4
Friday, November 2,1973
University Daily Kansan
Phil McKnight
KANSAN comment Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
The Prisoner
When Prisoner 867 entered the federal penitentiary, he brought with him his elephant paper weight, his "The Buck Stops There" sign and a nagging habit of firing people.
Prisoner 867 was led to the cell block containing the former politicians, many of whom had served under him before he had fallen from high office. The former politicians were separated from the rapists, thieves and other deserote characters.
Prisoner 867 fired the guard who took him to his cell just as he had fired the attorney general who had probed him and the judge who sentenced him.
Prisoner 867 didn't care much for his new surroundings. In the next cell was a former colleague who kept grumbling about the elite corps of incompetent guards or the simming stoges of subjugation. His name was Prisoner 333 and he could often be found arm-wrestling with the reporter from the Prison Gazette.
The reporter from the Gazette had earlier been jailed by Prisoner 867 for failing to reveal the source for an article that unfavorably labeled two men were known to have had especially nasty conversations.
but prison life was not altogether grim. Many of 867's former aides created a delightful system of grapevine communication, complete with electronic surveillance devices and quaint sound effects. And when the warden had to be held to select the prison proctor, the prisoners in the political cell block danced with ioy.
"I'll fire him, too," added Prisoner 867.
"Atlast the warden has let us put
work," he cried the political prisoner.
Naturally Prisoner 867 was nominated to represent the conservative Bull Frog party in the election for prison proctor Immediate Justice Center. The candidates who supported prison reform were hooted by the Bull Froggers, who called such pussy-footing a threat to security.
Prisoners convicted of sodomy were hired to carry signs supporting other candidates. Money was printed on the prison presses to pay for votes. The electronic devices were especially useful for sabotaging the plans of other campaigners.
An "867 Fan Club" was formed to do most of the campaign work. The members took this solemn oath:
"We pledge to support Prisoner 867 above all else. May logic never swerve us from our loyal path or evidence cloud our view. For every dirty trick there is an excuse, for every irrational action a recompense and for every crime a justification. Prisoner 867 is the One. May there be no other Proctor but him."
In this manner Prisoner 867
assumes the control of
majority of votes and enforces
first prison proctor. The 867 Fan Club rejoiced and waved their signs displaying a campaign slogan that fool some of the all, of the all."
The only sour reaction came from the Gazette reporter, who complained that it was about as exciting an election as a primary between Gerald Ford and Henry Jackson.
Prisoner 867 began firing prisoners with a great flurry and since he was once again in high office, his firings were taken seriously. The prisoners began to complain that 867's cell was becoming even more plush. The Orphanage traveled some of the Bull Frog campaign secrets and accused the Bull Froggers of a cover-up.
Prisoner 867 decided to address the prison.
"My fellow prisoners," he began.
Now, I know that some of you are
wondering about these vicious little
campaign. Well,
let me say this:
"My administration was elected to do a job. 'Keep this prison strong,' you said, and I'm heeding that mandate. But there are some who reject our platform and sneer at this great institution. They are responsible for these vicious reports.
"I am appointing a Mr. Clean to investigate this matter vigorously. He can be as independent as he wants as long as he doesn't arrest me. We couldn't have that, of course.
"He will have access to all my records unless I fire him first. The proctor must be free to handle me and any other prison affairs. A proctor cannot operate unless his secrecy is maintained and I will not compromise that secrecy. In short, he must have a proctor don't have to do nothing."
"But that's unconstitutional, unethical and ungrammatical!" cried the reporter from the Gazette. But his voice was lost in the fierce cheering of the 867 Fan Club.
One night a great storm swept through the region. The meager trees on the prison island were torn from the ground or bent into distorted shapes by the fierce winds. A tidal wave approached the island with a force and urgency for which the prison was unprepared.
Some of the more spiritually minded prisoners called it "the great wave of justice." Frantically the convicts were removed from the cells, but the flooding cut off the cell block of the former politicians.
Bill Gibson
When the water level reached his lower lip, Prisoner 68 began firing people right and left and spewed out frantic excuses for all that he had done. And while the island's trees were shattered into splinterers the guards of the bay took to the fog of the bay, a final gurgling treatise was heard on national security, executive privilege and the divine rights of kings.
