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University Daily Kansan Wednesday, March 19, 1952
Editorials
Journalists Must Have Balanced Educations
(Although the following editorial was written with the specific field of journalism in mind, we think it carries some comments on the values of practical liberal education which are pertinent in other fields.—Ed.)
The growth of education in this country has been paralleled by a proportionately greater intellectual hunger of the population and a demand for more information about world events and their meaning.
There is a consequent need for better information techniques and intellectually well-equipped journalists, those people concerned with relating and interpreting events through communication media.
Good journalists are those with a wide background in the liberal arts and sciences. Techniques are necessary to write newsworthy stories, but sound thinking based on a solid educational foundation is most pertinent.
Many schools and departments of journalism in colleges throughout the nation are aware of this. They usually require an understanding of the social and physical sciences before the student sets foot in the newsroom of a college daily.
The University of Indiana considers a "broad cultural background more essential than detailed work in the techniques of journalism." And the University of Oregon insists that students "be qualified to understand the significance of events by means of a broad liberal education." A student must spend 75 per cent of his time in liberal arts studies at the University of Missouri, and the University of Kansas has exceptionally rigid requirements for its journalism students.
As an applied liberal art, journalism education maintains an unusual position in the college curriculum. Here is where students learn and understand basic principles and make on-the-spot use of these principles in the application of their studies.
The problem of where to draw the line between technique and understanding is one that has bothered educators for some time. There are purists who would have anything resembling a typewriter or composing room thrown out of the journalism classroom. There is the other extreme advocating four years at the linotype. A happy medium is constantly being sought and, some say, attained. Most educators now believe in the importance of the blend, but differ over the recipe.
At one time journalism schools were frowned upon by editors and employers in the fields of communication Now, with a greater degree of knowledge necessary to interpret news accurately, there is a demand for trained men with trained minds.
Oddly, when a newspaper man inspects a journalism school, he usually is most interested in the equipment and techniques used to train the student, the practical application of his work. But later, after he hires a student trained by these devices, he is far more interested in what the man knows, how he can handle people and situations, how quickly he can grasp a problem in its entirety, his alertness and mental dexterity and the patterns of his thought processes.
The same qualifications of an educated person are doubly essential in a prospective journalist. First of all, he should be familiar with the social sciences. Political science and civics are tools of his trade. American and world history give the scope from which to draw comparisons and understandings. More and more emphasis is being placed on economics because of its singular position in current affairs. Sociology and psychology give the aspiring writer an insight into people, as concerns both the individual and the group
A liberal education is knowledge of life. The function of journalism is to record the experiences of living people. A journalist is constantly in touch with life itself.
It must be remembered that journalism is both a profession and a trade. The schools are obligated to consider both aspects.
One excellent recommendation for dividing the responsibility would have schools teach those principles for which it is most qualified and let the newspapers and its allies teach the elements it can handle most efficiently.
This would seem to bear out the trend of a more general course of studies in journalism education. It augurs a more competent and responsible journalism in the future. —Chuck Zuegner.
"Forget her. You don't rate unless you have a convertible!"
Mail subscription rates: $3 a semester or $4.50 a year add $1 a semester if in Lawrence. Published in Lawrence, Kan, every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and Sundays, University holidays and examination periods. Entered as second class master Sept. 17, 1910, at Lawrence, Kan., Post Office under act of March 3, 1879.
Majority Of Students Study More Than 10 Hours Weekly
About two out of every three college students say they put in more than 10 hours of study time during a normal school week, according to the Associated Collegiate Press National Poll of Student Opinion.
Almost half the student population spend between 10 and 20 hour a week, while more than a quartedspend less than 10 hours.
