KU
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY kansan
Serving KU for 76 of its 100 Years
76th Year, No.134
WEATHER:
CLOUDY
LAWRENCE, KANSAS
Details on Page 7 Thursday, May 12, 1966
Council proposes higher student fees
The Kansas legislative council's budgetary committee yesterday recommended that the Board of Regents raise the academic fees for resident and non-resident students at the state's colleges and universities.
Senator Glee S. Smith (R-Larned), chairman of the committee, said the increase should be proportionately larger for nonresident than resident students.
ALTHOUGH he knew nothing of the committee proposals, Raymond Nichols, Vice Chancellor of finance, said that the matter may be brought up at the regents' meeting tomorrow at the KU Medical Center in Kansas City.
Smith said, "We believe increases in fees are justified from the standpoint of both the rising cost of higher education and the relatively low level of the present fees charged by Kansas schools in relation to other state schools."
He said all indications are that the "budgets of state institutions
will continue to rise. We expect that a large part of the additional cost will still be supplied by state and general tax sources," Smith said.
The committee report said student fees should finance a greater proportion of the cost than at present. They recommended that resident and non-resident fees should be set at a level so that total basic fee income will provide an average of 25 per cent of the cost of general educational programs.
THIS WOULD include the cost of organized research extension services, auxiliary enterprises and capital improvements.
The report said that in fiscal 1967 at current fee rates "it is estimated that the fee-cost ratio at KU, Kansas State, Pittsburg State College, Emporia State Teachers College, and Wichita State University, will average about 22 per cent with individual
school ratios ranging from 20.4 per cent to 24.3 per cent."
The fee-cost ratio at Wichita State University is presently higher than other schools because actual enrollments exceeded estimates.
The committee said "no official policy is regulating fees by the Board of Regents," but added, "In recent years the board has adjusted fees whenever the actual fee-cost ratio fell to 20 per cent or below."
IT SAID, however, that "the fee-cost ratio should be adjusted from time to time and given careful consideration to establishing a definite policy to review the fee schedules at designated times."
The committee suggested a review each four years and asked the regents to "make no changes in the meantime unless they tell the reasons for adjusting the fee raise."
Transfer of 'active' cobalt will cause traffic stoppage
Specialists licensed by the Atomic Energy Commission will arrive in Lawrence today to transfer the radioactive cobalt source buried in the ground in the research vault west of Lindley Hall. The source no longer is needed, and it will be returned to an AEC-licensed company.
The unit will be placed in a lead shipping cask today or tomorrow night. Kansas regulations on handling of such materials will require a brief stoppage of traffic on Naismith Drive during this period. Lindley Annex will be vacated at this time.
next will be vacated Restricted access to C Zone parking south of Lindley Hall will be enforced after 5 p.m. today.
Prof. Ralph Krone, acting chairman of the department of physics, and Prof. Benjamin Friesen, of the radiation biophysics department, will supervise the operation for the University.
They recommended that nonresident graduate students be charged the same fee as nonresident undergraduates but suggested a lower fee for graduate students who teach or do research work for the school.
work for the school.
Fees were most recently increased at the beginning of the 1965-1966 term. The rate for a resident, graduate or undergraduate student attending full-time was hiked from $122 to $139.
was meet from a non-resident, graduate student pays $184 to attend the University. Non-resident, non-graduates—which includes law and other categories of students—are charged $339.
EMPTY HOLE—"Become famous and we'll put a statue of you there," one University official quipped when queried about this empty niche in the southwest corner of the Kansas Union. An "architectural necessity," which allows truckers who have unloaded at the dock to the right of the concave corner to keep an eye on traffic when they're pulling out, officials decided during construction of the addition last summer to make it attractive as well. But so far, orange floodlights shine on a statue-less pedestal.
Racial coding to end with June '66 payroll
Racial coding of university employees will end with the June 1, 1566, payroll.
The objectives of the faculty- composed ad hoc committee on
MAKING THE GRADE-IX
the payroll racial coding policy have been met, David Jones, assistant professor of philosophy and secretary of the group, said yesterday.
