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University Daily Kansan
Friday, Oct. 2, 1964
A New World
(Reprinted from "Kansas Alumni" magazine of September 1963)
By now your parents will have given you considerable advice about dealing with what we used to call "the opposite sex." Your high school teachers will have worked hard to get you enrolled in the proper alma mater. Certain folks in town may have warned you about the socialists who will be teaching you economics and political science, and others will have informed you that there are people at KU who believe men descended from monkeys. Last spring's commencement orator has told you about the great challenges you will face in the future. All in all, there isn't much important advice left to be given.
So I am forced into a situation like the one left to the New Yorker magazine early in 1952. So many people had issued warnings to Eisenhower and Stevenson that the New Yorker had only two warnings left. It warned Eisenhower against Taft and it warned Stevenson about drinking water on trains.
My first dire warning to you is about lines.
FROM NOW ON, unless you enroll late, or arrive at the library at 8 o'clock in the morning, or decide not to buy textbooks, or bring a sack lunch, you're in for a few lines.
I have a nice, quiet office on the second floor of Flint Hall, and even from here I see lines—students at the information booth to buy copies of the Jayhawker or the Student Directory, students lining up to buy books when Watson Library sells its overflow copies. I wouldn't have to walk far to see students lining up in Strong Hall for enrollment, in the Kansas Union to eat, on the second floor of Watson to get books, in the bookstore to buy books, in the Student Health Center to get shots or have prescriptions filled. If you went to a high school that had five students in the graduating class, you are in for rude shocks at KU.
WHAT THESE LONG LINES MEAN is that you're going to be a part of the crowd, until you can establish your own identity and become what the Jayhawker calls a "Hilltopper." This is one of the harsh blows for students who were high school big shots or leaders in their "peer groups."
Now this doesn't mean that you'll be trampled on, or that people at KU are not concerned about you. It's just that when there are more than 10,000 students the powers-that-be, and even some of us inconsequential teachers, have many people to worry about, including, at times, ourselves.
ANOTHER THING students at the University of Kansas have to get used to—and many of them fight it for four years—is climbing hills. Now you can find universities that aren't on hills, Northwestern for example, North Carolina and Oregon. (Or maybe even universities or colleges right here in the state of Kansas.) But if you want a degree from KU, you'll have to climb hills.
Even if you live on top of what we call Mt. Oread, at the Chi Omega house, say, you might have to take classes at Summerfield (the School of Business) or Malott (chemistry, physics and pharmacy). The hills are steep, and sometimes they're icy, but I remember a few years ago when you almost had to be a mountain climber to get from Malott to Flint, so I won't listen to many complaints about the hills. Besides I walk them every day, and I'm older than you.
IF DADDY GAVE YOU A CAR as a graduation present (when I was in high school we got $35 suits or $7 Ingersoll watches), it will look nice parked behind the Phi Delt house or one of the dormitories, but you won't be driving it much on campus. Almost no one drives cars much on campus, especially from early morning till 3:30 in the afternoon. We have "control booths" now. Last fall they went into operation, and some students called them "Checkpoint Charlie." But the booths will be here, probably, longer than any of us. If your parents come to town and want to see the campus, they can get visitor's permits. But you walk. That's the way it is. By the way, this is the situation at a lot of universities, and at some schools you aren't even permitted to have a car.
EACH SPRING I go through my annual argument with at least one student who is bitter because he has to attend Commencement. If you don't want to attend Commencement, I suggest you check through university catalogs and find a place where attendance is not compulsory. If you want to be able to buy beer in the Kansas Union, I suggest you find a university where this can be done. (Straight off I'm having trouble thinking of such a place, but there must be one.) If you don't want to attend classes (we have many students who defend the "European system," as they term it, without
We expect our students to attend classes, to pay fines, to follow rules. We're kind of old fashioned about some of these things.
ever having been to Europe), go somewhere that does not require class attendance.
LIKE MANNERS, I keep remembering a cartoon that showed an indignant mama saying to a teacher, "I don't know why Johnny can't get along with you. He gets along with the rest of the servants." We're not your servants. In fact, some of us even think that in the classroom we're in charge. (I tried classroom democracy once, like letting students vote about taking final examinations. I lost. So did democracy in the classroom.)
Some of us here even believe that we know more than some of our students—note that I say "some." Each year I make a new group of students unhappy by telling them that even in matters of opinion, my opinion might be better than theirs. Or more informed, perhaps. Sorry. I yield to my students in several fields (such as fraternity affairs, the All Student Council, their own families, their home towns, even KU football prospects), but when it comes to some matters (journalism, history, contemporary affairs) I think I just might know more.
