Homecoming Section
81st Year, No.39
The University of Kansas-Lawrence, Kansas
Fridav. October 23,1970
Homecoming Section
Chalmers and Theme of the '70s
By DAVID BARTEL and JOHN RITTER
Kansan Staff Writer
Chairman Harris Wife
E. Laurence Chailers Jr. is not a man of leisure.
even before he took the huge task of being chancellor at Kansas' largest university, Chalmers managed to keep busy. He completed his A.B. degree (cum laude) in three years later and completed his doctorate at psychology at Princeton University; at age 27.
He then spent five years with the U.S. Air Force as a research psychologist, doing extensive research in size and distance perception.
In 1957, Chalmers joined the faculty of Florida State University in Tallahassee as an assistant professor. In his 12 years at Florida State University, he became the professor and finally professor of psychology.
While serving as a faculty member, Chalmeri also began his career as a university administrator, holding positions as assistant dean of faculties from 1962 to 1964, dean of the college of liberal arts and sciences from 1964 to 1966 and vice president for
academic affairs from 1966 to 1969.
IN 1969, at age 40, Chalmers was appointed as KU's eleventh chancellor.
Even at that comparatively young age,
everywhere he was not in the man to
manage it. He was on his top office.
Franklin D. Murphy, chancellor from 1951 to 1960, was only 35 when he took office.
to 1900, was only 35 when he took office. Like KU's other chancellors, Chalmers brought his own set of characteristics and skills to work with his belief in innovative, forward-looking education.
At Florida State, Chalmers helped originate a "cluster plan" to provide a small-college study program in the college university. This plan is similar to KU's College-Within-the-College program, which organizes freshmen and sophomores in the college Art and Sciences into five smaller colleges.
BOTH OF THESE plans attempt to provide an "opportunity to live and to learn on a meaningful, human scale" within a large, modern university, Chalmers saves.
Chalmers says the new plan has improved "the student end of the learning equation."
but it overlooks the faculty end. This innovation generates the faculty members-
Chalerms has predicted three areas of significant change in the future:
- Greater student participation in determining objectives within areas of interest.
- A complete blurring of the boundaries between the academic arena and society, at least in the social sciences and related professional schools.
- Steady elimination of arbitrary biocies on time for class periods, a 3-week class meetings and arbitrary methods of grading. The 1970 fall term already provides some
The 1790秋 term already provides some evidence that these changes are underway.
The one-year-old Student Code of Rights, Privileges and Responsibilities coupled with other reforms of University government, have now been made to policy-making committees than ever before.
As for the blurring of boundaries between the University and society, one example is the law that bans the use of private property.
their services to the Lawrence Legal Aid Society.
Only last week, part of Chalmers' third predicted area of change-elimination of arbitrary grading methods-came under consideration by the University Council Committee on Academic Policies and Procedures.
Suggestions from faculty, students and staff members ranged from complete elimination of grades to a modified system of the present credit-no credit options.
LOOKING TOWARD Homecoming and the return of many alumni, Chalmers said he knew that the changes were their prime concern.
"We welcome the alumn back," he said. "We hope they will refresh their memories with the best of the old traditions they knew as children, with their familiar with that which has changed."
"All of the changes are in the best tradition of this University. Underneath them, they will find the same continuity of spirit, the same commitment to learning the same dedication
to principle that has characterized KU for more than a century.
"The changes are on the surface, a arrangement of structures Chalmers said.
Overseeing the changes and managing the University in transition has become a job that requires a lot of time, little time for his wife, Mary Ann, and two sons, one of whom will enter college next
In the basement of the chancellor's residence, there is a partially assembled harpsichord kit. It has not been touched since last spring. His cabin in Colorado, which owners built with only the aid of government, has not been visited for two years.
Those have been sacrificed, in Chalmers words, for 'the deeper commitment to the people' of Antigone.
"In my old age I will have time to relax and take it easy."
"I believe in students," he said. "If I did not believe that way, I would have chosen not differently."
Chancellor Chalmers
'continuity of spirit
Photo Courtesy DELTA TAU DELTA FRATERNITY
In 1954, the Way House Decorations Used to Be .. KU dropped the homecoming game to Nebraska. 41-20
KU Tradition Slips Another Notch
By DICK HAY
Kansan Staff Writer
A tradition at the University of Kansas has fallen in the name of relevancy this year. Most fraternities have abandoned their ex-communities, becoming displays in favor of service projects.
A poll of fraternities indicates that only one house. Sigma Chi. chl. plans a large display
Sigma Shi President Douglas Miller, Hutchinson senior, says that his fraternity's display is for the benefit of Sigma Shi alumni in connection with their annual gathering.
The trend away from homecoming decorations began last year, when several houses elected to donate money to needy residents in service projects instead of building displays.
