Editorials
Centennial Benefit
Plans for the KU Centennial are being completed, with current interest centering on the major 1965 Homecoming theme, "The Homecoming of the Century." At that time also will come the announcement of the 200 alumni and friends who will be members of the Council for Progress, a fund-raising group.
Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe began the Centennial planning Jan. 7 by appointing a KU faculty committee to define KU's second century objectives.
IN MARCH A leaflet was issued listing 104 faculty members who have volunteered their services as lecturers and performers to go before Kansas audiences. This Speakers-Performing Artists service is also arranging two KU Concert and Lecture Series circuits to take the story of the KU Centennial program to 10 selected Kansas communities.
Later came the announcements of outstanding concert events, a seminar on "Man and the Future," a Centennial Kansas Relays, the Engineering Exposition, the premiere of a new American opera, and special Commencement ceremonies.
A Centennial medallion will be struck, pamphlets and books on this theme published, and appropriate fetes given in club meetings.
These items will bring much publicity to KU, not only in Kansas, but throughout the nation. Probable results will be additional enrollment, the strengthening of alumni-friend support, and increased awareness of KU's majesty on the part of Kansans.
TAXPAYERS WILL BE interested to hear of the growth, of plans for new buildings and programs, of the intellectual and moral education students are receiving here, and of the economics effected at all levels.
Prospective students and their parents will view the Centennial as an ideal time to visit the campus to gain a better understanding of KU's reputation for quality education and individual concern.
The past prestige and future growth, as well as the emotional aspects of KU traditions, will appeal to alumni groups.
But what does the Centennial mean to the present KU student? Because he is involved with lessons, jobs, social and extra-curricular activities, he hasn't time to think sentimentally
of the 100 years his school has been in existence. Its history, its beauty, its traditions, its progress go practically unnoticed by him. If the Centennial committees do too much, he probably will get bored with reading and hearing of this.
YET, IN FUTURE years, the commemoration ceremonies will gradually take on more meaning for him as he comes to realize that he was both an active and inactive participant in it. He will tell people proudly that his ideas, his ambitions, his personality, his way of living, his likes and dislikes no doubt influenced official second-century thinking. His attendance at the "Carry Nation" premiere, the world's leaders' seminar, the Chancellor's speeches and other events will leave an indelible educating impression that only a University Centennial could do. And he will be profoundly thankful that he was at KU in 1965-'66 to be a part of a historic observance to honor the past and chart the future of a great educational institution—the University of Kansas.
Dorothy Elliott
Autumn Promise
These are the halcyon days of a brief, welcome peace between summer's intense fertility and winter's bleak dormancy. Earth and spirit slip into serenity, soothed by luxuriating in the tender warmth of autumn's light caress.
This is a time for enjoyment, and who can resist the invitation to watch a tree's metamorphosis, leaf by leaf, from shimmering green to glimmering gold to brazen crimson?
Who can turn away from a cerulean sky streaked with intimitions of a cloud?
THIS IS A time for quiet wonderment at a timeless miracle. At no time is the earth more beautiful than when the fruits of the fecund seasons are dying.
This is a time for lapsing into the subtle pleasures of humming with the last valiant cricket, letting the spirit soar before a panorama of incredible and exquisite beauty, and submitting to the opiate of an autumn sunset's purple splendor.
This is a time for renewal, for while the earth sleeps, we upon it must scurry. This is the time to listen to "the still small voice in autumn's hush," to permit the soul to feast on splendor, to remember that in death lies the promise of a better life.
— Karen Lambert
University Forum Wanted: Direction
The continual air of tension at KU concerning the civil rights struggle may be an old, accepted part of an upperclassman's college life, but it is a new and almost shocking thing for many of us freshmen.
Due to various, previously sheltered backgrounds, most of us are not used to this issue being presented in the open, acknowledged manner as it is here at KU. Many of us freshmen did not previously have the chance to test our own capacity for prejudice, nor defend what we found.
YET HERE AT KU, we have the chance to discover, defend, or defame whatever prejudice we may find within ourselves.