Pumpkin Patch Blues
The pumpkin patch was a pretty cold place to be Wednesday night. A blustery wind rattled tree branches and the season's last walnuts thudded crazily on the ground. A soot-soot soil on the train whistle rose above the trees. Otherwise, there wasn't much activity.
I looked among the pumpskins for a funny looking kid with a blanket, but couldn't even find a worm. So I had to gear-aging and must have dozed off.
The orange orb said he was an advance man for the Great Pumpkin. He was scouting the situation he said, and it didn't look as if the Great Pumpkin would make an appearance that night.
I thought I saw a flying sauer but it turned into a pumpkin. It wasn't the Great one, but it was larger than any I had ever seen.
It hadn't been a very good year for fun, frolic and fantasy, what with the droughts, famine, floods, coups and scandals he said. And the war had really depressed the Great Pumpkin.
But the Great Pumpkin had
noticed two who did merit attention, he said. One was a round-headed little boy with a blanket and tie. He looked in I ace with a funny-looking nose.
He said the Great Pumpkin figured most everybody was heading to Houston for what they thought would be the big Revelation. No one seemed to have time for him this year.
The advance pumpkin said it looked like a lost cause, though, because it was too large. It was too just and pumpkin patches were just too commercialized.
He said the Great Pumpkin thought those two needed a break this year and he had sent the advance pumpkin out to locate them.
He mentioned that the Great Pumpkin was gratified by the candle-lit likenesses he had noticed on porches across the country. The people he liked united to unite the people for an evening but he wasn't holding his breath.
The Great Pumpkin remembered with great sorrow years when innocent children had become victims of vicious pranks. He was more than afraid it would happen again.
The human condition looked pretty hopeless, the advance pumpkin said, and it was doubtful to care to raise from the patch again.
I jerked, shivered and wondered whether we didn't need Great Pumpkins even more when all else seemed so bleak.
—Linda Hales
What Kind of Evaluation Called for Here?
Consider, if you will, the following three situations:
1. A University of Kansas class has been talking about the need for cooperation at the international, national, local and individual levels. The point has been made that since Earth is now home to all of the Earth, it is to everyone's advantage to cooperate with his fellow men. After the discussion, the instructor reminds students that their answers to study questions over the topic are due next week, and then says they should ask anyone else in constructing their answers.
Question: Since the exercise is not a test, why should the students be cautioned against cooperative efforts on the topic of cooperation?
2) . During a final examination in a graduate course, one of the students finds that there is no more ink in his pen. He turns to a dry erase board and might borrow a pen or pencil to complete his essay. The other student looks at him almost incredulously and says, "Of course not—why would I want to help you get a good score. We're being guided on the curve."
3. 1 A student in his senior year at the University discovers that he will not be admitted to membership in Phi Beta Kappa. He does not take the news lightly. The professor, a grandfather were all selected for membership. Upon investigation of his grade point average and of the criteria for selection to the organization, he finds that he has received a cut-off point for admission. The cut-off point was 3.65. As he reviews his transcript and thinks about the "if only's", he Notes the course in astronomy which he took graduate school from after his freshman year and recalls that when it was transferred to the
University it was recorded as a "C."
OBviously, THE TOPIC DISCUSSED here is that of grading or conclusion-oriented evaluation. It is a topic that has been discussed recently in the University Daily Kansan by Nancy Harper, a staff writer, and one that is on students mind today. The topics evaluated students are many and complex. As a member of the College Committee on Grading, I second the comments of professors Holmes and Skidmore on the problems faced by the committee. One basic problem was in assuming that a committee could successfully cope with the task in the time available to them, but as a useful example, if only to impress upon us the magnitude of the problem.
First, we have not done a very good job of approaching the problem. We talk about assigning letter grades or credit-no credit but seldom consider the purposes of those grades. This situation usually leads to a debate where the topic becomes one of letter grades vs. no credit. A better approach would be to ask students, "What kind of evaluation is called for here?" In other words, we must begin to ask, "Grades for what?"
At this point I have no solutions either. But I do have two hunches concerning the nature of the problem which I would like to share with you.
