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University Daily Kansan Thursday, Feb. 26, 1959
Rush Takes Time
Okay! With good planning, an efficiency-conscious sorority can breeze through the rushing period without a worry about mid-semester examinations. The proper work, meetings, and all other details should be out of the way by that time, says Miss Emily Taylor, dean of women, and she's right.
However, rush is not all plans and efficiency, especially when it concerns the highly emotional females. Freshmen and sorority members alike are bound to be worried about how the glorified smile-and-smoke period will turn out.
Ridiculous as it may seem to independents and to those far removed from the turmoil of rushing, this is an important time to those concerned.
Dean Taylor thinks this need not be a half-semester of anxiety, and she is right again. But 1,000 women find this a bit hard to believe. As far as getting things done and getting them done right, it is quite possible to go through rush and mid-semester examinations at the same time.
But, however possible this may be, it may not happen the way Dean Taylor thinks it should
It is not only a matter of can or can't. It is also a matter of will or won't. But, aside from rationalizations of "I absolutely can't study because I have rush on my mind," there are skits to practice, decorations to put up (even if they have been made weeks in advance), and fires to build under procrastinating alumnae. These things have a nasty habit of sneaking up at the last minute.
Dean Taylor is not sitting in 212 Strong just laughing at the flustered women. She has rush problems thirteen times over anyone else's. And she is not to bear the brunt of irate cries of "Who's responsible for this?" The cracker has crumbled—all over the sheets—and everyone is going to have to sleep with it that way. The housing problem has made it so.
So, gather up your self-control and will power, ladies, and while you're at it, make out a stiff study schedule. Do your planning ahead, and get it out of the way while there's still time.
-Martha Pearse
Religious Groups Biased?
We learn from a campus daily that the University of Minnesota student leaders have recently labeled local religious organizations "biased."
The school's Senate Committee on Student Affairs appears likely to force the campus religious organizations to open their doors to nonmembers. Apparently, some of Minnesota's student groups are restricting membership to race, color or religious uniformity, a practice opposed to university policy.
In most cases, discrimination is contrary to the best American ideals. But should an organization held together solely by common faith be forced to admit non-believers; to put it mildly, disharmonic factors? Maybe, but we hardly think that objective dissenters would aid the spiritual life of any religious community.
Minnesota's SCSA bravely states that "the university should open doors where they are closed and it should encourage religious groups to be open minded in selecting members." But, sadly, a good many of the religious clubs are far from being open minded on the subject of free membership.
Most state schools have some religious organizations which limit membership to those holding the prevailing faith. To limit these groups' privacies through legislative action also seems contrary to the best American ideals.
Maybe, with proper perseverance, the Minnesota campus politicians will be able to move into higher echelons in other fields and will break open the sacred bonds of the Masonic order, the Shriners or the Knights of Columbus. It is, as a lesser-known philosopher once said, "After all, guys, religion can be fun." —John Husar
Present Times Need Unity of Faith
By the Rev, Gerard Goetz Chplain in Catholic Students
The times in which we live—"the best of times...the worst of times...the age of wisdom...the age of foolishness...the epoch of belief...the epoch of incredulity...the season of Light...the season of Darkness...the spring of hope...the winter of despair...all going to Heaven...all going direct the other way..."offer each of us potential unlimited, possibilities unquestioned, science effective, theology determined. Yet, what of that life of the spirit which can and should be ours?
We are presently engaged in a Religious Emphasis Week, which is supposedly to have campus-wide and life-long effects. We are allegedly dealing with those things which can not be weighed on the scales, measured with the ruler, seen with the bodily eyes. Are we?
REW can point up many things.
Does it?
Does this lone week in the 52 with which we are blessed each year mean that for a week only (just 7 days—or less) we give deep and concerted thought to the fact that "not by bread alone does man live?" If so, let's fold up our tents and quietly (and in a sneaky manner) creep off into the desert of despair.
What of the 51 weeks? Will we be content to slake our moral thirst on what is offered by science, sociology, history, mathematics, engineering? Will relativism, determinism, subjectivism, atheism, pantheism, existentialism — "ism" as you will—take over the controlling interest in our lives?
