UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN editorials
Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the Kansan editorial staff. Signed columns represent the views of only the writers.
JANUARY 31, 1978
Events controls unjust
The University Events Committee is a constant source of surprise and disbelief.
With its approval last week of a proposal to make it easier to schedule events on campus, the committee seemed to be taking a step forward to untangle its bureaucratic maze. The decision was a welcome surprise.
Under the proposal, which now must be approved by David Amber, vice chancellor for student affairs, the events committee would be organized into three sections. The office of student organizations and activities would provide initial review of event requests, at long last making it possible to have a "routine" event approved without delay. Currently, the events committee meets only weekly.
More controversial requests would go to a core committee which would meet twice a month and the full events committee would meet once a month to consider any appeals or requests forwarded from the other sections.
The changes should make it somewhat quicker to get University approval for a majority of so-called campus “events.” However, the changes do nothing to ease the highhanded
bureaucratic control associated with the events committee—illustrated by its proposals to establish guidelines for the distribution of literature on campus.
According to the proposed guidelines, "internetted newspapers or periodicals printed or sold by students" would be under the jurisdiction of the events committee, who would have to approve distribution of such publications.
No action has been taken on the guidelines and the University general counsel has been asked to study the legality of the proposal. But even that should have been unnecessary.
Although the proposals are intended only to prevent litter and nuisance problems from unattended literature distribution, such as newspaper boxes, the committee guidelines are too restrictive. By controlling where, when and how a publication may be distributed on campus, the committee could restrict the free flow of ideas and information from pamphlets newspapers and other publications.
Consideration of the proposed guidelines by the events committee and the University can only be greeted with disbelief. Nothing else is merited.
Sometimes in the proverbial, neverending quest for knowledge one happens to stumble across an incident or comment that is startling in its power and provides a unique view of the world. Unfortunately, none of the following qualify:
Quest for wisdom leads to jottings
- Robert McCoy, executive assistant to the president of Kent State University, explaining why the university rejected a proposal for students protesting the Vietnam War: "Our rationale was that we felt it inappropriate to observe the killing of four students and the wounding of nine others with as sculpture commissioning violence on someone else."
- U. S. Air Force Major General Charles Walters, 81, of the Old Street Journal that the Air Force forces with the new S-CA cargo jet, though "having the wings fall off after 8,000 hours is a
- According to recently released FBI documents, when it was reported in 1964 that Jean Paul Sartre had joined the "Who Killed Kennedy Committee," J. Edgar Hoover immediately scribbled a memo to subordinates: "Find out who Sartre is."
- The field of advertising can often present its employees with a serious dilemma. David Ogilvy, founder of the Ogilvy and Mather advertising agency, acknowledged this in an address to the Dallas Advertising League: "In the course of defining the purpose of your corporate advertising, it is important to understand the corporation, and--you know this—most corporations don't have any purpose."
- Business talk isn't always stale and dull. The recent convention of the American Association of Political Consultants included a well-attended session on campaign finance laws entitled "How to Keep from Going to Jail."
- The Associated Press recently carried this item from Syracuse, N.Y.：“When a fisherman tossed his cigarette into the water, he was surprised when the water ignited.
Value of studying the humanities immeasurable but unquestionable
By LOREN BARITZ N.Y. Times Feature
NEW YORK—One of the fastest growing practices in America today is the search for external solutions to internal problems.
Thus: OPEC can solve the problem caused partly by our energy wastefulness; the government can solve the problem of inflation caused partly by our taste for consumption and distaste for work; the "helping professions"—marriage counseling, pet care, tutoring, etc.—can cause both illnesses and somebody can invent a little pill to cure cancer although we continue to encourage the disease by our behavior.
Education is in part one of those wonderful external solutions on which we in pin our hopes while we evade our responsibilities. Primary schools will baby-sit for us, teach our kids some manners and instruct them in sex. The schools may even mold their
A college will teach values, prepare students to make a lot of money and, if it is a selective liberal arts college, to live richer.
If we hold these goals for our institutions, it is fair to conclude that education does not work very often or very well. Have manners and character noticeably be elevated? Have graduates' lives been made more meaning? In fact, what is the consequence of the last question?
One institutional response to these pompous, inflated, and imperial equals is the "back to basics movement."
This may mean several things: a) leave us alone to do what we know how to do, such as teaching kids how to read; or b) now that we are losing students and funds, we can assure survival if nothing more by reverting to a leaner and easier curriculum that will disqualify high-risk (black) students; or c) it is about time to redefine what education is for.
An inextricable part of our desire for external solutions has been our wish for higher education to solve the "problems" of students. Disillusionment about the effectiveness of colleges and universities is one of the challenges we hold and still hold about what we expect in return for tuition.
I take the humanities as an illustration, partly because we are on the verge of a national inquiry into something dreadful called the present state of the humanities. And does not the bill pay者 have to be in touch with or daughter is going to do with what is learned in English 270?
Put that last question alongside the demands for accountability. Senior campus officers may, and too often do, answer parents' questions and legislative inquiries by uttering such statements or insisting that their plumb could be taken in by. Unless, of course, the rest of us hope
that these soothing sayings might provide another external solution.
These pretty public songs tell of what else? - richer, more meaningful, more aware, and more productive lives. That is a rather heavy load for English 270 to carry, especially if it is taught by a 30-year-old assistant professor. It is a heavy load for even a sequence of English courses taught by senior professors. For an entire college curriculum. Then why do we believe it?
How can we answer the question about whether the humanities are worth it? Because we should not be rude, we will not say that it is a dumb question. But it is dumb. It is like asking "Is this really good?" and playing and play. Not if it was a bad lecture or course. Is a rose worth it?
