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University Daily Kansan Thursday, Mar. 3, 1960
Congratulations
At this time we would like to dedicate a few lines of congratulations to the three engineering professors who are leaving KU for better jobs.
These men have an opportunity to advance, both in salary and rank. All the men said they will have a more attractive job — working in a stronger or bigger department and sharing more responsibility. A man cannot be criticized for advancing to a better job.
Donald Dean, associate professor of civil engineering, is going to the University of Delaware where he will become chairman of the department of civil engineering and mechanics.
Prof. Dean says he will be the eighth Ph.D. at the University of Delaware. KU has two Ph.D.'s in the department.
Russell Petersen, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, and Edwin Parks, associate professor of aeronautical engineering, have accepted positions at the same southwestern university.
Prof. Petersen sums up his reasons for leaving KU with the words:
"I have decided to teach at a southwestern university next year because it has a much stronger department, more graduate students, a
Prof. Parks has said he will receive a promotion both in salary and rank.
All three of the professors have carried out extensive research programs while at KU.
An announcement such as this is not entirely unexpected. Anytime KU has to operate on a minimal budget, which allows minimal salaries for its faculty members, other schools will be knocking on our underpaid professors' doors with brightly-colored brochures eulogizing a better school in another section of the country.
Money obviously is not the only motive these professors have for leaving.The fact is simply that other universities have better engineering schools than KU has.
But money is necessary for building a better university. And it is difficult to build a better engineering school, or even keep the good professors we have now, without financial assistance from our legislature.
We like the idea of making KU into an Athens on the Kaw. But this is not an easy job without the necessary finances.
— Doug Yocom
Bomb Shelters for All
A committee appointed by Gov. Nelson Rockefeller of New York has recommended that fallout shelters be made mandatory for all residential buildings in New York state by July 1, 1963.
This has come as a shock to most New Yorkers who, probably as much as anyone, are conscious of the possibility of an entire nation being blown to bits by atomic warfare.
As the thought-provoking movie "On the Beach" so adeptly pointed out, a formal declaration of war is not a prerequisite for starting an all-out atomic war. Missiles with nuclear warheads could start flying any minute if somebody mistakenly punches the wrong button.
But the do-it-yourself building of bomb shelters seems to be a superficial method of guarding against atomic aggression.
We are not sure a preventive solution can
ever be put into operation. Both the United States and Russia agree a cut in armament is necessary. But neither can agree "how." In fact, the State Department, Pentagon and Atomic Energy Commission cannot arrive at enough general ideas to constitute a policy.
Any solution becomes more difficult as more nations build atomic arsenals. The more nations possessing nuclear armament, the more danger increases of somebody becoming power-happy because they think they can start and win a war.
The best solution would be to establish an international control of all nuclear weapons. But before this is accomplished, the United States and Russia will have to concur on solutions to more immediate goals: a method of halting nuclear testing, proper inspection of arms and some progress toward slowing the armament race.
- Doug Yocom
Mimeographed Lectures
Editor:
In 50 minutes the student writes down many words or formulas or
"A college lecture is, after all, only a means of transferring the professor's notes to the student's notebook without going through the mind of either." So has equipped one KU professor. We are afraid this is all too true.
...Letters ..
equations, but how much good does he get out of the lecture per se? Is the college lecture today only an occasion to take notes, or is it a stimulus to thinking? We would like to think that it is the latter, but experience has tempered our fond wish: one is just too occupied in taking notes to mull over what is being said or to ask pertinent questions about
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS By Dick Bibler
"WELL, I GIVE UP TRYING TO DO ANYTHING WITH MY HAIR
UNTIL ED GETS RID OF THAT SPORTS CAR."
That persons would use the notes in lieu of the lecture is one of the greatest objections to this idea. Therefore, we think that at first this plan should be carried out only in upperclass courses where the material is exceptionally voluminous.
We think that this situation could be remedied by making printed or mimeographed copies of the lectures available to the student. Let us stress "Student."
the lecture at the time of the lecture. One must either take notes or take heed.
Advent,
Marion Redstork
Lawrence, Junior
Hobart Hansen
Kansas City, Mo., Senior
The practical aspects of this idea are not hard to imagine. The notes would be prepared by an interested group in consultation with the professor and perhaps three students who have taken the course. After the notes have been prepared, they would then be returned to the lecturer for his approval, upon which he would then decide whether he wanted to distribute copies of the lecture day by day or in book form at the first of the semester. It is understood, of course, that the student would foot the expense of preparing the notes. It is, after all, for his benefit.
Short Ones
There has been no dirty fighting by Dick Nixon in the current campaign — possibly because he doesn't yet know who his competitor is.
. . .
