hours—till 12 p.m. every week night. At Colorado, senior women receive several 2 a.m. extensions of closing hours, and some nights when they don't have to report in at all.
Although these privileges apply directly to senior women, they apply indirectly to the gentlemen dating them, and thus aren't for the women alone.
To do that sort of thing here would create an administrative problem. We would hate to ask our housemother to keep records as to when we would be reporting home for dates, and we imagine lots of other people would, too. We can hear our parents yelling at a University administration that would permit us to stay out all night, and we can visualize other parents being similarly unhappy.
But there are areas where senior privileges can be extended. Down at Tulsa University, seniors with over-all two point grade averages are excused from finals second semester of their senior year. This strikes us as being within the realm of possibility, as inoffensive to parents, and as administrable.
Nothing in the whole of our academic career has been more odious to us than finals. Nothing has messed up our grade average any more than they have. And, in so far as we can determine, the feeling is pretty universal. At a meeting of senior women the other night, everyone concurred.
It would be simple to administrate the above provision. If the University wanted to take the initiative, it could circulate a list of students with two point averages and above to the various schools or instructors.
If this were too much book work for the administration, students could present their photostated transcripts to teachers from which they were taking classes, showing their grade averages to be two points and above.
And if a student qualifying for exemption from finals thought that it would be
to his advantage to take a certain final, he could have the privilege of doing so.
This shouldn't wreck any particular hardship on the instructor. If he is conducting his course in a proper manner, he should have a pretty good idea of what grade the student deserves by mid-semester time. If he depends on the final for determining the course grade, he shouldn't. It should make life easier for the instructor, really. He'd have just that many less finals to grade.
Such a plan would give eligible graduates a week to prepare for graduation, and a week to spend at home making post-graduation plans. Senior officers could plan bang-up breakfasts, dances, etc., provided their grade averages excused them from finals.
And for eight semesters, we bet, people would hit the books just that much harder. Goodness knows, we would!
—Letty Lemon
Acheson-Great Secretary of State
"This is an end and is to be taken as such." Dean Gooderham Acheson, retiring secretary of State, told newsmen at his final press conference in January, 1953.
He was right, for there was little doubt that Dean Acheson, the victim of one of the most vicious and untrue attacks in the political history of the United States, would never return to public service.
The 50th secretary of State is now a lawyer in Washington, D.C. Later historians may make a more accurate appraisal, but former President Harry Truman has placed him "among the greatest secretaries of state this country has had."
A great many of the nation's people do not know of this man's contribution. They do not know because of a clamorous furor which filled the political air on the eve of the 1952 elections.
The partisan charges against Mr. Acheson were printed in one blazing document of half-truths, guilt by association, and blatant lies in the April 1952 issue of the American Mercury.
Charges in the magazine include what the Mercury called "traitorship" in regard to U.S. policy in China, pro-Soviet foreign policies, and support of Communist friends in the State department.
Not one person has been convicted of communism in the State department. The United States policy as regards China was formulated on the
advice of top U.S. military leaders in the Far East, including Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who later became one of Mr. Acheson's loudest critics.
NATO, while largely set up by George Marshall, was completed by Mr. Acheson. He also had a great deal to do with the extremely successful Greek-Turkish foreign aid policy, and still more to do with the transformation of the Truman doctrine into the Marshall plan, which became the most successful of postwar United States policies.
He has been damned for omitting Korea from our defense perimeter, but critics fail to realize that the divided Korea was set up by the United Nations, and that military leaders advised, before the outbreak of hostilities, that Korea was not worth the cost in men, machines, and money.
When the invader moved in from the north on that peninsula, President Truman recognized it as the time for immediate stiffening of American policy in the Far East. It was Mr. Acheson, acting through UN representatives, who pulled what Elmer Davis has called "the most brilliant diplomatic victory of many decades" when he seized the opportunity of Soviet walkout in the Security Council to bypass the council veto and secure commitments for united action.
