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University Daily Kansan Monday, May 6, 1957
Some Initiative
Western Civ Moves Forward
It will be interesting to see how well the new Western Civilization final examinations prove themselves.
The new policy offers honor students the chance to take examination orally rather than written, as has always been the custom. The students taking the oral exam must write a 2 to 3-thousand word paper outside the regular class period on one reading from first semester and one reading from second semester. They must discuss the readings and their impact upon the Western world of our day. Then they must face a faculty board of three persons in a 30-45 minute discussion which will focus on, but not be limited to, their paper.
This final will put an extra burden on the Western Civ discussion leaders because they will have to read the students' papers and listen to their discussions on their writings in addition to grading the regular written finals which will be taken by the rest of the students May 11. But through their extra work they are opening a new avenue which students may follow while taking exams.
It has long been the theory of students, if not faculty members, that written finals may not
actually test the real knowledge of the student. Some students simply don't have the ability to express them selves on a piece of paper. However, if asked to explain a point orally they can do it extremely well.
The new system will let the honor students show whether they are ready for this type of test, new to most of the courses at the University. They may, if it is successful, be paving the way for this practice to be followed in many other classes.
A word of congratulations goes to the Western Civilization department and Francis Heller, chairman, for allowing the students to prove their ability on a different type of final examination. Congratulations, too, to the students who were singled out for this first experimental group.
Yet the argument against oral finals is that part of a college education should include learning how to express one's thoughts through writing. Then, it would seem, the most efficient examination would be one which includes both a written and an oral part. This is what the new Western Civ final will do.
—Mary Beth Noyes
One wonders whether those who didn't attend had too much to do, whether they don't like to drink free coffee in the Union, or whether they just preferred to stay in their 10 o'clock classes during that hour. Or maybe they just didn't care about what went on. The latter suggestion seems the most logical.
Graduation from the University of Kansas must mean very little to about 700 seniors. They were the two-thirds of the 1957 graduating class who didn't bother to attend the senior class meeting Tuesday.
The senior class voted on their gift to the University Tuesday, which will be an aluminum canopy over the front entrance of the Student Union. Already there has been comment about another "bird cage" on the campus like the famous one in front of Bailey Hall. And the first person to make a comment on the gift was a senior, one of those 700 who didn't bother to attend his class meeting.
These seniors are the same students who entered the University four, or maybe more, years ago. Then they were undoubtedly filled with enthusiasm for their new career in college. It is agreed, four years in a university can somewhat dim even the most enthusiastic Jane or Joe College, but it is doubtful that
700 Apathetic Seniors
It's Their Home So . . .
those years could completely sour a student on his alma mater.
Tuesday was the only day in the four years of college when all the seniors could get together as a compact group and voice their opinion on a specific matter. Until that time "senior" meant only a classification which allowed or prevented a person from taking certain courses of study. For that one day "senior" meant the people who went through orientation week with you, the people who voted for the same class officers you did, and the people who will walk down the Hill with you June 3.
Those interested 700 will be alumni soon and the chances are that they will completely drop all connections with the University. The only time they will return to Mt. Oread is to see a football or basketball game. Alumni like that don't build hospitals, libraries, scholarship halls, dormitories, sororities and fraternities. They don't build anything.
In a few weeks final exams will be a thing of the past, and summer vacation will be upon us again. Many students started months ago preparing for trips to Europe, Mexico or some other foreign country—obtaining passports, buying clothes, arranging itineraries, etc. One thing that is often forgotten amidst the flurry and excitement of preparation is learning something about the countries that will be visited during the trip.
The class of 1957 is about ready to leave the University, perhaps 350 of them rather regretfully. The other 700 are just leaving. Maybe the class of 1958 will have a little more of that over-used, under-practiced phrase "the old college spirit."
Visiting A Country? - Study It
Experience may be the best teacher in many situations, but in this one a little studying beforehand can often save hurt feelings and embarrassment. Because of the lack of understanding Americans have for other peoples, our tourists are disliked in many countries, even though they are a very important part of these countries' economies. Only American tourists are responsible for this attitude, and only they can correct it.
Mary Beth Noyes
No peoples like to have their firmly established customs ridiculed, and that includes Americans. We may find it hard not to laugh at such a custom as having a chaperon along on a date, but this is standard operating procedure in Mexico. You will be more quickly accepted and better liked if you try to understand why they have this custom.
Complaining about the food is a sure way to get a cold shoulder. One way out is to joke about your inability to eat a certain food, perhaps saying that your pampered American stomach must become accustomed to unusual foods slowly. Then you might ask how the dish is made. By the time your host has explained, he probably will have forgotten all about your not being able to eat the particular food.
Appreciation always goes to the tourist who can speak the language of the country. A proprietor is usually so surprised at a tourist who can speak any language but English that he will go out of his way to be helpful. Of course, it is impossible to know the language of every country you will visit, but even a few words from the always available tourist guide books can do wonders.
We Americans are convinced that we are the luckiest people in the world, partly because we have the highest standard of living in the world. Showing it off in other countries, however, does little to ingratiate yourselves with the natives. It gives many the impression that all Americans are millionaires. That is one reason tourists often find little odds and ends missing from their dressing tables and suitcases.
