What is in your dossier?
By Robert Stevens
A dossier is a collection of documents recording information about some person or matter, according to Webster's New World Dictionary.
Emily Taylor, dean of women, would rather call them folders. Donald Alderson, dean of men, prefers files. Laurence C. Woodruff, dean of students, really does not care what they're called.
The dossier is started when a new student first enrolls at KU and is held until five years after graduation. There is just not enough room to keep them any longer, Dean Woodruff said.
WHEN THE NEW student is assigned a student number a folder is created in the office of his or her personnel dean. The first piece of information is a page from the admissions form. Also any letters of recommendations from high school counselors or principals are filed.
Other things which might be found in one's folder include:
- Placement exam scores
- List of activities and organizations filled out by students
- Counselor reports
- Loan applications
- All correspondence concerning the student.
- Records of all disciplinary action
Upon searching through his dossier with the help of Dean Alderson, Jack Harrington, Summit, N.J., junior, found his letter of admittance, placement test scores, his identification picture, the green cards filled out at time of enrollment, and communications from the traffic and security office concerning excessive traffic violations.
SEVERAL THINGS other than the ordinary were found in the folder of Dick Darville, Shawnee Mission junior. These included a letter from Bob Stewart and
Leo Schrey, student body presidents, appointing and reappointing him to the disciplinary committee; several reports from residence hall counselors, and a great deal of personal correspondence from his term as Ellsworth Hall president.
In another junior's folder was a report from the office of the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences on excessive absences, a report of a recent visit in Watkins Hospital, and a report of his nomination as a Summerfield scholar.
Each week each male counselor submits a "trend report" to relate the happenings on the wing. Dean Alderson said that by this they can judge the sentiment of the men in the halls. Recently he pointed out, they were able to combat a false rumor that residence hall rates were increasing.
Dean Woodruff listed several different reasons for the University policy to keep such folders. He said it is definitely valuable for a student who is having problems.
ALSO, EACH COUNSELOR fills out one personnel report on each resident. Dean Woodruff said these are occasionally used to pick up a "straw in the wind" about a student who needs some kind of attention. He said they then refer the resident to some agency who is able to help him.
According to Dean Woodruff, one of the most feared entries in the dossiers are the counselor reports. These are filled out by freshman women counselors and all men counselors.
In extreme cases, Dean Woodruff said, the folders are of particular value when the student "evaporates." This happens only a couple of times a year, but the files often are helpful in locating this person. Another time they are helpful is in case of bad accidents.
He emphasized the fact that the reports were "for the most part, for the student's good."
DEAN TAYLOR SAID THE FILES HELP the student become more than a number or an anonymous figure. With the help of the folder they are able to answer inquiries about women with some deal of accuracy. She said without them most requests would be very poorly handled.
Approximately 50 requests for information are received each month for information on graduates. All recommendations written from her office stress only the positive side of the student's record, if at all possible, she said.
She said requests from the FBI or other government agencies are accompanied by a signed release from the student. Dean Alderson said when any government concern asks for a male student's folder, he is not consulted before such release.
REQUESTS FROM POTENTIAL employers have come only when the dean of women or someone in her office is specifically listed as a reference.
Dean Woodruff said the biggest source of requests for information that his office handles are from law schools and schools of medicine. He said requests which come five years or later after a student graduates are handled to the best of his office's ability.
Dean Taylor was asked if memberships in such organizations as SDS or CRC were listed in the folders. She said no. Dean Alderson pointed out that lists of officers of all campus groups are kept in a separate file system in his office. He said the only mention of membership would have to come from the student himself on forms which they fill out during enrollment.
DEAN ALDERSON SAID his office will interpret the dossier to interested students, but that they are not equipped to handle any great rush of students.
Dean Taylor said she would be happy to provide the women with the same information, but that her office, too, is understaffed. In fact, many of the folders in her office are not up to date, she said.
MAKING THE GRADE - IV
Cheating; fraternity files---tween cheating and not cheating varies with every case; it is a question of degree and intention.
Continued from page 1
TEST FILES are often criticized as an open form of cheating. But Watson Library has an extensive test file, as do most organized campus living groups.
"Some test files involve cheating," Donald Alderson, dean of men, said. "It depends on how extensive they are. There is nothing wrong about looking at an exam from some earlier day, but it is cheating to copy an old English theme."
A junior woman with an overall 2.25 grade point average said, "I don't think files are cheating. Any teacher who will give the same test twice deserves that to happen."
