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University Daily Kansan Friday. Oct. 7. 1960
A Necessary Policy
The University today has no official position on absences in the classrooms by members of KU's various varsity athletic teams. Arthur C. (Dutch) Lonborg, director of athletics, said that each instructor is notified whenever an athlete is going to miss class because of a game or trip preceding the game. He said that is the only official action that is taken.
The theory behind this setup is seemingly sound. The instructors know when the student will miss class and why. Each coach directs his team to make the work up as quickly as possible. There obviously can be no policy exempting any student from any assignment in the class, as this, if carried on to any extent, would undermine the goals of the University. There is one fallacy in this theory, however.
THIS IS THAT IN RECENT SEMESTERS several varsity athletes have been discriminated against in their grades. The physics department, for example, has a standing rule that a student cannot make a pop quiz up regardless of the circumstances of his absence. Each quiz is worth three points, but the student who misses a quiz gets two points his first absence and one point each time thereafter he misses a quiz. This is hardly an equal chance for the student who misses class because of University-sponsored functions.
There is a specific case involving a speech class. The athlete concerned was graded down an entire grade at the end of the semester for missing classes — and the only classes he missed were for varsity trips. He appealed to the head of the speech department, the athletic department and his instructor, but the teacher had decided that class participation was a definite part of the course. The athlete concerned had gone in to talk
to the instructor after he had missed class each time to see if there was any work he could do to make up for his absence.
HAPPENINGS OF THIS NATURE ARE NOT uncommon on campus. Varsity athletes have enough pressure placed upon them without the uncertainty of knowing whether they will be penalized for missing classes after the athletic department has notified their instructors of upcoming trips. These instructors have penalized the athletes, in effect, for supporting the University. Members of varsity teams spend countless hours each semester in practice and in games. There is personal gain for them, of course, but the University also reaps certain benefits.
On the other side of the picture, it is true that many instructors bend over backward to help athletes catch up on missed assignments and lectures. Special consideration is also sometimes given in getting assignments in. This is commendable.
IF THE UNIVERSITY FEELS ENOUGH good is gained from encouraging as many men to participate in athletics as do, then the administrative officials should take it upon themselves to insure that these athletes are not penalized for their participation on various teams. It seems necessary for a directive or policy explaining the position of athletes and missed classes, and directing no discrimination to be used against them for missing class to be sent out to all instructors. This would not infringe upon the teaching procedure of any instructor in too drastic a measure. If these men are willing to represent the University, then the University should be willing to represent them.
- John Peterson
Suggested Remedy
Editor:
This is my first year at the University of Kansas. So far I have been quite impressed with the University — from the campus beauty to the friendly people. The only gripe I have is a relatively small one.
Last Saturday my wife and I decided to try to avoid the congestion we found at the TCU game and come early in order to get a good seat. When we arrived at 10:30 a.m., a large line had already formed. We don't mind waiting our turn, but apparently other people do. For the better part of two hours we stood
faithfully in line and watched hundreds and probably thousands of people is ignore the line and jam the entrance. These people were admitted in such quantity that the original line hardly moved at all. By the time we got to the student entrance, they closed that gate and "herded" us to another entrance. We finally managed to get in and find a seat in the end zone. (Not much of a reward for being courteous.)
Granted, not much can be done to teach "grown-ups" the art of common courtesy, but the traffic jam at the gate could be avoided. Perhaps one or more of the following suggestions could be adopted: (1) open more than one or two student entrances, (2) open the gates early, say about 10:00 a.m. so that large crowds wouldn't accumulate (and be left to stand in lines which never move, or (3) provide some sort of supervision outside the gate to discourage line-jumpers.
I hope to find things better organized at the Oklahoma game.
J. S. Empic, Topeka
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS
Short Ones
World Series time is upon us again, which recalls a question; How do those players find time to lather up and shave between innings?
"YES I KNOW YOU HAVE THE SAME ANSWERS AS SMITH— YOUR ANSWERS ARE WRONG BECAUSE YOU TOOK A DIFFERENT TEST!"