American history will add Mr. Acheson's name to the list of great secretaries of State.
—Ron Grandon
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS by Dick Bibler
I have a few comments to make in reference to the editorial which appeared in the Nov. 11 issue of the Daily Kansan concerning the Student Union cafeteria.
Cafeteria Food "Ain't So Good" Says Reader
Upon arising in the morning I find myself making tracks to the Union for something to eat, as it is the only feasible place for me to take on nourishment. I begin at the fruit juice counter. I help myself to a glass of orange juice. To describe this, I find it quite difficult. The bottom one-third of the glass is filled with a bright orange, slushy sort of mixture; the upper half of the glass contains a pale amber-looking fluid, which, to say the least, looks rather nauseating if you have any kind of imagination at all. However, I feel that it is probably safe for we are supposedly protected by the pure Food and Drug act.
In the original editorial I noticed some words that to me need clarification. (1) The coffee was labeled, "drinkable." I wonder if this should have been followed by an exclamation mark or a question mark? (2) The
To describe the scrambled eggs could easily take a few thousand words, but I will do it in one—"UGH." On down the line, one finds two kinds of toast, French and American, both of which are cold, and seems to lack the qualities which one would expect to find in toast.
The noon and evening meals are much the same: cold roast beef, approximately weighing four ounces, which on Sunday costs 41 cents and on weekdays 39 cents. So, the moral of this is, if you like roast beef and also want to live within your budget, just eat roast beef on week days.
idea of "singing stomachs" to me was quite vague. Yes, my stomach sings as I stand in line, but to the tune of the last meal I have eaten there. Generally, "Shake, Rattle, and Roll." (3) I suppose that Pavlov would have been terribly interested in sitting in the Cafeteria and "observing professors, students, and alums" during the eating period. Maybe he would even ring some bells and make a saliva cheek with litmus paper or other sort of testing device. As for myself, I am not scientifically oriented in the study of human feeding habits.
With the aid of my vitamin pills and a strong constitution, I hope I can make it till I graduate without dying from malnutrition from my "well balanced" meals in the Union.
—George Fidson
First year graduate
Daily Hansan
Norman New Student wants to know if the admission price to "The Barber of Seville" is $1.25.
The campus of yeteyeary:
"What's the pitch about KU? Bailey
Chem lab stinks, right next door it's
still Strong, and right across the street
it's even Fowler—something
like that. . ." (1951 Kansan.)
University of Kansas Student Newspaper News Room, KU 251 Ad Room, KU 378 Member of the Kansas Press association, National Editorial association, Inland Daily Press association, Associated Cop National Press Association by the National Advertising service, 420 Madison ave., N.Y. Mail subscription rates: $3 a semester or $4.50年 (add $1 a semester if in Lawrence). Published at Lawrence, Kan.; every afternoon duri-
ence and Sundays; University of Kansas examination periods. Entered as second class matter. Sept. 17, 1910, at Lawru-
se, Kan.; post office under act of
EDITORIAL STAFF
NEWS STAFF
Editorial Editor...Letty Lemon
Editorial Assistants...
Dot Taylor, Amy DeYong
Executive Editor, Elizabeth Wolgenthum
Managing Editors,
John Hertington,
Michael Koehler
Nancy Neville
News Editor    Ron Grandon
Assistant News Editor  Gretchen Guinn
Tam Lyons
Lewis Lieberman
Dana Yates
Wire Editor    LaVere Yates
Society Editor    LaVere Ed.
Society Ed. Mary Bess Stephens
Feature Edit    Karen Hilmer
News-Editorial Advisor
BUSINESS STAFF
Business Mgr... Bill Tagger
Advertising Mgr... David Rhode
Nat. Adv. Mgr... David Conley
Circulation Mgr... Kenneth Winston
Classified Mgr... Leonard Jurden
Business Adviser... Gene Bratton