University Daily Kansan
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Free University Offers 'Opportunity to Share Ideas
By DONNA HOWELL Kansan Staff Reporter
Kansan Staff Reporter
Jugling, pleasant hunting and gun control may be some of the Free University's priorities.
These and other classes will be designed to allow people to take courses of special interest, according to Mike Miller, Student Union Activities (SUA) adviser.
*Free University loses out the roles of student and teacher and provides more of a student model.*
Free University was once funded by the Student Senate, but since January it has been a part of the SUA. Miller said SUA adopted the Free University on a temporary
basis. After the SLA determined that Free University was fully accredited, it was added into SDU he be said.
Miller said Free University was established in the late '80s by the counter culture. It was a result of hostility of certain people at the University toward academic restraints and was planned as an alternative approach to education.
Judy Browder, Tucson sophomore and assistant SUA board member for Free University, and free University once of Arizona, counter groups and meditation classes.
He said it offered more practical classes and often filled a void in a person's education. It teaches things that people can learn, but may not have learned in course, he said.
However, Miller said, Free University has of more a supplemental approach now.
For example, if a person wants to fix his lawn or garden, University can offer a course in plumbing.
"A lot of us lack the opportunity to pick up supplemental topics," Miller said. "Free University facilitates the process of exchanging information."
The SUA organizes Free University, he said, but it does not interfere with the format of any classes. That is left entirely to the instructor and the other participants.
"If anybody feels as if they know something that they want to teach, all they need to do is go to the SUA office in the Student Union and fill out the form that asks what you want to teach and when you want to teach it." Browder said.
Miller said the only expenses that an instructor or student might have were for materials used, as in an art class. The majority of the funds provided by the SUA are spent to produce the catalogue of exhibitions and other materials. Funds are left over may be used for classes
Free University students don't have to
be about grades, fees or entrance
requirements.
Kansas Staff Photo by DEBRIE GUMP
alternate sources of energy; beginning sailing; a consumer workshop; elementary use plant care; photography; ice skating; watercolor painting; the science of the soil; sewing for survival
Miller said Free University had varying degrees of success in the past and had not achieved the same level of achievement.
Student interest has not been what it should be because people are not aware of it. Students must be educated because the Student Senate and now the SUA have not defined it very well, he said.
The only qualification to teach a course is the desire to share knowledge. she said.
silversmithing; exploring religious images; and primaries in Kansas.
"People are given an open ticket to design a class," he said. "A class doesn't need an instructor, either. The participants may be who want to exchange ideas about a tonic."
Peabody Award Winner Calder Pickett
Browder said. "People are less interested because they are doing things on their
Some topics that have been suggested for fall classes are beginning guitar; astrology; and
Browder said she would like to have education in magic, massage and puppetry offered.
"Free University has gone downhill."
Prof Worked with Aku-Aku' Group
By DAN HAWTHORNE
Kansan Staff Reporter
On an expedition to Polynesia with world-famous anthropologist Thur Heyerdahl in 1965, Carlyle S. Smith, professor of anthropology, began to solve the problems of culture and history of Easter Island.
Heyerdal, author of "Kon-Tik" and "Aka-Aku," a book describing the 1955 Easter Island expedition, will visit the Kansas for a few days in November. Smith, Heyerdal will lecture for Smith's Polynesian archeology and anthropology course.
Heyerdahl is presently writing, doing research and ocean voyaging in a campaign to raise awareness of the issue.
Smith helped find evidence to indicate that man's arrival on Easter Island occurred after the year 800 and that the statues were carved during the second of three men periods of culture on the island, between 1100 and 1680.
Through interpretation of their findings on Easter Island, the Heyerdahl expedition learned about the great monolithic stone heads, which have been a mystery to archeologists and historians since their discovery in 1722.
The Easter Island statues have been the subject of much controversy since the publication of Erich von Danken's "Charlots of the Gods"." In the book, Danken said that the statues could not have been constructed without extra-terrestrial
assistance because of their size and the materials used for construction.
"I have nothing but disguist for that character," Smith said recently. "He is an incompetent confidence man who was a high school dropout and an ex-convict."
Smith added that von Daniken's theories were totally without basis.
"We have motion pictures taken recently of some of the native islands using stone picks and raising these statues in an act of the way it was done then," Smith said.
Polynesian and historical archeology. He is a leading authority on the North American Plains Indian, early firearms and Polynisia.
This fall, Smith will also teach a course on North American Indians, which he said always draws between 80 and 90 students.
"There is such a demand for the course
that we be teaching it every semester
for years."
Smith said that he had no definite plans for future expeditions but that he would like to go back to Polynesia to an island near Tahiti called Tubaiu. Tubaiu is the island where the Bounty mutineers landed in the early nineteenth century.
Welcome Back!!
Pickett Wary of Educational Trends
Come see us for yarn and needlework supplies.
Knitting-Crocheting Needlepoint-Crewel and Rugs.
By MARIAN HORVAT
Kansan Staff Reporter
Calder M. Pickett, professor of journalism, is a man of opinions. He considers himself an educational conservative and recently said he thought the trend in modern education was toward making the american university an academic garbage can.