IN REALITY, test files are only half-hearted efforts with many living groups. People like to refer to them, but don't want to go to the trouble of keeping them up.
They usually contain tests and notes, classified by courses. Sometimes they contain themes, but more often they do not. Some houses have abolished files altogether.
"We finally threw all our files out," said a sorority member.
"Some of the girls didn't think it was fair to have them; they considered them a form of cheating."
A MEMBER OF another sorority said that it was decided to restrict her house's file to notes and tests and to eliminate old themes.
"Our house manager last semester threw away everything but the notes and tests," she said. "She threw away the themes because she felt that too many people were copying them and not learning to write well. She thought it would be better if they just wrote their own and had only notes to refer to."
A member of a fraternity that has a file of tests and notes said that the file "has gone down quite a lot. It's sort of a mess now. About half the people use them at one time or another; I don't know how much good they do though."
IN ANOTHER fraternity house, a member said that his group's file was "a great deal of help, especially in doing the day-to-day work. It's helpful, for example, to be able to check your answers to a problem after you've worked it."
"Files are more helpful in some courses than in others," a sorority member said. "Geography and geology final help a lot; you can
"Abuses of special enrollment privileges have gotten to be a kind of game," Dean Alderson said, "The methods used to get around the rules are just considered part of the game."
Ethical border cases of cheating are rampant during student enrollment. Some students manage to consistently enroll early, not get Saturday or early morning classes, and get into the sections of the courses they want.
For 76 Years, KU's Official Student Newspaper
Students find it relatively easy to slip through the enrollment tables ahead of time and to enroll without being questioned.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
ALTHOUGH SOME students consider this a form of cheating, more seem to accept it as simply a contest between the individual student and the powers-to-be.
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look over about the past four years of tests, and you will have covered almost everything you will have to know.
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"But they aren't very useful for English finals. In the English courses, they don't repeat questions much," she said.
The Daily Kansan, student newspaper at The University of Kansas, is represented by National Advertising Service. 18 East 50 St. New York, N.Y. 16028. Postage paid at Lawrence, Kansas or off a year. Published and second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kansas except Saturday and Sundays. University holidays and examination periods. Accommodations, goods, services and employment advertised in the University are offered to all students without regard to color, creed or national origin.
"TD NEVER thought of it as cheating," a sophomore woman said. "Perhaps it is. But it's certainly not a very serious form of cheating."
The opinions expressed in the editorial column are those of the students whose names are signed to them. Guest editorial views are not necessarily the authors. Any opinions expressed in the Daily Kansan are not necessarily those of The University of Kansas Administration or the State Board of Regents.
Frequently a student must have an alibi to keep from being assigned a Saturday class. Often a hasty excuse is made up at the enrollment table; sometimes detailed plans are laid out in advance.
One sophomore man agreed to work without pay in a local filling station for one Saturday in exchange for the owner's writing a note saying that the student was employed on Saturdays. The student thus was excused from Saturday classes. After one Saturday's work, the filling station
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SUCH CASES make one realize the length to which some people will go to reach a desired end. Their motives are sometimes more difficult to understand.
owner obligingly fired the student employee.
"Some people would not cheat under any circumstances; others always would. Then there is a middle group that cheats now and then. It is not easy to make a dichotomy between cheaters and non-cheaters." she said.
Thursday, May 5, 1966
Daily Kansan
"In general, the cheater is not a psychological entity," said Dean Taylor. "He shows no consistency of behavior.
DEAN TAYLOR SAID that she attributes cheating to the pressures of both society and the college situation. However, she is not sure that these pressures are any greater than they have ever been.
Frances Grinstead, associate professor of journalism, said that increasing emphasis on grades has contributed to the pressures on
RI
students and the cheating problem.
"In my day, there was a cynical feeling about cheating," she said. "The modern student is running scared because of the emphasis on grades. He thinks he's got to have them."
Dean Woodruff agreed that current attitudes are not what they might be.
"The attitude is not a great deal different among students today from what it was 20 or 40 years ago," Dean Woodruff said. "Young people are human. They precrastinate, they get into binds and they are tempted."
"THERE SEEMS to have been a general decline in moral strength," he said. "Some of this is involved in cheating. When a child sees his parents cheating on their income tax, it is natural that his sense of honor might be slightly warped."
But he did not attribute cheating primarily to pressures of society.
—Photo by Emery Goad
A KU STUDENT CHEATS ON AN EXAMINATION Copying answers from arms is a common method at KU.