This fall the KU Homecoming Committee
stabilized the annual trophy awarded for the best
golf in the nation.
Dave Andersen, Wichita senior and Interfraternity Council president, says that the main reason for eliminating the displays has been the Homecoming Committee's decision.
*"Praterity attitude" 106, né says.
*"More serious things." Anderson said. "The more serious individual is the one who is staying around the fraternity."
ne Cornhuskers Brought On Their Team Again in the 1964 Homecoming Contest
... but the paper and chicken wire figures didn't help any more than 10 years before; NU wwn. 14.7
"Also, the older guys were the ones in favor of service projects and they outvoted the younger ones who wanted to have decorations."
Sorotites and fraternities have paired up to work on service projects.
Fli Kappa Sigma President Mike Carney, Mattoon senior, says that his house plans to display banners in addition to doing a service project. He says that the banners will be displayed on campus, and he again regain support that may have been lost because of last spring's trouble on campus.
FRATERNITY PRESIDENTS give a variety of reasons for not having housemates.
"It all goes along with campus attitude, which has changed so much," Ji Meigs, Ormah, Neb., junior and Pi Kappa Alpha president, says. '
For their service projects, most house plans to work in a Lawrence Chamber of Commerce-sponsored clean-up project or to collect for the United Fund. One fraternity, FSA, intends to sponsor a Halloween party in connection with the Head Start program.
He says that many houses have been active in the past with the Big Brother program and the Amphibian. And he points to Lambroi Ciba Alpha and Phi Alpha, which are sponsoring a Cub Scout pack.
Anderson says of the shift to relevancy:
"Fraternities became aware that they were stagnant. There was a need and a desire for change in the system and in each house."
JAY STRRAY, assistant to the ocean,
men and fraternity affairs adviser, says that fraternities have always been relevant; but the university community is not sufficiently publicized.
"Fraternales are not going to boast their beads off," Strayer says, "because it's not enough for a proper relationship."
The Greeks have recently begun a monthly speakers series, which is open to the public.
Dick Wintermorte, executive director and secretary-treasurer of the KU Alumni Association, will present his special light-as KU graduates who contribute financial or physical help to their students.
The fraternities plan to help the United Fund canvass apartments Nov. 2.
Wintermorte will like to think that fraternity members contribute more heavily to the program.
"But this must be evaluated in different terms," he says. "When the present group *r*
alumni were undergraduates, the student body was much smaller, and fraternities accounted for a larger percentage of students."
Wintermorte says that the last 19 Alumni Association presidents have been fraternity members and that former fraternity men were on the board of directors and volunteer groups.
"TODAY more alum们 were not Greeks, are heavy contributors." he saws.
Wintermorte attributes the greater non-Greek participation to a growing student body that has become more active in members and to the idea that perhaps fraternities are not so important to university life.
Fraternity rush this fall was poor in comparison to previous years. Andersen says. In fall rush, 150 men participated, though there were openings for more than 250.
But Anders attributed the poor showing not to a lack of fraternity appeal but to tuition increases, early rush and the spring and summer trouble at KU.
Strayer admits that some houses are having membership difficulties, but, he says,
"THOSE GUYS have some challenges, and they're meeting them," he said.
Andersen predicts a more socially-oriented outlook for Greeks in the future.
"The more serious older members living in the houses will have a lot to do with the change," he says. "They will mold the indigenees." For the first time, a different system in two or three years
"Also the selection process is not what it used to be," Anderson says. "It is based more on high school grades and activities now instead of on social class."
"Greeks have finally decided that there is no need to make excuses for being Greek."
Kansan Staff Writer
By JEWEL SCOTT
Class of 1960 Grads Cite Changes Since Their Day
Silent. Apathetic. Self-centered. Goal oriented. The last of the raccoon-coated.
These terms have all been used to describe the generation of young people to which the University of Kansas graduating class of 1960 belonged.
The pictures in the 1960 yearbook show girls dressed in bobby socks and loafers; the men dressed in sport shirts and white socks with black accents. They are wearing crewed cwars or other styles of short hair
KU graduates from 1960 recall that the Stables, The Wheel Cafe and the Dine-A-Mite were the gathering point for students, and the jazz groups provided the "in" sounds.
The same graduates also say that students were different then.
Roger Stanton, president of the class of 1960, said he thought the students when he was in school were basically establishment-oriented.
He said that students then were more interested in what they were going to do after class.
Sharon Rankin of Lawrence said that. or
the surface, it appeared that students in 1960 were concerned only with themselves.
Mrs. Rankin said, however, that her age group was instrumental in helping to start the movement.
Jerry Nossman, a Lawrence dentist, said that he thought students were more concerned with themselves 10 years ago. He said he had a difficult address he would prefer to be a student now.
Stanton thought that the rallying cry during his college years had been against apathy. The idea, he said, was to get people to "give a darn about something."