How do we meet what should be a challenge? Should we try and actively join this struggle in some way or another, or live and let live, or what?
Countless campaigns, organizations, editorials, ideas, philosophies, clubs and groups constantly beckon to us in their support. Each offers soul-searching, group security, the chance to make the world a better place to live, and a small button with clever initials.
But what do these groups offer to those of us who are not crusaders? What of the vast majority of us who are only confused by the nagging sensation that we are supposed to feel uncomfortable because we are sitting next to a Negro?
These organizations, groups, and movements are fine in concept and actual service but I am offended by their attitude that anyone who is not a crusading member must be either indifferent or afraid.
WE FRESHMEN ARE not indifferent nor are we hesitant to voice our opinions and ideas. But in what direction do we channel this concern? Or should we at all?
Organizations, editorials, demonstrations, official policies, and well-meaning individuals are all helpful to this effort. However, when each freshman discovers his true feelings and motivation, these groups and ideas fail practically and realistically to offer assistance to those of us who ask ourselves the basic question in the civil rights struggle—
What can I do?
- John Hill
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Boys Become Men at P.I.
Editor's Note: The following article is the first of a series of reports on life at Parris Island, S.C., in U.S. Marine Corps basic
training. The letter prefacing the series, written last spring, records the emotions of Pvt. Corcoran as he traveled to the
"ACHING MUSCLES marked the first six weeks of intense physical training at Parris Island. Blistered feet and sunburned arms and necks compounded our collective miseries. But the muscles firmed up, the blisters sloughed off and were replaced by callouses and the burns became hardy looking tans."
island, Pvt. Corcoran, a former KU student, finished the series after his 12-week stint as a recruit, since basic training left no time for literary ventures.
By Pvt. Charlie Corcoran
Mav 9.1965
It has begun! Finally, after all the tests—basic mental and extensive physical—a lumbering DC-7B is carrying me to Parris Island, S.C., to what I can only see now as the severest test of my physical and mental fitness.
The cares and worries of Lawrence and KU are behind me. No outstanding details—bills, appointments, etc.—clutter my mind. It's all before me now.
AND, BROTHER. I can see some pretty hair-raising experiences ahead, to say the least. The ole imagination has been working overtime.
Yet, I'm optimistic and plan to make the best of it knowing that my physical condition will never have been better once Boot Camp is licked.
Lacking a great deal in personal self-control, I look forward to bringing back with me what it is John Glenn had been so thankful for—complete control of body and top hand over mind.
If this does not violate a Corps regulation, I plan on writing weekly or bi-weekly to inform KU's many draft age fellows of just what it is like. I'll pull no punches and embellish none of the accounts. These dispatches will be factual and forthright.
So here's to success—and a butterfly-less stomach. Here's to "esprit" and self-discipline. Here's to the unfolding adventure in the Corps.
**
THEN IT WAS hard to imagine and once there, to believe
and, once there, to believe. Today, it still reigns in my memory as someplace I must have conjured up in a wild flight of imagination.
"It' of course, is the Marine Corps Recruit Depot at Parris Island, South Carolina, better known to those who have experienced its rigors as "P.I."
2. Daily Kansan
Like many Marines before me "I'm glad I went through it, but I wouldn't want to do it
Wednesday, October 13, 1965
again." I've finally come to believe that I actually made it through "Paradise Island's" training, but it wouldn't have been possible without certain "encouragements" from the Corps' almost legendary DI's (drill instructors) and the reawakening of my own "motivation."
IT'S A LONG story,but one many KU men might profit from.
(Let me make it quite explicit at the outset, also, to pacify the "fringe element" here that might take offense for this series"blatant militarism," that I do not condone war, nor does any Marine, nor do I stay awake nights hoping that tomorrow might bring the chance to prove the effectiveness of my training. The Marine Corps today stands ready for this nation's defense, as it was at its birth on November tenth in 1776.I believe firmly in its necessity, as did the Continental Congress.I know the benefits of its training,as must many Americans who are grateful for the Marines at Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Korea, Santo Domingo and Viet Nam.)
Tomorrow—The recruit is "welcomed" to P.I.