Thursday, October 31, 1968
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
15
Student power now is getting results
By MIKE SHEARER Kansan Staff Writer
Student power, a phrase often considered to be the wick of an academic powder keg in America, has a history almost as long as education itself.
From the activist students who were disciples of Confucius and Socrates to the influential youth of the 20th Century supporting Mahatma Gandhi and Adolf Hitler, students have had a decisive effect on the success of movements and wars.
American students were active in the suffragette movement at the turn of the century, and applied themselves during both world wars to making useful items to send to American fighting men overseas.
But student power, as it is known in America today, actually began at Berkeley in 1964 when students first began to flex their muscles to achieve not only broad goals but also the specific ideals of students.
Edward Schwartz, past president of the National Student Association (NSA), put student power, as a phrase, into the American vocabulary at the 1967 Student Power Conference. Schwartz was an adamant believer in student power over student rights:
"We wanted power"
"We used to make a clear distinction between the administration's granting us a change in the social rules, and the administration's granting us the power over an area of social rules. The one was a new right; the other was power. We wanted power."
But student power has met opposition. Grayson Kirk, the former Columbia University president who rode the turbulent waves of student violence last spring, has said, "It would be fatal if the student views were predominant. Students come and go."
The most significant effect of student power, however, has not been on administrators nor on the early activists themselves.
Band will follow Laugh-In theme in half time fete
KU's marching band will sock it to football fans Saturday performing a "Laugh-In" during halftime festivities, Kenneth G. Bloomquist, director of bands, said.
"In keeping with the overall homecoming theme, 'Kansas Show of Shows,' and more specifically the house decorations theme, 'Jayhawk Laugh-In,' the band will do an obvious take-off on the popular Rowan and Martin show 'Laugh-In.'"
The popular aspect of the "Laugh-In" television program is the party, Bloomquist said. The band will have its own party on the field playing the tune "Sock it to me." Also participating in the halftime ceremony will be distinguished university persons filling roles of TV personalities on "Laugh-In."
"The big deal for the game will be the world's largest bass drum 12 feet high." The band is going to present a precision drill with a series of countermarches exactly as they SHOULD NOT be done, the band director said.
"Following this, the band will play 'Moon River' as the queen is presented in her triumphal ride around the track. They will have learned who the queen is before the game and spellout her name at halftime."
but rather on more moderate students.
Moderates' reaction imminent
The homecoming queen will be crowned in pre-game ceremony instead of at halftime this year so that there will be time for her halftime ride before the team returns to the field and to enable her to reign over the entire game, Bloomquist said.
The University of Colorado marching band will perform during the first part of the halftime, Bloomquist said.
Otis A. Singletary, executive vice-chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Texas, said in an Associated Press interview two weeks ago that a reaction by moderate students to campus radicals seems imminent
Singletary said, "A general backlash from these students is possible. There are many signs of strong reaction on the part of the great mass of moderate students against disruption on the campus."
Evidence of Singletary's prophecy came recently from a newly-organized group of University of Colorado students calling itself NEVER (New Emergency against Violence and Expressed Revolution). The group staged a walkout at a meeting of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) at Boulder, Colo.
He said, in effect, that student moderates may spring into activism to counteract the activism of more radical students.
The SDS broke away nearly two years ago from the NSA when it was discovered that the NSA was partially funded by the Central Intelligence Agency. However, NSA leaders, equally surprised at learning of the unexpected financial source, completely severed itself from the CIA and from the federal government in general.
"It's really going to blow this year. The students aren't going
to accept petty appeasements any more," Jeanne Manson, an NSA delegate, predicted.
"Really going to blow"
The young woman spoke of radical demands she supposed would be made on her campus this year. She said she personally intended to be an advocate of drastic change.
Miss Manson described her school, Emmanuel College in Boston, Mass., as a small, conservative Catholic women's college.
Edward Schwartz, NSA's president through the August convention, said he was amazed at how much more active students were this year as compared to only one year ago.
Why have students begun to take up the demanding techniques of the Berkeley radicals of 1964? Force has worked.
Columbia's Kirk resigned his presidency, after trying to calm the violence which ruled his campus.
Take over buildings
Take over buildings After 200 black students at Boston University occupied a builssing for 12 hours this spring, the administration met all their demands for curriculum and admissions change.
Another 200 students commandeered the administration building at the University of Oregon for two days and nights this spring before Oregon administrators capitulated to their demands for better representation on the committee searching for a new university president.
Schwartz explained at the NSA Congress that it has not been the violence but the force
which has worked for activists.
"I cannot condone all the actions of the demonstrations at Columbia," Schwartz had written after his visit to the campus during its period of unrest. "But I am convinced that profound changes need to take place within our universities."
Schwartz criticized the Columbia revolt because it aimed only at destroying the old university and not at creating a new university.
"Students should make the rules governing dormitory hours, boy-girl visitation, student unions, student fees, clubs, newspa
He has, however, been a leading spokesman for students taking control of student-oriented matters.
pers and the like." Schwartz said. "Faculty and administrators should advise—attempt to persuade, even. Yet the students should bear the burden of choice.
" 'My generation had the illusion that man made himself through his opportunities,' " Schlesinger said, quoting Franklin D. Roosevelt. Then continuing with a phrase from Jean Paul Sartre, he said, " 'But this era has imposed on our children the belief that man makes himself through his choices.' "
Arthur Schlesinger Jr., in a Saturday Evening Post article, said the trend to student activism "takes the form of an unassuming but resolute passion to seize control of one's own future.
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