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University Daily Kansan Thursday. March 12, 1959
Only Selves to Blame
In today's letters column, an independent student complains that the All Student Council and at least one campus political party are run by Greeks.
He says:
1. The party meeting was dominated by Greeks and that the unorganized independents had no opportunity to make decisions concerning their own welfare.
2. The qualifications given for the candidates were not valid reasons why they would make good representatives.
3. The Greeks are afraid of letting independents get too much campus power.
4. The proposed election bill is directed against unorganized independents.
He does not state which party he is attacking. Not having been at the meeting, we do not know. However, we do know that both parties include, and even seek, independent members.
The president of the Allied Greek-Independent party, Terry Elliott, is an independent. The executive council of Vox Populi is composed, as set out in its constitution, of five Greeks and five independents.
As to qualifications for office, we agree that activities and grades do not tell the whole story. However, when a person is considered as a candidate, his supporters will point out what they consider to be his qualifications. This happens whether one is running for president of the local bird watchers society or president of the United States.
Mr. Blickhan says this party did not want to run him as their candidate because they were afraid of getting out the independent vote which would "disrupt their clique" of Greeks on the ASC.
We have been assured that AGI will be running at least two unorganized independents and Vox will run at least three.
The unorganized independents will, therefore, have their choice of five candidates. How many of these will be elected to the council will depend entirely on how many independents vote. If 951 vote, all five will be elected. However, past experience has shown that not many more than 200 ever vote. Thus it is the independents who limit themselves to two representatives, not the Greeks.
If none of the candidates is qualified, find someone who is and get him or her to run. A candidate need not belong to a political party. If a petition containing 100 names is turned in to the elections committee, the student will be placed on the ballot as a non-partisan candidate.
The proposed IBM elections bill mentioned in the letter has not yet been completed. However, its whole purpose is to make voting discrepancies impossible.
Under the present system the address in the student directory is used to determine in which living district a student will vote.
Under the proposed system, no list would be sent to the Greek houses. Lists in the deans' offices will be used to determine the living district. If there is a mistake in the list, the student will be allowed to vote in the proper district.
The new system would not take away more than a handful of votes from the unorganized independents.
Independents outnumber the Greeks on campus. In our democratic system the majority governs, but only if that majority accepts its responsibility of governing. —Martha Cresier
College Sports Big Business
The president of Yale University, Dr. A. Whitney Griswold, recently said that the athletic scholarship program of American colleges and universities is "one of the greatest educational swindles ever perpetrated on American youth."
Perhaps we realize, however, what we are doing in building gigantic "educational" athletic programs. Many of the largest and most elaborate and expensive buildings on U.S. college campuses are the sports arenas, stadiums and field houses. Football coaches and their numerous assistants draw paychecks larger than those received by many of the academic professors.
The University's athletic programs are not unusually extensive, yet up to 40,000 people may crowd into Memorial Stadium to watch a football game. They spend thousands of dollars in order to view the modern gladiatorial spectacles. As many as 17,000 people may leave their money
at the box office and enter Allen Field House to witness a basketball game.
Is this not bordering on big business? It appears to be approaching that classification. Yet it is carried on under the protective wing of higher education.
Sports are definitely a part of the American way of life. Even big-business sports are fine as entertainment for the American people.
Dr. Griswold seems to be correct in saying that the sports subsidy program is furthering "not the education of the youth but the entertainment of its elders."
But the prestige of a university is threatened when its commercialized child begins to grow too big. The real purpose of a college or university may be overshadowed by huge athletic programs which are "professional" in fact, if not in name.
Jack Harrison
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS By Dick Bibler
HOW CAN YOU GIVE ME AN 'N' ON THIS PAPER WHEN YOU ADMIT YOU COULDN'T EVEN READ IT.
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EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
...Last week I attended a meeting of one of our great campus political parties. This Greek-dominated meeting was a great farce.