What do we realistically and truthfully say to someone who asks whether he should smear a cold and ask what he is going to do?
The only reason to take English 270 is to learn about Herman Melville. The only reason to do that is because you will be interested. It will probably not remake your life or guarantee a job.
There are still many undergraduate who are interested in classics, or English, or philosophy, or the fine arts, among other pursuits. There are still many American students, probably just as concerned about their futures as anyone else, who are obsessed with or fascinated by Chaucer, Goya, or Wittgenstein, or curiosity is a good reason to study the humanities.
There may be fringe benefits. A student may learn how to read better, to think more clearly, and become more articulate. Almost all of the war criminals in the dock at Nuremberg were educated men, most with a rich humanistic background. And they were at least articulate. The problem was with what they articulated. The fact is that humanistic study may not tend towards a humane life, may not lead to lives that are richer, more meaningful, etc. But then again, it may.
If knowledge results from the satisfaction of curiosity, the uses to which that knowledge will be put will be determined by the nature of the problem.
In short, to ask whether the humanities are worth it is not a dumb question. It is merely badly phrased. The real question is why is the humanities worth it?
Loren Baritz is provost of the State University of New York in Albany.
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English 101
Septemers
BillBittybrane
I and last summer
want to be a swimmer
beach. We had fun. We are
played football and fight to:
messed around with my friends and we swam at the Pool and stuff like them that.
"What I did last summer."
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Unfortunately, "injoyfs affecting 15 percent of the work force hit unexpectedly near the end of the experiment, forcing blood pressures in all the volunteers."
B+ Very Gud!!
- By sending $5 to Yucca Marketing of Phoenix, Ariz. you can obtain a marriage certificate with your name printed next to Elvis Preedley's.*
- The city council of Helsinki, Finland, has cancelled library subscriptions to all Donald Duck comic books. The Council cited Donald's 50 year engagement to Daisy鸭 as an indication of a "racy lifestyle" that should be shielded from children.
*Ralph C. Wilson, owner of the Buffalo Bills, showed some keen historical insight last year in commenting on running back O.J. Simpson's knee injury; "It reminds me of something that happened in the past. It was two days after the bomb was dropped at the airport and there and the feeling I had them is the way I feel today about O.J.'s injury."
book, "In His Image: The Cloning of a Man," is "described as an account of the creation of a baby by Lippincott's trade book division."
- According to the New York Times of March 11, David Rovik's controversial new
- On Fire Island in New York a young man was recently arrested on the charge of murder.
- A new book entitled "The Book of Lists"
claims that the Scottish Tailor Mercury Co., of Sydney, Australia, carries a $22,400 insurance policy with Lloyd's of London against 'death caused by accident' because of the failing of a Soviet satellite.
- According to the Wall Street Journal, it really is getting hard to find good scientific research these days. A group of Harvard medical researchers found that workers at the company required at least 80 minutes relaxation breaks enjoyed a significant drop in average blood pressure.
- Last but not least, the school board in Greenwood, Texas, barred a five-year-old from kindergarten last year because his hair came down below his ears. "You can't have a school without morals," one board member explained.
Too many positions muddle issues
To the editor:
In a recent Kansan editorial, John Whitesides criticizes the pre-life movement for what he terms a lack of compassion. He deplores its frequent association with its "sister movements: the anti-gay and stop-ERA crusades."
Another example: Some prominent probationists in our country are the Rockefeller, who also hope to be a force behind American imperialism.
As for the alleged lack of compassion exhibited by anti-abortion protesters, it is true that some of their tactics are insensitive and even crude. However, to argue against their position on that basis is parallel to condemnation of their views. The tactics of some protesters were offensive to veterans who had risked their lives in Vietnam.
Ruth Stewart Secretary, Aerospace engineering
Ruth Stewart
The best way to discuss any issue is to consider the reasons pro and con, rather than to take potabots at the personal lives of those who stand on either side.
I, too, cringe when I see people link the pro-life cause to political positions that I think are wrong. I want Anita Bryant's crusade or with the anti-EMA movement. Pro-life advocates should realize they are only muddling the issues by any attempts to tie all these positions together.
For example, the viability argument—a major point in pro-abortion doctrine—was used to people who were mentally and physically handicapped. These unfortunately, the argument went, would be better than it did not enjoy an adequate quality of life.
Whitesides, however, is only assisting in the mudding. He employs what is called an ad hominem argument in his effort to discredit the pro-life movement by pointing out that it is absurd and contradictory to take. What he needs to understand is that the argument can work in reverse.
anti-abortion groups not pro-convenience
not pro-convenience
To the editor:
I doubt that I can influence John Whiteside's opinions on the subject, but in 'His anti-Abortion groups are not pro-life' (Sent 5) he poses an odd question:
"But what can be said of a movement that claims its pro-life beliefs and then turns around and tells people to receive funds for an abortion, thereby running an increased risk of death
UNIVERSITY DAILY letters KANSAN
the longer it takes to raise the money, or forcing the woman to have a child she can care for.
Motherhood or death. Yet as for being able to afford it, poor women, in Lawrence for example, can obtain maternity care either through support from their local welfare office or, failing this, through a direct charity write-off from the hospital. If the child is unwanted, the adoption agencies take over as soon as it arrives.
It is not, except rarely, a case of the mother's life or the child's. It is a matter of several months of perhaps serious personal distress that you may be able to potentially lifetime for the child.
Anti-abortion groups are better described as pro-life, but not pro-convenience.
Richard F. Hardin Professor of English
A Pacemaker award winner
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