In countries where bargaining for purchases is the rule, the tourist who pays the first price is quickly termed a "sucker." He becomes an object of ridicule. Wearing apparel can have a great effect on price, so when going bargaining wear something other than your best clothes. You'll save lots of time in cutting prices.
It is much easier to learn these small but important things before taking a trip than by trial and error while traveling. You will have a pleasanter time, and your foreign hosts will be more favorably impressed. It can be a great advantage to do a little spare time studying now, so that you can really know how to "do in Rome as the Romans do."
—Peggy Armstrong
Morocco- Independence And Problems
A strong nationalistic spirit brought rewards to one of the world's newest nations—Morocco. But with independence came problems.
Charles E. Gallagher, a representative of the American Universities Field Staff, is visiting the University lecturing on and describing the situation of Morocco and other North African countries.
Morocco is a California-sized nation with an Illinois-sized population. Far bigger than Tunisia, potentially much richer than Algeria, Morocco is one of the three countries that once constitutional French North Africa.
Among them are the problems of relations with neighboring nations and the strong desire to shake loose of French shruads.
In north Morocco there are sweeping costal plains and fertile valleys; in the south, the Atlas Mountains and desert. Its cities range from modern Casablanca with its busling port and gleaning white apartment buildings, and the walled Arab city of Fez with its ancient university buildings and its twisting casbah
The natives are Berbers, descendants of the original Arab settlers. There is a large Jewish population. Most of the Europeans live in the cities.
streets, to the desert town of Marraneck.
Frenchmen poured into Morocco. They grabbed up the best farmland with the help of laws dedicated to extending the French presence and allowed French farmers to pay 20 per cent less tax than a Moroccan. They replaced Moroccan administrators. They developed Moroccan resources, but always with French interests in mind.
France grabbed Morocco from the weak Sultan Moulay Habid in the African division on the eve of World War I.
At first the French were impartial in their treatment of the Moroccans. But Paris was not for long content with such loose methods.
The present sultan, Mohammed V, was selected by the French in 1927. Then a retiring 18-year-old, he turned out to be an intelligent and observant ruler. He took steps to Westernize Morocco.
Independence was declared last
Nearly all of Morocco's problems stem from its relations with France. Moroco's man of balance has the delicate task of steering between the intemperate demands of Arab nationalists and the more sober counsel of those who recognize that France still has a considerable hold on Moroco's purse strings.
year. Pending the adoption of a constitution, Morocco is an absolute monarchy under the sultan. He is advised by a cabinet of Moroccan ministers headed by the prime minister, Si M'Barak Ben Bekkai.
Moroccan nationalism is based upon the conviction that French colonial rule was alien and oppressive. National independence makes it possible to replace this rule by self-government in accordance with native traditions and culture, and to substitute for an oppressive colonial administration a democratic regime.
—Jim Banman
Responsible leaders know that the task of establishing their nations on a firm foundation and coping with their social and economic problems is difficult enough without becoming involved in situations outside the border of their countries.
Sounds Of KU
The sound of KU is the sound of thousands of pairs of feet carrying their owners across the hill and into stone buildings. Trudging feet, shuffling feet, striding steps, clicking along marble halls.
The sound of the University is the sound of the presses in the basement of the journalism building, racking, hacking, coughing, mechanically hammering out the news each day. Or it is the droning buzz of an electric saw in the shop.
It is the sound of the low chugging of a campus cop's motorcycle; it is the merry bubbling noise of water in the Chi O fountain; it is the friendly flap-flapping sound of the flags atop Fraser Hall.
It is the clack and clatter of typewriters, letter folders and keypunch machines in offices; it is the grinding of peneil sharpeners, the squeak of chalk across a dusty blackboard, the scrape of chairs across a bare floor.
It is a custodian's lonely whistle, echoing and reverberating in a nearly empty class building; it is the rustling of crumpled paper and the soft swishing of a dust mop across a worn, wooden floor.
It is the sound of the Campanile, clear and mellow or hollow and melancholy; or it is the blast of the factory whistle that calls the thousands of pairs of feet to begin their shuffle; or it is the policeman's shrill whistle, a hanking car horn.
harmony of the symphony orchestra or the lifting gaiety of the marching band; it is an old Irish setter's bark as he chases a squirrel; it is the constant hum of automobiles, busses, engines and motors.
But most of all, the sound of KU is the sound of voices. Young and old voices, male and female voices, high voices, low voices—all with their own personalities.
Sometimes they are united—in the cheering section at athletic events or in the University Chorus or the A Cappella Choir. Yet the voices never lose their individuality, their freedom of expression. Each becomes the voice of all that it has seen and known and believed.
—Dona Seacat
Daily Hansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904,
trifweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16. 1912.
Telephone VIking 3-2700
Extension 251, news room
276, business office
Extension 376, New York Press Association.
Morgan Stanley Press Association.
Associated Collegiate Press. Represented by National Advertising Service, 420 Madison Ave., New York, N. Y. service; United Press. Mail subscription rates: $3 a semester or $4.50 a year. Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University Sundays. University holl-
low and examination periods. Entered as second-class matter Sept. 17, 1910, at Lawrence, Kan., post office under act of March 3, 1879.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS By Dick Bibler
"I KNOW IT'S LATE, COACH, BUT IM PRACTICING A FEW 'PLAYS.'"