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University Daily Kansan Tuesday, April 22, 1952
Editorials
Wisconsin Reports on Cheating
The problem of classroom cheating was surveyed recently by a committee at the University of Wisconsin and it came up with several important factors which often have been overlooked.
It reported that one of the basic faults is that present day educational attitudes do not recognize students as adults with adult responsibilities.
students as adults with ADHD. The survey noted that the "explanation of the seeming prevalence of classroom dishonesty is perhaps to be found in an academic context which does not sufficiently encourage students to grow up; to develop an adult sense of moral and intellectual responsibility ..."
The report was based on interviews with students and faculty members selected at random from those who had completed one or more of the courses included in the group being checked.
This conclusion demands the study of all persons connected with the field of education. The avowed purpose of all education should be to help develop the minds and bodies of the students so they can become worthwhile adults. If they are not getting that sort of training while in college, then college is not achieving its purpose. If students are treated like children while in college they will be likely
to continue to act like children after they are out.
But even more serious than this is the installation of the habit of cheating. The conclusion of the University of Wisconsin report indicates that if the students were treated as adults, if they developed an adult sense of moral and intellectual responsibility, they would not resort to cheating. Surely, this reason alone would make the program worth a try.
The final basis which the committee found for classroom dishonesty was the sharp difference between "we" meaning the students who are out to get by in any fashion, and "they" meaning the faculty members who spend all their time planning ways to torture students.
The basic answer to this is obvious. Both students and teachers need to recognize that the other group is on the campus for a purpose other than to cause trouble. Neither group has to wait for the other to start to improve the situation but likewise, neither can get far without cooperation from the other.
The report from the University of Wisconsin has much merit in it. Let us see if we cannot make use of it. —Joe Taylor.
Interpretive Articles
Absenteeism Causes Part Of High Prices
In these days of high prices everyone is interested in how production costs may be cut so that the consumer will be able to save more. The Benson Laboratories of Pittsburgh, Pa., have made a survey and have come up with the angle of absenteeism.
The survey covered 151 companies representing all types of industries and proved two important facts: First, employers are generally unaware of the heavy burden they are carrying because of the high cost of absenteeism, and second, the actual direct cost of absenteeism to the employer is averaging about $56 per employee.
Of the companies contacted, the laboratory reports that the replies indicated a high interest in the problem but most of the companies had either no actual information on their own costs of absenteeism or insufficient information. Of the 151 companies, only eight had enough information to submit a detailed report.
The laboratory's report stresses that the $56 figure represents all of the employees in each company and not just the absentees themselves. They enlarge, saying that if this average can be applied to all of the country's 60 million workers, it means American industry is wasting more than $3^{1/2}$ billion dollars per year on absentees.
This estimate considers only the direct costs incurred by the company's paying for work not produced. Costs incurred by indirect means, such as mistakes made by substitute workers, are not included in the estimate.
The Benson report offers several suggestions as to how industry may cut absenteeism and hence its production costs. The first step, they say, would be to make the executives more aware of the losses which absenteeism causes. There should be adequate and easily accessible first aid departments for the prompt treatment of minor ailments that tend to grow into absence-causing illness.
Above all, the report states, a definite program must be devised to cut absenteeism. The program should be based on an effort to maintain adequate records of the causes, frequency and costs of absences.
It is time that employers cease to treat absences with a "that's-too-bad-butwhat-can-we-doabout it" attitude, the report says. And they are right. If absenteeism is truly costing the consumer $56 per employee who helps produce each product, it is time that this surplus cost was eliminated. It comes much nearer being pure waste than any excess costs compaired of today.
Roger Yarrington.
POGO and his friends
Comments . . .
Music, Spring and Chaos . . .
The first day of spring at the University of Michigan arrived with the blast of a trumpet followed by utter chaos.
It began when a student who was practicing his trumpet was answered by a trombonist. The two musicians engaged for some time in a music duel. Shouts of "Knock it off," a loud gramophone playing "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue" and a sonorous fog horn prompted dormitory residents to rush outside and add to the confusion.
Then firecrackers started popping, and this was followed by the arrival of the police. By this time about 600 students were milling around. The police took one look at the crowd and got back into their cars, whereupon some of the students jumped on the fenders and rocked the autos.
The mob swarmed through the streets and into various dormitories. Coeds invaded men's dormitories and the men reciprocated. At 1 a.m. a sudden rain called a halt to the proceedings.
University officials said they plan no disciplinary action. The dean of students explained the demonstration as "a form of spring madness."
"Look how it wiggles, Bruno—Sort of cute in a fuzzy way!"
Italy Slowly Recovering From Po Valley Floods
emerging from the flood waters that swept over it five months ago It will be many months more before the reconstruction is completed, however.
An area of 264,000 acres in northern Italy is gradually reemerging from the flood waters that swept over it five months ago
The consequences of the torrents that inundated the agricultural turally-rich Po valley are now being translated into statistics as the heartbreaking digging out continues slowly, revealing the destructions of a once-prosperous land.
To date, 123,000 acres have reemerged; almost half of the 164,000 that went under water last November. The flood left more than 150,000 persons homeless and depleted the painstaking agricultural cultivation of centuries.
Destruction of public works, including roads and communications is inestimable. Forty-three of 52 separate communities were flooded during those bleak days that started on Nov.14, 1951. Seventeer were destroyed and of 150,000 persons left homeless, 100,000 still are living in barracks—George Salerno, United Press Correspondent.
Nearly all planting seed and manure was washed away, along with 10,000 of 50,000 tons of sugar; 7,000 of 25,000 tons of grain and 200 of 1,000 tons of tobacco. Agricultural damage alone amounted to $59,400,000.
To that, add $20,800,000 damages to industry, of which more than $11,000,000 was suffered by a thriving sugar industry that had supplied most of Europe.
In Washington, 225 investigation committees are in action. Carr anyone tell who is investigating whom in what committee?
The flood destroyed more than 28,770,000 cubic yards of drainage ditches and reservoir installations; 7,000 of 21,000 farm buildings and units; one-third of all farm machinery and one-third of all live-stock
Warm breezes tell that April is here. But, according to the lunar calendar, it is still February, and according to the Panmunjom calendar, it is still before Christmas.
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