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University Daily Kansan Monday. Feb. 22. 1960
Happy Birthday, George
Throughout the United States today elementary school children are making hatchets and George Washington silhouettes in celebration of the anniversary of the birth of the first president.
The children who now are making the hatchets and the silhouettes soon will put aside their sacred memories of the mythical Washington, his army and his presidency. Washington, "the olde soldier," fades away as each generation grows to adulthood.
To these children, Washington is a symbol of honesty because of the Parson Weems story about the cherry tree incident.
To historians, it seems, Washington is a man who deserves little mention other than for the minor facts concerning the revolution and the first presidency. But Washington is almost unique among most other presidents—he receives nothing but praise.
Clinton Rossiter, author of "The American Presidency," says Washington was the best man for the first presidency. Rossiter, like other historians, believes in the often quoted statement: "... under the leadership, of George Washington."
Washington was not a leader but a figurehead. He never made a decision without the advice of someone. Possibly the greatest decision
he ever made was whether or not to leave Mount Vernon.
Most presidents do make decisions after receiving advice from some other sources, but why exclude Washington and form an image of the great decision-making leader? The simple fact that Washington was the first should not be reason enough to set him on a pedestal with a fence surrounding him to protect him from criticism. He certainly did not escape criticism during his lifetime.
John Adams, the second president and vice president under Washington, said:
"I have been distressed to see some members of this house (Congress) disposed to idolize an image which their own hands 'have molded. I speak here of the superstitious veneration that is sometimes paid to General Washington."
Adams admitted in the later years of the 18th century that Washington was a man built and molded by other people—a hollow frame with the ideas and aims of others all stuffed inside.
But Washington has become a myth. His mistakes are forgotten because of tradition.
Washington was just one of the foundling fathers, elected to the presidency to embody the ideas and principles of any of the other possible first presidents, such as Adams or John Jay.
Americans probably would be worshipping even Sam Adams if he had been elected as the first president. — Jane Boyd
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS By Dick Bibler MISS FITT
Evaluation Sheets
Editor:
The College Intermediary Board has become interested in the student evaluation sheets because of the many conflicting reports concerning their use and ultimate aim. We, as an impartial student group, should like to present our findings to the student body. Perhaps in this way the mystery which seems to surround the evaluations can be dissolved.
The original idea for some sort of student evaluation came from the instructors themselves some years ago. The All Student Council, therefore, made it a part of their function to provide an evaluation sheet for the use of any instructor desiring an indication of the effectiveness of his teaching methods. The intention of the council from the beginning was to provide these evaluation sheets to interested instructors only if they wished to use them—to be seen by the instructors only.
In past years the instructors, themselves, have called at the Business Office but according to Jerry Palmer, head of the ASC committee in charge, the Business Office requested that the committee return the sheets in order to eliminate confusion in their Office. "No student picked them up to read them." according to Palmer.
The sheets were passed out this year to the instructors of all classes of more than six students and less than one hundred. This was accomplished by distributing envelopes containing the sheets to the heads of the departments with the request that they be given to the individual instructors to be used or not at the individual's discretion. This was done. Instructions for the handling of the sheets were printed on each envelope. After being filled out the sheets were sealed in their containers and taken to the Business Office to be kept until final grades were assigned. Members of the ASC committee in charge of handling the sheets then collected the still unopened envelopes from the Business Office and began returning them to the instructors.
It would seem that questions which have arisen concerning these evaluation sheets are due in large part to a lack of understanding of their function. There was little or no prior explanation and no advance publicity before the sheets were distributed. Much of the misunderstanding could have been eliminated if the instructors and students had been given some knowledge that the sheets were being passed out. According to Jim
Austin, president of the student body, a story was given to the Kansan, but it was not published. The first the instructors knew of the sheets was finding them in their boxes. The new instructors especially were at a loss as to the source and aim of these sheets.
Dailu Hansan
Member Inland Daily Press Association. Associated College Press Rep. represented by National Advertising Service, 420 Madison Ave., New York, N.Y. Mail subscription rates: $3 a semester or $5 a year. Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and Sundays. University holidays, February 19, 1910; second-class matter Sept. 17, 1910; at Lawrence, Kan., post office act of March 3, 1879.
The question of the ultimate usefulness and value of the evaluations is, of course, difficult to assess. The majority of students seem to be in favor of some sort of opportunity to offer helpful criticism, and many professors seem to find the evaluations useful at least to some degree. Needless to say, the relative success or failure of such a venture hinges on the spirit in which the opinions are given and received. Advance notice might help considerably in setting the proper tone for the reception of the evaluations.
The system of distribution is also a matter in question. In the present system all instructors receive the sheets whether they desire them or
Telephone VIking 3-2700 Extension 711, news room Extension 376, business office
The question can legitimately be raised as to whether the evaluation sheets in their present form fulfill the intended aim of aiding the instructors assess their teaching methods. Many students and instructors find that merely checking blanks leaves much to be desired in expressing opinions. One suggestion might be to allow more blank space for written comments. Some professors, as a matter of fact, do supplement or supplant the ASC sheets in this way.
University of Kansas student newspaper
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904,
published biweekly 1936.