Campus politics, Nossaman said, was largely fraternity-dominated in 1960 and officers were not elected because of what they stood for. He said that students in 1960 had more faith in the chancellor and faculty than students today.
Mrs. Rankin agreed that students should have the opportunity to be involved in policy discussions.
Mrs. Rankin said that, as a person assumed more responsibilities, he became more realistic, more patient about getting desired results.
On Arriving in Lawrence: A Foreigner's Viewpoint
By DUKE LAMBERT Kansan Staff Writer
Many times foreign students have arrived in Lawrence alone, with little knowledge of the town, and need guidance from a tutor.
Fortunately I am from Guyana, South America, where the Queen's English is spoken—most of the children here are girls and my first (second, too, perhaps) semester at the English Center learning the language. I was thrown right into the middle of unusual things and strangely taking people (American English is in a class by
It does not take much for me to visualize some of the difficult times my counterparts must have had. In school, I suspect, mine. I suspect, must have been less harrowing of students who arrived here not knowing any English.
I tried to read, but how could I retain anything,
burdened as I was with lonely thoughts.
My first days were empty and lonely, and my nights! Persh the thoughts
The cruc of the matter is, there is a sort of wary regard by both sides, the foreign student and the American. Both want to meet, to get to know the other person, but both are uncertain. The feeling is "Hey, I'm foreign, why don't you come and talk to me," I'm lonely," and, "Hey, I'm American, you ought to get to know me, and really, I'm curious—you're Imying to know about your country."
I tried to make friends, but that was easier said than done.
I arrived in Lawrence the evening of Labor Day, 1983. My flight was delayed because of mechanical故障，我在Lawrence arrival four hours behind schedule. That in itself is a big thing, since I had written university officials informing them of my date of arrival, but nobody would be at work the day I came.
But four hours in New York and another hour and a half at the Greyhound station in Kansas City, contrived to put me in Lawrence at 7:30 p.m. September 2, 1968, 1668, and uncertain I hailed a taxi and to the driver to take me to Strong Hall. Strong Hall would be closed at that time of night.
But, there is a standoff of uncertainty
The driver looked at me and probably thought I
was one of the new football players arriving, so he took me instead to Joe Pearson. Hall One of the guys at the desk told me he couldn't let me stay and that I would have go down and register at the gym. That's another problem, the old Eldridge is now gone—the Ramada ion for new arrivals perhaps?
I registered, unpacked a few things and ventured out onto the street. There was not much up north, so south it had to be. A few blocks down, when I was beginning to despair that I would run out of pavement to walk on, I saw it, the bright lights of a cinema, not one, but two.
"Ah hah! That takes care of two, maybe three hours," I thought. And so it did, for when I stepped out of the cinema at 11:15 p.m., glances up and down the street told me that my room was probably the third floor.
The next day, after walking into every store on Massachusetts Street and window shopping, I fell into the unique pastime of counting how many sticks it took to cover the distance from one corner to the other. The squares were much smaller squares there were in the pavement, then to how many squares there were between the Eldridge and
the cinemas, and then how many strides I took to cover the distance from the Eldridge to the cinema
And so, "One, two, three, four, five"
beep, bee, bee. Pause. "Twenty-one, twenty-two"
beep. bee. beee. Pause. "Twenty-one, twenty-two"
All this must have affected me, because it did not occur to me until late in the evening that I should try.
The next day I was assigned to Ellsworth Hall, room 128, and knowing that I come from a warm climate (world's hottest spot, some of my friends from the University of Arizona summerland, air conditioned, bottled-up comfort.
What a beginning! But the fact that I am writing this is proof that I survived.
I went the next day, and after a lot of paper work,
I was told that I would have to check back the next day to find out if they had been successful in finding me somewhere to stay.
Another week of not knowing anyone and freezing so, of walking all the way to the Kansas Union to eat, two and three times a day. And those hills were like big piles of mud. We had the stairs to my home and my friends' barns
Other students-American students-began arriving. They had never met each other before, yet they were all making friends, laughing and talking. And that hurt most of all. I had lived with some of people for about a week, and no one had taken the time to teach me. I gave me half-delivered gris or nodes as they passed.
I decided that it would be impossible for me to live like that much longer. Something had to be done, and since they were obviously not too keen on me, I would, because I was the one who needed friends.
I walked up to a group playing cards and said, "Hello, my name is Duke Lambert. I am from Guyana, South America." One of the players looked up and said, "Hi, I'm X, this is Y, and K." No smiles, no bandages, nothing. They turned their backs on me. The meeting was over.
Hurt and somewhat bewildered, I dragged myself over to the television and looked at the screen, thinking that the man who had later K got up to go to the bathroom. On the way back he stopped by me and said, "Hey man, why did you leave?"
I looked up. And we grinned at each other.