NOW I HOPE you're not getting the impression that I don't like my students, and that I don't learn from them. I learn a lot. This last year, for example, I learned that my ties, even the newer ones, were not cool. I learned that my musical tastes were on the square side. I learned that I was a reactionary about politics, when for years I've thought of myself as a somewhat advanced liberal. I learned that one should not drive a car that has automatic transmission, or enjoy American movies, or watch television.
I ALSO LEARNED that every so often I should sit back and analyze my classes and my teaching methods and wonder about them. I don't mean by this that any group of students can get me to change everything, but the truth of the matter is frequently I have made extensive revisions because of comments made by students.
When you come to KU you'll see a campus that is a combination of the very old—like some of the buildings, some of the exhibits in the Museum of Natural History and some of the professors—and the very new. And not just the new, but also the changing. You'll hear the mellow tones of the jackhammer and the construction trucks, because the University of Kansas is a university in transition. I look out and see a library already greatly expanded; you'll have to detour around construction shacks now and then. I see buildings that were not here when my family and I arrived in 1951, shortly after the great Kansas floods of that summer—many dormitories, Allen Field House, Malott Hall, Murphy Hall, Summerfield Hall, additions to the museums and the Kansas Union. Right now new fraternity houses are springing up, and others have been built in recent years. Blake Hall has bit the dust, and Fraser—a place of sentimental, and overcrowded, memories—will be on its way to the ground in the years you'll spend at KU.
IF YOU'RE REALLY FASHIONABLE these days you'll be trying to defeat the Russians both in education and getting to the moon. If you find you're not going to be the world's greatest engineer or atomic physicist, don't despair. There is a place for many people who haven't had elaborate educational training. Some of you may flunk out.
I know a college professor who is unhappy because his son doesn't want an education and wants, instead, to be an automobile mechanic. So what's wrong with being a good mechanic? We can't all be Rhodes scholars, and many people who never went to college—like some of your parents—are worthy, constructive citizens.
I CAN ADVISE YOU, a little, about trying to get a balanced education. After several years' advising students at enrollment I have become a semi-expert on what students call "the puds." I know all the courses that call for little work and little thought and give a big fat "A." I could even make a little pin money by publishing my list. Some of you will go through the University of Kansas looking only for these classes. Others will pick, for outside reading, only the books with the big type and a very few pages. Others will try to use the same term paper for every class; this has been done, of that I can testify. Some of you who do these things will walk down the Hill in four years, and Mama and Daddy will look proud, and they'll take pictures, and you'll go out into the world, and be a big grad, and join the Quarterback Club. Because you'll have your pass to social success.
Prudent Man
Is Money an Issue?
In any campaign and election year there are important issues and also those not so vital to the country or its welfare. One of the not so vital issues that plagues the voter concerns money.
MONEY. IT IS GRANTED, is vital for life, education, well-being and status. But, is it necessary to know the financial worth of each candidate down to the last penny?
Each of the four major candidates has publicly announced his financial status, properly audited, of course.
WHEN THE FIRST announcement was made by President Johnson about his wealth, his opponent, Senator Goldwater, accused him of making a minimum estimate. He then declared his own worth, which was notably smaller than the President's.
As the other two candidates went through the audit procedure, it became more and more apparent that money was going to play a large role in this election. What that role is to be is as yet undetermined.
IN THE WORDS of representative William Miller, GOP vicepresidential candidate, President Johnson's extraordinary accumulation of wealth during his years in Washington was "peculiar and strange."
The question is "What is so strange about a man making a living and growing prosperous?" There seems to be a haze over the idea that it is legal to be rich.
THE INSINUATIONS AGAINST the President are evident from several Goldwater statements on money. But the smear against the President and the issue as a whole in the campaign seems dubious.
Could it be that voters are expected to cast their ballot for the poorer candidate? Is Johnson's opponent better because he is not wealthy? The issue of honesty is an important one in any election, but when it involves money, too many things are involved to make an objective observation about either candidate.
Linda Ellis
BOOK REVIEWS
WAVERLY, by Sir Walter Scott (Signet Classics, 75 cents).
Here is the book that gave the name to the great output of historical novels from Sir Walter Scott. It is Scott's first important novel, and concerns the rebellion of 1745, in which the Highland clans of Scotland rallied to the support of Charles Stuart, pretender to the throne of England.
The hero is Edward Waverly, young man of divided loyalties who is won over to the Stuart cause. There are fine descriptions of the highlands country and well-rounded characterizations.
DailijYiänsan
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University of Kansas student newspaper Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904, triweekly 1906
mited 1889, became biweekly 1904, triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912, Member Inland Daily Press Association, Associated Collegiate Press. Represented by National Advertising Service, 18 East 50 St., New York 22, N.Y. News service: United Press International. Mail subscription rates: $3 a semester or $5 a year. Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon holidays, and examination periods. Second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kansas
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