"The way things are going on our campuses we'll be graduating students in a few years who have enrolled in so many trash courses and involved in so much relevance that their education will be little more than a knowledge of rock music, comic books and a few skin flicks." Pickett said in an article about The University . As Garbage Can. "
Pickett he thought that journalism education proved valuable to students because it not only equipped students to do research and report on humanistic and social science insights.
"I feel very sorry for the student who gets out of a university, like the boy in the movie 'The Graduate,' who appears to be equipped with a car and an affair with Mrs. Robinson," he said.
Pickett is also interested in history. The University of Kansas radio station, KANU-FM, received a George Foster Peabody Award for his work on "The Pulitzer Prize of broadcasting, for a segment of his program, 'The American Past.'" The program has been broadcast at 8 p.m. each Wednesday since September 1974. Pickett received the award in May 1974.
Pickett said the approach to history that he used in his program was one most people overlooked. He tries to show through this experience it was it like to live in the eras he talks about.
"I thought everybody was," he said. "It
Pickett said he had been interested in history from the time he was a boy.
Taylor said that the church had been good to him but that it was his choice to leave the church and go in to education. Before he came to Lawrence he was a professor of religion and philosophy at Doane College in Lincoln, Neb.
Taylor's Job to Teach Not to Convert Souls
Jim Taylor, dean of the School of Religion, says that he is an academic teacher, not an acting minister, though he is ordained.
The reason is that Taylor doesn't want students to think that the purpose of the School of Religion is saving souls and suffering people. The school provides instruction about religion.
Taylor came to Lawrence as a professor of religion in 1980. In 1970 he was named the chairman of the department.
Taylor is a man who is excited about his work. He said there was a whole new profession opening up in Kansas. Taylor said it was a result of a sudden interest in teaching about religion in the public schools.
Taylor received his Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska in 1951. He served as a Presbyterian minister for 12 years in Illinois and Nebraska, but left the church in 1951. He switched to education because he learned the 'action' in religion was in education.
Taylor has three grown children and four grandchildren. He said two of his children lived in Lawrence and he and his wife were frequently with them.
He went to school at the College of Emoria. Taylor said he didn't go home very often because the trip from Emoria to Osborne took ten hours by train.
Taylor said he preferred teaching in colleges because students had a high level of academic ability.
Taylor is originally from Osborne, which is a small town north central Kansas. His family was born in
In 1942 he received his B.A. in English, and he was graduated from Mccormick University.
Taylor served as a chaplain in the U.S.
Navy in the Pacific theatre in 1945.
Taylor is a firm believer in hobbies because, he said, "hobbles free your mind of your problems." He particularly enjoys woodworking, and he has built his own boat from scrap wood. He also owns a vintage cottage in Colorado. He took it 15 years to finish, but he did it all by himself.
amazes me when someone isn't. That's what it's all about."
Layor is a member of the Lawrence community council, the Rotary Club and the Lafayette Valley Chamber of Commerce.
Taylor is also a trustee of the recently closed College of Emporia.
Taylor said that the School of Religion was busy and that there were plans for expansion in the courses offered. Taylor said he usually taught courses during the school year and was not just an administrator.
Taylor has done extensive traveling. He said he and his wife took a one-year sabbatical throughout Europe in 1965. He has also traveled through East Asia.
This interest led to his historical biography "Ed of the late Attichon editor Edgar Howe, Ed Howe: A Country Philosopher."
"No one had done a book on him, and he seemed to me a kind of interest person," I said.
Taylor was the producer of a religion course series shown on KTWU-TV, channel 11. He said he was a speaker for various institutions on religion throughout the country.
He is also interested in researching the Kansas newspaper woman Dori Flesse or writing a novel on "what it was like to grow up a little Idaho town in the '30s."
However, Pickett doesn't plan to have time for much extra writing this fall.
He is carrying a heavy load of classes
and particularly large numbers of studen
He will be teaching the History of American Journalism, Editorial and Interpretive Writing, Propaganda and Center for a graduate-level introductory seminar.
Pickett's classes are often flavored by stories and reminiscences of the '30s, the age when he was coming into the "consciousness of things and the world."
"It was a very vital time," he said.
"Great things were happening. There was a different spirit. The people were less divided than before, as the Depression and World War II."
Pickett has been involved in newspaper work since he was 16, when he worked as a printer and reporter on the Franklin County Citizen, a weekly in Preston, Idaho. Since then, he has added a long list of accomplishments to his journalistic career.
He was a reporter on the Salt Lake City Tribune in 1946 and was a copy editor on the Salt Lake City Desert News. He was an instructor at Utah State University and the University of Denver before joining the KU staff in 1951.
He has a masters degree from Norfolk University and American studies from the University of Maryland.
In 1951, Pickett was named assistant to the dean of the William Allen White School of Journalism and in 1961 was appointed acting dean.
We have supplies for all of the above. We also have pattern books, jayhawks, and lessons.
Pickett received an honorary associate
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membership in Alpha Epsilon Rho, national radio and television honorary society, in 1963. In 1967, he won the Standard Oil Foundation award now called the Amoco for outstanding teaching and was selected as a professor. Staffer Professor of Journalism last year.
In 1970, he won a research award from Kappa Tau Alpha, honorary journalism society, for his book on Howe. Students have also registered a vote of respect for Pickett; he has been a finalist several times in the annual HOPE Award competition.
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