At the meeting they decided on the candidates for ASC. To impress everyone they read their qualifications. John has a 2.5 in business. He was active in his high school student council and is from Wyandotte High School which is a large school and will get lots of votes. Bill has a 2.2 grade average and is a big man. He attended Boys' State and is on the do-nothing committee for the ASC.
Pat Swanson and Martha Crosier, Co-
gistrator, Harwl, Associate,
Editorial Editor
... One Greek would read off a paragraph of propaganda and then end by saying that Pete is a "real sharp boy." ... Independents, we should be very thankful because we have a group of "real sharp boys" representing us.
I went to the meeting with the idea of trying to become a candidate to represent the independents, but I feel that the "iron law of obstarchy" was working against me.
They felt that we independents couldn't get the vote out. I wonder if they were afraid that we might get too many votes out and disrupt their clique.
I insure I was not qualified because I am not on the dean's honor roll or chairman of the All Hall Fall Ball. I wasn't a "sharp boy."
Under the new system, IBM cards will be used. A person will go to the polls and get a ballot for his living district and his school.
At this meeting...a Greek rose and explained the new voting process that the ASC will vote on this week. It is supposed to be designed to stop fraudulent voting, but behind this change there is a movement that will strengthen the Greeks at the expense of the independents.
In the past years a Greek, living out of his house could vote either as a Greek or as an independent, but this year the election committee...is going to send a list to each Greek house and make sure that all Greeks are listed as Greeks so that those who are living in our districts, occupying our rooms and apartments, using our local establishments, mingling in our problems will be sure to vote as Greeks.
But since when do "sharp boys" and 2.5 students make good representatives? How do they know how many holes we have in our walls, how many meals we eat a day, how many ice cube trays we have in our iceboxes?...
I have no solution to what we can do. It does us no good to stay home and not vote, but if you are going to vote, take some time and get to know at least one candidate. Tell him you are going to watch and see what he does. Vote for someone who will stand up to the Greek council and sound off...
After a boring evening, I left the meeting and went to a local establishment where 29 to 39 of my independent friends were having their nightly drinks from the brown bottles. I observed these
Another candidate...is a young lady I know and I feel she is a fine young woman, but what does she know about men's living conditions? She is probably a fine representative of the independent women but there are far more independent men than women.
jolly independents and wondered who was representing them ...
It made me think back to the candidates this party was putting up in our living district...
(See editorial "On'y Selves to Blame")
What this does is to give the Greeks more votes, thus more representatives and the independents less votes and less representation.
Prairie Village senior
It Looks This Way . . .
***
By Larry Miles
There is a report that the revolt in Iraq is mostly a war of words. This kind of warfare will undoubtedly lead modern nations to conscript women.
University rules and regulations have become so inflexible that many students find it necessary to choose between a degree and an education.
---
Joplin police recently described a $3,000 safecracking job as "amateurish." If the police are right, the AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) should investigate, for $3,000 clearly violates AAU expense rules.
***
A campus sociologist observes that many of the people he does not like are so much alike that they do not like one another.
***
The housing controversy for the year is not over. Just wait until the new Jayhawk squawks because he doesn't have a roost.
***
A home economics coed claims mid-semesters and Mixmasters are one and the same.
***
A professor claims that a monster in one of his classes lets every lecture go in one head and out the other.
Worth Repeating
"The great teacher is rarely 'popular.' He is interested in something more important than winning the affections of an unending procession of young people. No great teacher is democratic, in the sense that a successful politician must be. Mark Van Doren, who taught me English at Columbia, calmly assumed a class was composed entirely of heavy thinkers.
"At first this was embarrassing, but after a while you got used to it, and pretty soon you found yourself saying something practically publishable. I can remember philosophy classes, presided over by another fine teacher, the late Irwin Edman, in which football heroes suddenly, if impermanently, became adults simply because Edman refused to treat them as anything else.
"Memorable is that quick look of panic mingled with amazed delight that would spread over their pleasant open faces at the realization that they had given birth to an idea. By this look you may know the education is in process."
—Clifton Fadiman in Holiday
Citron Paddman H. Horstby reprinted in the March Reader's Digest