A resident of Grace Pearson women's dormitory was so disgusted with the results of final week that she posted a huge sign in her window, stating simply — "Oh, hell!"
International Jayhawker
By Michel Chatelus
Once again, a few weeks ago, dramatic events drew attention to the tragic Algerian situation. Many authorized and unauthorized comments have been made and much has been said and written. Therefore my purpose is not to deal with the economic, political or social aspects, but with the military aspect of the problem. As a Frenchman, but strictly expressing my own personal point of view, I would like to express some of the considerations this five year old war has led me to make.
I consider the hopeless Algerian situation as but a microcosm of the main problems with which not only France but all our "Western Civilization" are confronted today.
1. The widespread reactionary refusal of the historical fact of evolution, of enancipation, and of the growth in former colonized and underdeveloped countries. We generally refuse to admit that a strong nationalism is always a necessary step in the process of creating a nation (all our nations had this experience in the past). As a consequence therefore, we refuse to accept those steps toward economic independence which would hurt our material interests, (our investments for example) in all these countries. Still further reaching is the general refusal of a real partnership taking the place of the "whiteman's superiority" attitude. We still think in terms of charity and paternalism, instead of equality and justice.
2. Our failure to understand this new situation, and to deal with it in a reasonable way, is made still greater by the fact that we are fighting the product of ourselves, of our own civilization, of our own ideals. The men the French are fighting in Algeria (we call them rebels) have been educated in our schools; they speak our language (often better than their mother tongue); we have taught them the rights of man, and that liberty is the first goal to be reached. Today most of them fight in the name of these principles which they learned from us. "Rebels" they are, in revolt against what we have done and what is contrary to those ideals we instilled in them as worth fighting for. This "boomerang" effect seems to me as a Frenchman, one of the most tragic aspects of the problem.
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3. To cope with this rebellion, we use means which are the direct opposite to what we pretend to be our goals for the "pacification" of the country. Much has been said about tortures and camps; whatever the physical efficiency of these ugly means is I do not believe that the ultimate result (peace and prosperity in an Algeria closely linked to France) can be achieved by such ugly methods. Surely if Western Civilization stands for anything it is that the end never justifies the means. And this is true not only for France.
4. As a result, there is a definite trend among many members of the military caste, of the Algerian lobby, and among many conservative people, to involve the whole nation in a "crusade." To "save" Algeria—to keep it—is supposedly to "save" the whole western world. We are isolated and misunderstood—they say, knights of the Christian and western civilizations, fighting communism and Pan-Arabism. These people try to create in France a complex of frustration and at the same time a feeling that we are definitely and always right, that our cause is the cause of liberty, justice, and that by fighting in Algeria, France is following her tradition of "grandeur," and is in fact on the path to greater grandeur. Everyone must remember that it is from this mixture of frustration and superiority complex, that totalitarianism has always been born, call it Franquism, fascism, nazism or what you will. It makes no difference. Freedom in France is seriously in jeopardy. "Enemies are everywhere," the starting point is well known, and the results too. This also is not true only for France.
5. As the last of my points I would like to note the failure to find any "countermyth" to cope with the nationalistic myth as well as with the communist myth. French officers read Mao Tse Tung and tried to build a revolutionary doctrine of the F. L. N. They forgot only that to have a revolutionary doctrine and make it a working proposition, you should first have a revolutionary ideal, and then revolutionary goals.
Because of our failure to guide and help revolutionary movements, we now fight them (and here again France is not alone). We just forget that our "traditions" were born from radical revolutions which were successful.
The western world, when it is not actually fighting the evolution of others, is anyway unable to find a doctrine to offer to young nations. Our principles are great and appealing. Our behavior is unfair or really unjust.
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I think this is the time for all of us to work toward the establishment of a concept of democracy which would be not only a theoretical ideal, but a practical, meaningful and attainable goal.
The Algerian tragedy is not only a French and an Algerian tragedy. It is a problem which concerns everybody, especially those of the western world. It shows what can be the extreme result of refusal to understand, narrow-mindedness, and selfishness of the minority groups in a nation which elsewhere, and even in Algeria, has been able to achieve great and impressive realizations. It shows how urgent is a new appraisal of the problem of the "third world."
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As a French student, who has been a friend of several of those young Algerians against whom I will soon have to fight, I know that many of them fight for an ideal which sounds old and out of fashion, but which I believe is strong and great: the dignity of human beings. I also know that most of the young French fighting in the Algerian mountains also believe in justice and dignity. They speak the same language and have to kill each other. I wish that those who read this, when they condemn France, who is definitely guilty, ask themselves at the same time if their own country is quite without blame, thinking as citizens and as individuals.
Michel Chatelus,
Lyon, France, graduate student.