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Summer Session Kansan Tuesday, June 13.1961
KU-A Great University
A recent article on Kansas in the Saturday Evening Post failed, except in a fleeting way, to mention one of the state's main assets: the University of Kansas.
That's one reason why Chancellor Wescoe's recent address, in which he recited portions of a St. Joseph (Mo.) News-Press editorial, proved to be so inspiring to all students, faculty, and friends of KU. Wescoe, in his "State of the University" address June 4, quoted the paper as saying:
"You do not have to be a resident of the state of Kansas to be proud of the University of Kansas. We like them (Kansans) and we hope they like us. Therefore, it is always a pleasure to come across something about Kansas that is good to read. Here is something."
"Of 1,333 Woodrow Wilson Fellowships awarded in the nation, KU students won 20. This ranked the University of Kansas sixth in all the nation, surpassed only by five private select schools. In winning Rhodes scholarships, Kansas stood alone among all state universities by placing one each of two successive years, 1959 and 1960. Moreover, this year KU placed a third Rhodes scholar.
"Of the 98 Danforth Fellowships awarded nationally, KU received three, the maximum possible for any one institution. Yes, the University of Kansas stands high. Without disparaging other fine state universities in our middlewest, we must be fair. The KU fellowship awards are strikingly monumental and the envy of all schools, public or private."
There's a Latin phrase appropriate here which I can't remember. But it means this: "The record
And here's hoping the situation continues. It's much easier, I'll admit, to solve the collegiate population explosion by sending out batches of rejection slips, but in the long run this accomplishes nothing. IQ scores and College Entrance examination scores are vastly overrated devices which allegedly help predict future student success, but which actually deprive many young people of a higher education.
In short, KU has been able to absorb many thousands of additional students and to grow by leaps and bounds, physically and academically, at the same time.
KANSAN CROSSWORD
1. A ___ is a body with a smooth surface that moves along an axis or through space.
In past years, the universities of Michigan and California were considered to be the unofficial leaders in their class. At the moment, the University of Kansas is joining this select circle, and don't be too surprised if we take over the top spot before very long.
speaks for itself." Our academic excellence has always been recognized. In recent years, that degree of excellence has continued to soar up and up and the specific accomplishments which our Missouri neighbor so kindly pointed out lead to an obvious conclusion: KU is a great university.
KU's climb up the ladder of prestige has been accomplished without rigid enrollment restrictions, a fact which probably has educators in other states scratching their heads in amazement. We not only permit high school graduates with less than outstanding academic records, we welcome them, within limits of course.
Maybe the Post will recognize us someday.
ACROSS
1 Black trefloal on a card.
2 High plateau in Asia.
3 Nautical call.
4 Type size.
5 Dwell.
6 In this place.
7 River in Asia.
8 Sensational plays.
9 Persian governor.
12 Lohengrin's bride.
13 Devoured.
14 Turkish noble.
16 Makes amends.
18 Cardboard signs.
19 Location.
20 Leaves out.
23 Fan dancer's full name.
28 Tatter.
39 Auctions.
40 Hint.
41 Full name of famed war correspondent.
44 Spring month.
46 Ah me!
47 South Seas port.
49 Describing a fair day.
52 Alpine province.
53 Feminine suffix.
54 Car.
56 "___ Delight," by Robert
- Chuck Morelock
Sherwood.
Pastures.
Sound of a
hoofbeat.
Chief city of
Hawaii.
Seaweeds.
Soprano Cluck.
Eject.
Strata of ore.
Captures.
DOWN
Auditors.
Peruvi capital.
Shaped like a
patch pocket.
Mrs. Browning's
maiden name.
Coddle.
"Honest —"
Runner.
Much-admired
one.
"___ in the
Sunset;" 2 words
Villain's open-
ing word.
Stalwart hero.
Declaim.
Expressions of
agreement.
Rodent-infested.
Iowa town.
Themes.
Over: Poet.
28 Read carefully (with "over").
29 Bread-and-wine poet.
30 Poster.
31 One of Snow White's friends.
32 Entirety.
33 Land measure.
34 Opposite of jour.
37 Cancel.
39 Kitchen implements.
42 Adjective-forming suffix.
43 Greek form of Elijah.
44 Like two peas, in ...: 2 wds.
45 Bird with a big bill.
48 Comes up.
49 Sounds of lament.
50 Sew.
51 English hymn writer.
52 Queen Salote's land.
55 Story.
57 Spanish jug.
59 Sepulcher.
59 Warm Springs and others.
61 Plant.
62 Roosevelt or Hoover.
(Answer on page 8)
Male, Female Who Knows
By Lynn Cheatum
To those among us who have names which could belong to a man or a woman—I salute you and sympathize with you.
My name is Lynn. For over 22 years I have been a male. But when I get mail from someone who doesn't know me, it is a tossup whether the address says "Mr." or "Miss."
For a political science term paper I wrote to 28 organizations asking for information. My return mail numbered 29 pieces, since some replies consisted of a letter and an accompanying large envelope of additional materials. Some groups did not reply.
THE RESULTS:
- Fifteen addressed me as "Mr."
- Ten addressed me as "Miss."
- Seven cautiously preferred to omit a title.
SOME OF THE replies consisted merely of the selected literature, which did away with a need for personal address. Twenty replies, however, did acknowledge my letter of request. The results were humiliating.