Students were asked: Aside from mid-term week and final exam date, you estimate you spend during normal week? The replies:
1. 10 or less, 28 per cent
4. from 10 to 20 hours, 45 per cen
5. From 20 to 30 hours, 16 per cen
2. From 10 to 20 hours, 45 per cent
3. From 20 to 30 hours, 16 per cent
4. 30 hours or more, 5 per cent
5. Don't know, 6 per cent
5. Don't know, 6 per cent
Those who "don't know" claim a "very irregular schedule." Says one student: "I've never had a normal week."
Graduate students seem to study most. Thirty-five per cent of them put in more than 20 hours a week, as opposed to 19 per cent for freshmen and 23 per cent for seniors.
"Most of the time you don't know what you're supposed to study for."
complains a pre-law sophomore at the University of Akron. He studies less than 10 hours a week. But a sophomore in music says she studies "whenever I get a chance," about 15 hours a week.
Says a business senior at Baylor: "My courses overlap too much to require extensive study."
Here are a few of the other comments:
SCHOLASTIC ODE . . .
This appeared last week in the Kansas State Collegian:
Says a girl in liberal arts: "College work should be difficult, but not enough to keep you forever swamped."
I think that I shall never see
A grade more lovely than "a"B."
A "B" whose marks will let me
make
Says a senior in social work: "I work 52 hours a week and squeeze my studies in wherever I can."
rate
The points I need to graduate.
I need a "B"—this is no jest,
This is my mind's sweet flowing
best,
So that by summer I may wear
A cap and gown, a cultured air.
Poems are made by bools they say,
But surely none can make an "A."
Says a boy attending a teachers study 10 hours or less much less."
Letters:
'Students, Arise! Plea Of Reader
To the Editor:
Students, arise! Today we are given the opportunity to vote on an issue vitally affecting us. The truth facts of the issue have been kept silent too long. I asked an unaffiliated student how he was going to vote on the proposed amendment to reorganize the All Student Council "Vote, schmote," he answered "What the hell?" This attitude is indicative of most of the students. They think that the proposed amendment "won't make a damn bit of difference." But this idea is wrong.
The proposed amendment passes FACTS' regulated council for one reason: to bring about more representative government. If this reorganization amendment is in turn passed by the student body, the unaffiliated students will be assured a minimum of one-fourth of the council representatives—certainly having them more representatives that were obtained even in the last progressive election.
Through the reorganization amendment all ASC representatives will be voted upon by all students. This will serve to unite the ASC into a body actually representing the whole University, since they will be elected by the whole University.
If I may venture a prediction, the students will not arise. The amendment will not be passed. Those few thinking students who go to the polls Wednesday—in view of the fact that the Greek political party will turn out its block vote to kill the proposition—may well say, "Ave, Pachacamacum, te morituri salutant!"
I hope my prediction proves wrong. I hope we can adapt this reorganization plan. In any case, FACTS is giving us the opportunity to vote for better representation, as FACTS will continue to do ad infinitum.
Donald N. Dirks College junior
Comments
A BURNT CROSS AT HARVARD
A suspected Ku Klux Klan demonstration at Harvard university has resulted in the probation of two freshmen.
It began a month ago with the burning of a four and a half foot cross near a dormitory where nine Negro students lived. In the same evening a Negro student was accosted on campus and insulted.
And the two freshmen implicated in the incident declared last week, "We honestly say that the incident was only a prank and that we are very hostile to the Ku Klux Klan."
The college dean has released a statement that "the deplorable incident was not intended as a demonstration of racial or religious animosity on the part of those responsible."
At the same time a petition condemning the burning is being circulated by Harvard's society for minority rights, the liberal union and other campus organizations. As of last week the petition has been signed by 467 students.
G ST
The Southerners' club on campus considers the incident "meaningless." The publicity, says a spokesman for the group, has "followed the usual popular front message of a handful of deliberate agitators."
A MARINE IN KOREA
Here's a letter printed Daily Californian last week;
"To the Editor: I was both a student at Cal and an avid reader of the Daily Cal. Well, to make a long story short, the mail situation over here isn't worth a damn.
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