REW should underline for us one essential item: there is that which is greater than the mere academic, the mere material, the mere earthy and earthly. Profitably may we and can we consider the word of God: "What does it profit a man if he
gain the whole world and yet suffer the loss of his soul."
For those who believe, REW proffers the possibility of strengthening their beliefs; for those who question and who seek, there is given an opportunity of weighing and considering the what and the which to believe; for those who do not believe it can offer the occasion of self-examination as to his or her own possible needs.
But one thing REW should never do is to make this the only week in which consideration and thought are given to things spiritual. We might well think of this as the week in which we emphasize the need of Religion—and neglect this important factor for the rest of the year.
If this be our purpose in regard to REW, it will then have for us the possibility of being for us a splash in the here and now, a great-to-do, a flash in the pan. But effective and lasting results will be non-existent. Yet it can and should be for us a practical thing and a successful experience in our University life.
The Rev. Gerard Goetz
The recently elected Pope John XXIII may be referred to in this matter. He seeks unity; but it is the unity which is found in the objective truth, not in that which is subjectively and personally found most desirable; the unity of common acceptance, not the disunity of personal opinion; again, the reference to Truth and not to preference.
There is the lasting question:
Shall I progress in my way, or
shall I attempt to progress in God's
way?
Our chancellor has underlined the fact that we now live in "the midst of an unprecedented scientific-technological revolution." Yet this very fact should appeal to the thinking man and woman of University caliber. Why? Because science and technology answer and can answer only a portion, however small, of the questions which face the reasonable person of today.
It Looks This Way . . .
By George DeBord
Friday the governor said KU students were "unethical." Monday he said Daily Kansan reporters were "wildly friendly."
At first I could not understand the logic behind these sweeping statements. But after some thought I had to agree with the governor. I for one plead guilty.
Most of us at KU are guilty of something or other. At least we are guilty by association. For instance, faculty members, young
Republicans, students, and members of The Daily Kansan staff are guilty of unethical thinking.
Here is the logic I used to convince myself of my share in the guilt:
Gov. Docking said one Young Republican was unethical.
This young Republican is a KU student.
Therefore, all KU students are unethical. It follows that I am a KU student, and therefore, unethical.
This logic is as old as it is irrational. It can be reduced to a simple and fallacious syllogism. The trick is to locate
one characteristic which two groups have in common, and then leap to the conclusion that other characteristics are interchangeable.
With this type of reasoning I am guilty of being unfriendly too. I figure it this way:
The Daily Kansan printed a story which the governor called "unfriendly."
The story was written by Daily Kansan staff members.
I am a Daily Kansan staff member. and therefore. unfriendly.
So, I'm sort of unhappy today. I did not know I was an unfriendly person. I knew I was guilty of being unethical, and this worried me. But when I learned I was unfriendly, I began to fear myself.
Fear is a powerful force. I learned that from my dog, Fred. Fred was little, but he could bark. He had a terrible bark. He was a real master of fear psychology.
Whenever a big dog came around or did something Fred did not like, old Fred would start barking. He never argued or thought things out; he just barked. He had a frightening way of telling those dogs off that was really quite effective. After awhile, the dogs stopped bothering him and he had things his own way. The whole dog population of our town was afraid of him.
Well, old Fred is dead now, and that makes me unhappy too, but I remember him for one thing. He taught me about fear.
It is said that KU students are not taught ethics in school.
KU students are taught by members of the faculty.
Therefore, members of the faculty do not teach ethics. So, their teachings must be unethical.
Just about everybody is guilty of something or other. According to reports from Topeka, some legislators are guilty of fear. Fear that they will lose their legislative seats in the next election unless they go along with a proposed "tight" budget.
I think these men could have learned something from watching Fred. He never bit any of those other dogs.
By P. Gangadhara Rao
The hawksnest hamburgers Which are cold and dead As old, virgin maids,
The special spaghetti Without any meat That doesn't taste,
The serious woman at the counter Who makes me feel terror,
The lady at the counting machine Who treats with motherly affection,
The music room's music
That acts as mystic?
To make many people stick
To the chairs as if stuck.
The humanitarian friend who loves to cut and collect All the news ardently Before the others read.
My old buddy Who presents daily—
Goodbye for a while Hope to see you again.
Dailu Hansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
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