Taking this line of reasoning leads to two initial facts about the needs which evaluations meet: 1) Evaluation provides information for other people removed in time, space or both from a student's performance. Evaluation reflects and records relative success and failure. Evaluation provides information to the student about his performance, supposedly so that he can improve upon such performance. In this sense,
evaluation is part of the teaching process. I SHOULD NOTE HERE that I feel both functions are important; i.e. I am not against end-of course grades. However, we need to distinguish between evaluation and assessment. The dominant use of grades now is for evaluation purposes. Grades are not used very intensively for teaching purposes. Did it ever strike you as a mid-term or a final examination? In such cases—particularly where the mid-term is not returned promptly—there is almost no opportunity for students to learn from the papers, appointments, etc., to compensate for the loss of the test's pedagogical value, little, if any, of what they are doing.
assistance to provide students with assessment information. Teaching assistants are not a luxury; they are absolutely necessary. A short discussion with teachers with large lecture courses and laboratory sections will provide conclusive evidence of the need for hope that the formula for providing universities with faculty positions will be changed so that, for example, where one teaching position is assigned for each 15 students, the formula would be changed to assign one position for each 10 students, which would be justified easily, I feel, if we were meeting our pedagogical responsibilities.
The final exam itself is a subject for later discussion. For now, consider the impact upon students of a three-hour final exam in course with you. What questions should contain six essay questions, each of which could be adequately answered only if given a day. The instructor hasn't taken the test himself to see how you performed, but what? What if you were a student who perceived that a "B" would change your chances for admission to medical school? How would you react to such an examination, and was it shown two other finds before this one?
Other implications of providing adequately diagnostic assessment to students will be discussed at length later. The key word in that discussion will be the need for teacher availability and increased feedback on student work, and time provided for the University by the state in the form of more teaching positions so that diversity can assure that, e.g., every eight students have adequate advising and tutelage.
Assuming that more assessment is to be given to students, there are certain implications of the use of such diagnostic grading. For one, the final examination should be given the first day of class; i.e., when it is appropriate that the形容 which students are to learn should in some cases be used for questions, etc.) be made known to them.
ANOTHER IMPLICATION IS that teachers should be given more time and
(Phil McKnight, assistant professor of education and director of the Office of Instructional Resources, prepares a regular course with issues in teaching for the Kanasi.)
Although the Kansan is experiencing a shortage of newsprint, it isn't experiencing a shortage of news. Therefore, today's editorial space has been abbreviated to allow publication of news stories.
Editor's Note
Cancer Victim's Fight Inspired Many
From Page One
Instead, Barby rented an apartment in Lawrence.
"Barby was a very sensitive person," Miller said. "And she wasn't especially outgoing. Her friends were all very close. She never went to all the gatherings go. Barby had an awareness that will live."
JANNE ELLERMEIER, chapter
jummee anne said there had been few
chapters.
"She made a commitment to that wan far beyond the ordinary," she said. "She inspired everyone around her with her determination and passion for Kappa Kappa Gamma housemother, that Barby was strongly dedicated to her ideals.
"Nothing was too much of an effort for her. She was a perfectionist, and everyone admired her for it," she said. "She was one of my very best friends."
As Barby's illness worsened, she took progressively lighter class loads and emphasized the vocal music courses that she especially enjoyed. Smith said.
Barby enrolled at KU this semester but did not attend any classes.
From 1968 to 1973, as her illness became increasingly severe, Barby received extensive treatment at the Westley Medical Center and went to a local memorial Hospital in New York City.
NICHOLSON VISITED with her several times during her illness.
"Over all the years, she always seemed to be on top of things," he said. "She never complained. She was very mature, a deep thinker. We had long talks, but never about
She told friends she always hoped to return to a full class schedule.
"She was always determined that surely next week she would be back in school," I said.
"One night I told her that perhaps I should be praying that she not suffer," her mother said. "I must have not meant that instead I should pray for endurance. She believed the Biblical verse that says "She shall not suffer."
DURING THE LAST summer, she attended a wedding shower for a high school friend but was too ill to attend the wedding. She grew closer to her parents, her mother said, and she became fascinated with the Senate's Watergate hearings.
"I'm her harshest critic," her father said, "but I think that was Barby's best performance. She was in great suffering, but you couldn't tell it."
"She planned to go to classes when she
went." Smith said. "She felt she would get
stronger."
Oliver said she wanted to participate in rush activities at her sorority but was too ill. She said Barby was active in recruiting new students' sorority and was looking forward to initiating it.
Miller said a strong faith in God sustained Barry.
SORORITY MEMBERS stayed with Barby as much as 20 hours a day this fall as well.
"A lot of us to be very close to her,
we were helping her, but she was
helped by us."