Flunk-out courses don't exist
(Editor's note: This is one of a series of articles about grades and grading systems at KU and the problems they create.)
By Emery Goad
There really are no flunk-out courses at KU.
Seemingly contrary to the views of the major portion of the student population, there is actually no course which is required for a majority of students but which has a high rate of "F's" given.
"Chemistry 11 and 21 are flunk-out courses," Walter Jennings, Kansas City freshman, said.
"I think that English I and II are definitely flunk-out courses," Tom Short, Bartlesville, Okla., freshman said.
ACCORDING TO GEORGE Worth, chairman of the department of English, only four per cent failed in English I in the fall of 1864 and ony four per cent failed in English II last semester.
Other figures from the fall of 1964 English II classes based on an enrollment of 2,000 freshmen are: "A's" two per cent; "B.'s" 36 per cent; "C's" 52 per cent; and
"D's," 14 per cent. The spring of 1965 produced nearly the same percentages except for a total of six per cent "A's."
six per cent Worth was asked if teachers were told how to grade in English and if they must follow a curve, thus assigning a number of "F's."
"We find the grades fall into a certain type of established pattern. We keep this in our minds and consciously or unconsciously we pay attention to this," Worth said.
TEACHING IN THE English I and II sections is most commonly done by an assistant instructor, usually a graduate student carrying a load of up to nine hours himself. He receives $2,300 to $2,600 yearly.
"English I and II definitely do not work against the student majoring in Engineering or anything else," said Stephen Biddle, assistant instructor of English.
Although they are given full responsibility for their classes—according to a folder published by the department—the assistant instructors meet regularly in a group to grade themes,are supervised within the classrooms and are expected to have their final grades fall into a previously predicted pattern.
In the chemistry department the "flunk-out" rate is higher. Among 600 students in Chemistry 21 last semester, 23 per cent received "F's." According to Clark Bricker, professor of chemistry, 50 per cent of the students received "A's" and "B's."
CHEMISTRY, TOO, is only required for a minority of KU students. For completion of the requirements where chemistry is listed the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences will also accept mathematics, geography, or geology credits, as do most other schools.
Glen Petrie, teaching assistant in Chemistry 21 and 22, said that the department usually expects grades to be partially awarded on a standard basis, but that instructors may vary them.
Each instructor in the chemistry labs is responsible for grading two classes of 16 to 20 students. "I do not let my feelings
enter into my grading, even when
enter an 'F'," Petrie said.
Many students feel that biology and mathematics are flunk-out courses.
according to the grades released to the Kansan by the biology department there were classes taught from the fall of 1964 to the spring of 1965 with an average of only six per cent 'F's,' nine per cent "F's," 16 per cent "F's," and nine per cent 'F's,' given by four different instructors. None of these are really flunk-outs.
ACCORDING TO Baley Price, chairman of the mathematics department, there are no flunk-out courses in his department.
Price would not release his grades but said, 'We have nothing to hide.'
Other students say that in the area of language study there are flunk-out courses.
flunk-out courses. A survey in this area concluded that actually there are more languages with lower failing percentages than those which are classified "flunk-out" courses by most students.
Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe Tuesday gave a complete report to the University Senate on the results of negotiations with state agencies about racial coding on university payroll. The coding will be terminated on next month's payroll, and the identification of individuals by race will be expunged from the records in Topeka. The information will be kept only in statistical form.
THE FACULTY COMMITTEE arose out of the controversy over a directive from the Kansas State Comptroller's office requiring that every employee of the state be identified with a racial code letter as a part of his file in Topeka. The directive took effect at KU on the March 1966 payroll.
at KC on the 18th. A deadline of 48 hours was set for compliance with the order, and it was made known that the April 1 pay checks would be withheld for all persons for whom no racial code was provided.
The faculty committee protested that "the objectives of the survey were not clearly stated." They disagreed also with the "threat of losing pay in case the faculty members did not comply with the state order," according to Richard Burke, professor of human relations. The committee questioned the legality of holding up the pay of anyone who refused to designate his race.