EWS DEPARTMENT
University of Kansas student newspaper
Jack Morton Managing Editor Ray Miller, Carol Heller, George Durham, Carol Miller, Boyd City Managing Editors; Jane Boyd, City Editor; Ralph (Gabby) Wilson and Warren Haskin, Sports Editors; Carrie Edwards and Priscilla Burton, Society Editions
Douglas Yoon and Jack Harrison Co-Editorial Editors
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Bruce Lewellyn ... Business Manager
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
not. Perhaps a more satisfactory system would involve notifying the instructors that a form is available. They could then simply request that they receive it. This would eliminate a great deal of unnecessary expense for the ASC, and would do away with the notion that the instructor is being put upon by either his department or the students.
The underlying idea of the evaluation sheets—that of providing the instructor with a means of testing the soundness of his teaching methods seems justifiable. The real criticism seems to lie in the method of distribution and the form of the sheets now in use. Both questions are now under study by the ASC.
The College Intermediary Board
William F. Sheldon,
William F. Sheidon,
Salina senior
Charles D. Aldrich,
Osborne junior
Sally Carnahan,
Topeka senior
Frank W. Naylor, Jr.
Kansas City, Kan., junior
Judy Raasch,
Wichita junior
Louis D. Rollmann,
Pratt senior
Gretchen Watkins,
Bartlesville, Okla., junior
Michael Ryan,
Emporia junior
Where Are They?
Editors:
Concerning the student opinion- naires (those evaluation sheets): WHERE ARE THEY?
We instructors were told that we should have a student in the class collect these evaluation sheets and take them to be locked in a safe at the Business Office (that is, if we "wanted" to learn how others see us). We were also told that we could pick up these opinionnaries at the Business Office, after we had turned in our fall semester grade sheets to the Registrar's Office.
I was anxious to see what my class had had to say about me (and, incidentally, to compare their evaluations with my own self-evaluation). Therefore, after turning in my grade sheets, I requested my class' evaluation sheets at the Business Office. I was informed that "some committee or other" had picked them up the day before, and would send them to us in a few days. Consequently, I had to wait for them all during the between-semesters vacation, during which time I had planned to study them carefully, so as possibly to make a better teacher of myself this semester. Also during the vacation, I happened to see a large number, if not all, the packages of
evaluation sheets strenu in a mess all over the floor in an open room on the basement floor of the Union Building, where ANYONE could have just picked them up, opened them, and read them at his leisure. Was this "locking them in a safe" until we instructors could get them ourselves?
Since vacation, I have heard that "some committee or other" (I really do not care to find out which one) is looking over all these opinionnaires, before returning them to us. Whether this accusation be true, or just a false rumor, I do not know. If it is true, however, it is a base violation of the notice we instructors were given that these questionnaires would be absolutely confidential, the contents to be known only by the individual instructors and individual students. It is a violation of the trust that both instructors and students alike had in the confidential quality of these opinionnaires. If, on the other hand, this accusation is not true, then I wonder why we instructors could not pick up the opinionnaires immediately after having turned in our grade sheets, and, furthermore, I wonder why it has taken so long for "some committee or other" to return them to us, once they were collected. In any case, my question above still applies: WHERE ARE THOSE EVALUATION SHEETS?
W. Douglas Halsted III
Asst. Instructor of French
Where Are They?
Editor:
We do not wish to add to the controversy over the merit of the faculty evaluation sheets. We only wish to have them returned.
Respectfully,
C. B. Banks
Stephen Chai
William Clark
John Easley
Allen Hjelmfelt
Wallace Kay
Joseph Keller
James McClure
 James McHugh
Louis Taylor
ructors of Engineering
mechanics
Instructors of Engineering Mechanics
Gunn Replies
Editor:
Before I am descended upon in righteous wrath by everyone for what I was said in Thursday's Daily Kansan to have "criticized" in my talk to the Faculty Forum on Wednesday, let me put my remarks into context. I was not "criticizing" anyone — not faculty members nor students nor newspapers. I was, instead, trying to describe to a group of interested
faculty members the problems involved in the job of University Relations.
In answer to questions after the completion of my talk, I tried to illustrate a truism of public relations: public relations is everybody's business. What is said or done by anyone connected with the University — professor, student, employee, or publication — affects for better or worse the opinions held of the University by our many publics. Usually it is for the better, and we try to make the most of it. When occasionally, it is not, we can hope only for the honest attempt of the newspaper profession to place the situation in perspective and for the understanding of our friends.
Rather than criticizing students for dismissing their KU. experience casually as perhaps I once did, I suggested, rather, that if they seized the opportunity when they were home to speak honestly and sincerely about their educational experience, the University would have more than 8,000 persuasive spokesmen and my job would be well-nigh done.
Rather than criticizing faculty members for their University-protected freedom of speech, I pointed out the difficulties in distinguishing between the professor as University spokesman and the professor as scholar or as private citizen.
Rather than criticizing newspapers. I discussed the problems of getting to the editors and into newspaper columns a complete picture of the University's position.
In discussing the high quality of opportunity offered by the University, I said that it was essential if Kansans were not to be cheated of their birthrights. Because of the nature of this country's growth from East to West and the development about 100 years ago of the state university and the land-grant institution; the Great Plains have no Harvards, no Yales, no Universities of Chicago... The responsibility, then, of the state universities in this vast area is to provide an education that will develop as far as possible the brainpower and skills of the whole intellectual spectrum of college-worthy Kansans. This, it seems to me, the University of Kansas is doing. And this is the portrait of KU. I am trying to draw. Everybody can help.
James E. Gunn
James E. Gunn
Administrative Assistant
to the Chancellor for
University Relations