PAGE SIX
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN, LAWRENCE, KANSAS
MONDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1950
The Editorial Page-
Registrar Explains System
Editor's Note: Upon the suggestion of a Kansan reader (Howard Stettler, assistant professor of business) this column has been installed as a regular weekly feature of the U.D.K. It will contain questions concerning current problems and answers by authorities capable of explaining them. Any member of the student body or faculty may submit ideas for consideration. This week's question was directed to James K. Hitt, registrar:
Registration is actually two separate processes at K.U. and not one as at some schools. James K. Hitt said in explaining the reasons for our system of enrollment, how is evolved and what has been done to improve it.
Why does the University of Kansas continue to have a complex, time-consuming system of enrollment when many other schools have adopted different and more simple methods?
The University has divided the process into two separate divisions because it is felt that the act of signing up and paying fees is routine, impersonal, and mechanical and should be run on the assembly line basis.
The time it takes a student to go through this process is from 20 to 30 minutes. Of course, there are always those few who are the victims of errors made by themselves, or by registration personnel, and are held up for considerable lengths of time.
The reason for the long card is that the various interested agencies in the community and at the University each need a data card on students, and in the interest of economy it is not desirable to hire regular secretaries for this purpose.
Enrollment, on the contrary, should be a personalized process. The University feels it imperative to spend much time with the student in planning his program. Many universities do not do this.
Enrollment could be mechanized like registration, but if this were done the element of personal contact would be lost. Each student has different educational facilities. The great variety of courses offered at K.U. requires much time in selecting a schedule.
Closed classes and those held at inconvenient hours of the day are made necessary by the limited classroom space and a limited faculty. Every classroom at the University is occupied from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. with the exception of the noon hour.
Someone has to enroll first, so the alphabet rotation system was devised. Under this system every student always enrolls first and last at least one time during his four years at K.U.
Some schools enroll by mail. This is usually employed by municipal universities or those serving metropolitan areas where students can be reached easily. K.U. officials feel that aside from the fact this process is very expensive for a state school, it also prevents close personal contact.
JAMES K. HITT
Pre-enrollment failed because the process necessitates conducting the first part of the procedure during the latter part of the previous semester when students and faculty advisors are busy with final examinations.
The administration is always trying to improve the system, either by new ideas or by trying ideas that have been used satisfactorily by other schools.
Next semester, graduating seniors will be allowed to enroll during the first day of registration. This innovation will replace last year's plan for pre-enrollment of seniors, but will still grant them priority for arranging schedules to include remaining requirements.
One of the most successful innovations tried and continued is the plan of signing up in advance for the coming semester. This procedure has not only helped the administration to determine how many students to plan for, but it has proved invaluable in the present draft set-up as it is necessary for a student to prove his intention of attending school. This plan has made it possible for a student to show unequivocally that he had planned to return to school.
Other improvements have been made such as the revamping of the class schedule board in Robinson gymnasium, and the constructing of four entrances to the bull pen instead of one.
One thing that students can do to help themselves and the administration, Mr. Hitt said, is to familiarize themselves with prerequisites, requirements for graduation, and know what courses they need and ones they want to take before they enroll.
A $3 prize will be awarded to the Kansan reader submitting the most suitable and original title for this feature. Contestants should remember that questions will be of interest to readers, but not necessarily answered by local persons. All entries must reach the editor's mailbox on or before Thursday.
Marvin Arth.
Now would be a good time to recall that the relation between college athletics and college education was well stated in about 1895 by a famous sociologist: "Football has the same relationship to physical culture that bull fighting has to agriculture."
Here's what some of the teachers find difficult in the attempt to combine the employment of athletic skill with the pursuit of higher learning:
1. Continual pressure is exerted on the teachers, once subtly but now editorially, to maintain a double standard of academic achievement in their classes—one for employees of the athletic corporation and another for other students, employed or not.
Our stern visages blanch (ever so slightly) and our crocodile tears flow, along with your editorialist Mr. Simons, for the cruel academic world which imposes the same standard of intellectual achievement on both "athletic scholar" and student.
4 Teachers Scoff At 'Football Blues
Dear Editor:
But speaking from experience at the handle end of the academic spoon from which Mr. Simons and his "scholarly" teammates occasionally sip, we should like to enter a partial dissent.
2. Term papers are now apparently "ghosted" for "athletic scholars" as a regular service—almost a part of their contract, as it were. And tutorial aid is apparently made easily available to protect the corporation's investment in the employed athlete's eligibility.
3. There is a continual temptation for "patriotic" students to give assistance to any athletic team member who appears to be weary or confused during an examination. In some cases the arrangements have seemed to point to rather elaborately prearranged conspiracy.
4. If this special treatment is widely secured, the athletic corporation will be still further encouraged to award scholarships to muscularly skilled near-illiterates. This is a serious injustice to such a person because he is encouraged to believe that he can actually carry on college-level work but must later dilute his own opinion of himself in order to fulfill his agreement and earn his "athletic" keep.
Some students have carried on satisfactory academic work, played a major sport, and even served in useful extra-curricular activities. Football and basketball are fun to watch and fun to play. Don't get us wrong; we're not purists who would abolish college athletic programs. But the situation is becoming increasingly awkward—"leave us face it."
Coaches are paid fabulous salaries, usually under color of an academic rank, but their tenure is extraordinarily insecure. The decisions on their tenure and competence are subject to the whims of organized wolf-packs among the contributors to "athetic scholarships." The contributors, alumni fans and just plain business advertisers, get the cream
of the seats at the contests. The professional bookmakers on athletic odds and the paid scouts of the opponents go to extreme lengths, shall we call them espionage and bribery, to carry on their activities. An elaborate pattern of pious fraud has grown up around the recruitment of athletes by competing athletic enterprises doing business as institutions of higher learning.
No responsible person interested in American education can view these corrosive influences with sympathy. So when a distinguished punter suggests that we, as faculty, go easy on the "athletic scholars," we think we'd better rush in and block that kick.
Four Puzzled Teachers
Dear Editor:
Four Puzzled Teachers (Names withheld by request)
Foreign students don't come to this country just to get academic training. We have heard of the American democratic tradition, and of how people in this country fought a revolution to achieve their freedom. Some fought, in their own country, against a dictatorial regime—for democracy. We came to this country to see what American democracy is like, and to know these people, who first established democracy in a political organization and as a way of life, these people in whose name Roosevelt spoke of the four freedoms.
Student Criticizes KU Democracy
At its last meeting, the All Student Council discussed and voted on whether to assume a possible deficit resulting from the Harry James dance. Several weeks earlier, in the Sept. 18 issue of the U.D.K., I had read, "The dance will be under the able handling of student union activities—any deficit will be assumed by the A.S.C." The editorial containing this statement was written by Melvin Clingan, president of the All Student Council.
It may be natural for the party in power to railroad through any measure it pleases. There's nothing easier than depriving the organizational representatives of the right to vote. It's like a puppet show. However, couldn't the president of the student council, before announcing the council's decisions, at least wait for the formality of a vote?
There are some people who take democracy seriously, and who think it should apply not only to political campaigns and other oratorical fireworks, but to all aspects of civilized life-universities included. One would hope that Melvin Clingan, president of the student governing body and student chairman of the "Crusade for Freedom," were among those.
Albert Roland Graduate Student
In 40 years Dr. F. C. "Phog" Allen, basketball coach at the University of Kansas, has coached teams that won or tied for 28 championships. Most of these years were spent at K.U. The record is not approached by any big--school athletic leader.
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