Her last vocal solo was in a chamber choir performance of Handel's "Messiah" in 1736.
"When people would ask her how she kept going, she would say it was her faith in herself."
"I remember one night Prof. Ralston was talking with her and she said, 'Save that place for me. I'll be back soon.' She never gave up." Miller said.
In early October Barby returned to
Wichita to be with her family.
Barby had a strong faith in an afterlife and wasn't afraid of death, Oliver said.
"Her faith and determination were remarkable," Mrs. Bauer said. "As little as
a week before she died, she was sure she'd get better."
She died at home the morning of Oct. 25, at age 24.
"It was her attitude that let her live until I stained. "Halton said, "I think she almost had to cough tough to breathe."
SMITH SAID THAT BABY had geared to the short lifetime she knew she would have.
"She gave herself, in her lifetime, all that she wanted from life," he said.
The initiation for which she had recruited hedges was Frid day right, the day after she did.
Funeral services in Wichita on Oct. 27 were attended by several KU faculty and staff.
"It was a time of rejoicing," Oliver said. We all sat and said, "We also happy with the fact that we had the Loyals."
The Rev. C. Edward Brubaker, pastor of the First United Presbyterian Church in New York.
"We are here to celebrate life, not death," he said.
A church group sang "The Messiah!" Ralston dedicated the chamber choir's concert series.
Her sorority chapter had a memorial service Wednesday night. Members read Barby's favorite scriptural passages and poems.
BARBY TOLD HER friend she had a favorite poem, "The Salutation of the Dawn," based on a Sanskrit poem of 1200 AD and published in the memoiral and the memorial paper Wednesday.
Barby's parents said that poem contained the summation of her philosophy and of her life.
And Tomorrow is only a Vision
But Today well-lived makes
"Yesterday is but a Dream,
Every Yesterday a Dream of Happiness,
every Tomorrow a Vision of Hope.
Look at the world.
Ellison Is Humorous, Abrasive
Bv PEGGY C. SCOTT
Kansan Staff Reporter
"Have I given you your money's worth?" be asked the audience after a standing up
Ellison began by jumping on the stage to the accompaniment of early 1950s rock music, following his introduction by James McKinney, the writer and KU lecturer in English.
The audience was amused by Ellison's remarks about his image. After asking how many in the audience expected him to be a doctor, he said, Ellison, who is 39, "I am a clone. I am."
“The whole concept of bringing in a writer to talk is bullish, because anything a writer can do will make stories. Beyond that, all you’re doing is listening to just another person,” he said.
The pace slowed as Ellison launched into an hour-long explanation of the television industry.
EXPLAINING WHY he lectured, Elson said, "I'm no fool, and there are enormous
While on stage, Ellison was sometimes abrasive, often humorous and usually entertaining. In an interview Wednesday, he discussed more serious subjects.
A SERIES OF questions, charging Ellison with being chauvinistic by using stereotyped characters in his stories, upset Ellison half-way through the lecture. He left the stage but returned carrying a large American flag.
Ellison said he had written four books on juvenile delinquency and, more "mainly" about them.
money to be made and enormous ego satisfaction to be attained in going out on college lecture tours . . . I dig meeting you there and saying "I want to getaught, let's talk, and what's my why. Do you."
He has published 25 books and more than 800 stories and articles.
Ellison explained his tenacity by describing his background. "I was always beat on when I was a kid, you dig? I was a little kid, very short, very small. I was the
only Jewish kid my age in Painesville, Ohio. I used to use a lot of anti-Semitism; they burned a cross on my lawn when I was a little kid.
"EVERYBODY WAS always telling me that I was going to wind up in a gutter, that I would never amount to anything, and I just said no way."
He delivered an optimistic message: "I have found that one need not be intimidated
You can fight city乱, and you can win.
You can beat them. You literally can
win.
A Tile IV program designed to alleviate classroom problems associated with desegregation was discussed last night at a meeting of the Permanent Advisory Council on Curriculum of Lawrence School District No. 497.
About a dozen parents heard Wallace Dial, Title IV director, and Kathy Escamilar, advisory specialist, discuss the elementary school program begun this year.
Dial said the federally-funded program was a continuation of the desegregation process in Lawrence schools. But, he said, this year's project will deal with psychological problems encountered by young children in mixed classrooms.
Program objectives, said Dial, are to instil pride in racial minority children, give
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