UNI PRIVITY
Dailu Hansan
Telephone VIkding 3-2700 Extension 711, news room Extension 376, business office
University of Kansas student newspaper
Founded 1899, became biweekly 1904,
triweekly 1908, daily Jan 16, 1912.
Member Inland Daily Press Association. Associated Collegiate Press. Represented by National Advertising Bureau, N.Y. News service; United Press International. 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 are not affected. Second-class matter Sept. 17, 1910, at Lawrence, Kan., post office under act of March 3, 1879.
NEWS DEPARTMENT
Ray Miller ... Managing Editor
Carol Heller, Jane Boyd, Prisella
Klein, Dan Riley, Society
Managing Editors; Pat Shelley and
Suzanne Shaw, City Editors; John
Dardonald, Sports Editor; Peggy
Kilian and Donna Guillem, Society
Editors.
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
John Peterson and
Editorial F.
John Peterson and
Bill Blundell ... Co-Editorial Editors
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Mark Dull ... Business Manager
Rudy Hoffman, Advertising Manager;
Marlin Zimmerman, Promotion Manager;
Manager; Mike McCarthy, Circulation Manager; Dorothy Boller, Classified Advertising Manager.
EATON- FUJI DAIKA KANEI
"I'm sure it's your imagination—we've plenty of room out here!"
WH
RO
From the Magazine Rack
The Best Classroom
"The life of a university is dedicated to openness, activity and depth of mind, and the classroom, as the heart of the university, carries the burden of responsibility for their development.
"What must occur in the classroom in order to promote openness, activity and depth in the student's mind? First there must begin in the classroom a dialogue—a dialogue between professor and student, between student and student, but most importantly between the student and himself. This dialogue must be open and frank. It must represent the meeting of idea with idea, but more significantly of personality with personality: for there must begin in the classroom a relationship between members of a community, an academic community that understands itself in terms of its academic life. This dialogue must begin in the classroom, but it must extend into the entire life of the student—into dormitory and fraternity, into social life and religious life, into his other classes and his extracurricular activities. The dialogue must penetrate all areas of the student's life, but it has its beginning in the classroom.
"Finally, the student must be shown in the classroom a vision. So often in a college course the individual sees only a textbook, a syllabus, a lecture, an hour quiz, the final exam and a passing grade. He must be made to see that history is more than a series of readings in a musty text; that French is more than the conjugation of an irregular verb, that psychology is more than a battery of personality tests; that mathematics is more than a differential equation. He must be led to see that each one of these disciplines represents a way of viewing man and the world about him. He must try to see in each professor one whose life largely revolves around the truths discovered or approached in his discipline. Beyond the course and the daily preparation lies a discovery, the reward of which is far greater than a diploma or a Phi Beta Kappa key...
"Secondly, the classroom experience must pose a threat. The student must be threatened; he must be driven outside himself: he must be compelled to question himself and his values and the values of those among whom he lives. The classroom should undermine the security he feels in family, church, fraternity, or whatever the group of which he is most vitally a part. This is not to say that the classroom should breed insecurity; it means that the student should be thrown into a state of creative tension in which the foundations for the only valid security can be laid, that security which rests on individual thought.
"The difficulty comes in translating these three into classroom procedure. There are several definite requisites: small classes, homogeneous grouping and, above all, challenging demands.
"The first is small classes. The serious undergraduate has great difficulty in a mass lecture course, because he is not afforded the opportunity for open dialogue and close personal relationships. The student depends on the classroom for what he cannot get in the library or elsewhere. The greatest part of an education comes from reading, but there is a need for interpretation and elaboration, the precise nature of which should vary with the academic talent and scholastic preparation of the student..."
"The professor with a small class has the opportunity to demand clarity of thought and expression in both written and oral recitation. The instructor of a homogeneous group can set standards which are fair to all and require each to work near his capacity, thus providing the ideal opportunity for a stimulating and meaningful education. In such classes the student may become involved in a dialogue, may be threatened, may see a vision. In them he may develop new degrees of openness, activity and depth of mind. These qualities should be the fruits of a liberal education for the academically talented student."
(Excerpted from an article "A Student View of Education for the Academically Talented," by Norton Fortune Tennille, a student at the University of North Carolina. Reprinted from "The Superior Student.")