That was the way the envelopes were addressed. However, inside the envelopes the problem of addressing became more acute. Since one does not address a stranger by his (or her) first name in a letter, the person who replied had to decide once and for all whether to address me as a man or woman.
- Eight addressed me as "Mr."
- Eight addressed me as "Miss."
- Three sent a form letter with a variation on the line, "In response to your request, etc."
- One person who replied simply put "Dear" in front of my full name. This was a slippery escape from a difficult decision.
- Eight addressed me as "Miss."
THERE IS still a feeling of disgust when I get mail with the title "Miss," although it is nothing surprising. One reason I decided against attending Kansas State University was the fact that the K-State registrar assumed he was writing to a coed. I was offended.
I have staunchly refused to read mail from the YWCA and completely ignored my mail from airline hostess training schools.
The only escape from my dilemma, it would seem, is to write "Mr" in parentheses before my name.
SUMMER SESSION KANSAN
NEWS DEPARTMENT
**Chuck Morelock and**
**Ron Gallagher** Co-Editors
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Chuck Martinache ... Business Mgr.
By Calder M. Pickett
Associate Professor of Journalism
REPORT OF THE COUNTY CHAIRMAN, by James A. Michener,
Random House, $3.95.
James A. Michener made a decision in 1959 that set him off on a course completely foreign to his previous life. He heard a talk by a young senator from Massachusetts, and he decided that, Stevenson, or no, he was going to be a Kennedy man. He became a Kennedy man, and as county chairman in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, a stronghold of Republicans, he worked for Kennedy in 1960.
His party lost, too, in that county, and it was touch-and-go in the nation. But he learned a great deal about American politics and Americans, and he came to several conclusions about politics and the responsibility of the citizen.
The original decision was not an easy one. His acquaintances were even dedicated Stevensonians (like many who were still disgusted after the Democratic convention closed its doors) or good Republicans who couldn't conceive of a man like Michener deserting his class. His wife remained a Stevensonian, more or less, and Michener continued to have occasional twings about deserting the man in whom he and many others had placed so much faith.
Michener's experience as county chairman kept him in Bucks County only part of the time. The rest of the time he was seeing America, particularly in areas which seemed strongly Republican. One of these was Idaho, where Michener and others got the cold treatment from country club ladies in Boise who were convinced that "these are the people who want to take it away."
He saw the American countryside, and observed that the parts of America he loved best—the western mountains, the peaceful countryside, the farm lands—were precisely the part of America that would vote Republican. The cities that he did not love—these would go Democratic. Driving in Pennsylvania on a lovely fall day on which snow had fallen, he reflected on the meaning of his country:
"... as the sun grew brighten, the snow began to fade and by the time I approached Pittsburgh it had altogether vanished. For a few hours only it had lain there in perfect beauty, and now it was gone. I had worked in many nations that had once known their hours of dignity and grandeur, and those hours had fled. The citizens who followed in the years of gloom were often able to joke about the change, but in their hearts they knew that the snows had melted and would not return except under far less auspicious conditions.
"One day, I knew, the snows of history would depart from our American fields, too. They had to. No nation had learned the trick of holding onto them forever, but while they lasted how glorious they were and how imperative it was that they be both recognized and cherished."
Working in Bucks County, Michener came to know and to appreciate two old-timers in the Democratic party, Johnny Welsh and Sam Thompson, who once had been an associate of Eugene O'Neill in the Provincetewn Players. Traveling through America, he came to know the scholarly Arthur Schlesinger Jr., whom film actress Angie Dickinson called "Arty." He admired Miss Dickinson and her throaty gutter leaugh; he also admired Jeff Chandler, an amazingly capable stump speaker, he says, and Stan Musial, whose athletic fame attracted many men to the cause.
He became convinced that had Kennedy not been a Catholic he would have done far better, but he also became convinced that the ineptness of Nixon before national audiences did him little good. He felt that many Democrats would vote for any Democrat—"even if the ticket had been composed of Jack the Ripper and Aaron Burr."
He scorns the conclusion many make concerning the closeness of the election, that Kennedy thereby is obligated to move slowly and moderately. "President Kennedy," he says, "if your policies won against such formidable odds, the people of the United States must obviously prefer them. Get on with the job."
By Calder M. Pickett
Associate Professor of Journalism
HENDERSON THE RAIN KING, by Saul Bellow. Popular Library, 50 cents.
That feeling for picaresque adventure exhibited by the young Saul Bellow in "The Adventures of Augie March" is the hallmark of this naturalistic and likable story of a rich man in Africa. It rambles from one episode to the next, all the while developing its characterization of a big, ingenuous man who fits so beautifully into a civilization that is not his own.
Not his own by birthright, that is. Henderson is a primitive Hemingway hero gone wild, a completely uninhibited man. He goes where he wants and does what he wants, and accepts life in black Africa as readily as life in a New York cocktail lounge.
A man this big, with such a zest for life, attracts the people of Africa in such a way that one tribe deifies him, making Henderson their rain king. Though born to wealth, Henderson finds that Africa is his true milieu. Though he himself couldn't put into words what happens to him, he comes to know that such a society offers the kind of life and the kind of relationships that he was unable to find elsewhere.
Jefferson and Thoreau and Veblen and the others who have found much that they cannot accept in an industrialized society would understand Henderson. He is the natural man personified, the man of nature who doesn't realize he is a man of nature until he leaves civilization behind and lives it up deep in the jungle.