The changing students
(Dr. Franklin Murphy's convocation speech last week, "The Changed and Changing University," was, we think, pertinent and perceptive. The following excerpt from Dr. Murphy's speech concerns the university student.)
To now we have discussed many facets of the changing university world—but what of the raison d'etre of the whole establishment—the student? What with administrative problems, carrying education to the rest of the world, research, scholarly travel, and government advertisement, will there be any energy left for him? Well, if he has anything to say about it, there will be—and he has much to say and is saying it loudly these days. For as the society and the university have changed, so have our students. They are older because they come to us later and they stay with us longer. They are better prepared, Admiral Rickover to the contrary notwithstanding. They are the product of a permissive tradition. Most have had more independence and freedom in their high school years than my generation had in the university. The revolution in communications has made them aware of the world and its problems in an unprecedented fashion. They are products of an age of revolution and rapidly changing verities and social benchmarks. They share with all society the uncertainties and insecurities of a world in turmoil and torment. Is it any wonder they refuse to be put in a sandbox to play the innocent game traditionally called "student activities," properly insulated from involvement in the major problems of society? The American university student has left the sandbox for good just as he has rejected in loco parentis as irrelevant to one who could be fighting in Viet Nam any day now. And I must say that I, for one understand and applaud this.
If Viet Nam, civil rights, foreign policy, birth control, and treatment of migrant workers are matters with which the society must deal, then this generation of students intends to be involved. Sometimes the characteristic candor of youth irritates the conscience of the elder, and energy may temporarily be substituted for direction. Occasional exhibitionists may blur the image (remember the goldfish swallowers of the 1920's and the panty raiders of the 1950's and the righteous indignation they produced). But at least (and how wonderful) they are concerned, and they are involved.
The university student is out of the sandbox never to return. Society will just have to adjust to it. The university community will need to talk with him too—and about substantive matters. He does not want to run the university. But he believes he has something useful to contribute to the dialogue. He wants to talk about the important issues of curriculum, the rewards for good teaching and the proper relationship between teaching and research. He has always been told he was an important member of the academic community, and he has now determined to assume that role. I believe that this change in student attitude is one of the best things that could have happened to American higher education. It will become an indispensable element in preventing administration and faculty from taking things for granted. It will contribute mightily to a lively and student-oriented curriculum. The university dialogue will become enriched and more germane as a result. And a strong and more mature student voice will become a great force in reminding us all of the time the honored importance of teaching.
The people say...
Pickets dispute Kansanstory
To the Editor:
It seems very unfortunate that the Daily Kansan allows itself to be either extremely inceptible run or purposely biased. I am writing in reference to the article entitled "Pickets Appear at Murphy Talk" which appeared in your April 14 issue. I find it hard to believe that your article was produced in good faith, and I further challenge that the article is not only purposefully slanted, but outrightly false or misleading in several places.
That the Committee To End the War in Viet Nam's table of literature aroused "active, intelligent interest" I find to be a dubious assertion, but since you made a point that "a traffic and security officer studied one of the publications" I will let that be your defense.
To label my group "youths" as opposed to the title of "members of the Committee" is unfair and misleading. Our dedication to our ideas is just as strong as the Committee's, and our ideas are just as valid, no matter which side you choose to support. The fact that we expressed our ideas in a novel manner rather than in hackneyed expressions should not justify derision. Furthermore,
your assertion that were were unkempt is hard to accept, for we were dressed in accord with generally accepted modes of dress. Admittedly, we did not don the sweater-over-sweatshirt or sport-coat-and-white-levis of our opponents. Moreover, all of us made the mistakes of being clean-shaven and having a haircut within the last two months.
Your poor reporter could not get our signs correct even with the aid of the photograph you published. The sign which you quote as reading "Burn your driver's license" actually read "End the slaughter on our nation's roads, Burn your driver's license." The two signs which you partially listed as saying "Now Get Out" and "Get Out of California" were part of a three-sign series which actually read as follows: 1) Now: Get out of Viet Nam; 2) 5 Years later: Get Out of Hawaii; 3) 10 Years later: Get Out of California. It was intended that these signs show the idiocy of the modes of expression generally taken by the pacifist movement.
Not only could your reporter not read, he could not obtain an accurate quotation. In fact, I am of the firm opinion that realizing
he forgot to get a quotation from me, he just made one up for me. If he had asked for a statement, I would not have said "We are just trying to tell others how ridiculous we feel picketing really is" as he supposed I would; I would have given him a copy of our statement of policy which you find enclosed.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY kansan For 76 Years, KU's Official Student Newspaper
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
The Daily Kansan, student newspaper at The University of Kansas, is represented by National Advertising Service, 18 East 50 St. New York, N.Y. 10023. Mail subscription rates: $4 a semester or $7 a year. Published and second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kan. every afternoon. During the University year except Saturdays and Sundays. University holidays and vacation periods. Accommodations, goods, services and employment advertised in the University Daily Kansan are offered to all students without regard to color, creed or national origin. The column is free to use.
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 editor's. Any opinions expressed in the Daily Kansan are not necessarily those of The University of Kansas Administration or the State Board of Regents.
If these were all honest mistakes, an honest effort to correct them is in order. Otherwise, an explanation of the purpose of such distortion is only fair to me.
Jim Howatt
A policy statement of the counter-pickets was included with the above letter.
EXECUTIVE STAFF
KANSAN TELEPHONE NUMBERS
Newsroom—UN 4-364 — Business Office—UN 4-3198
KANSAN TELEPHONE NUMBERS
Jim Howatt
Dwayne Tieszen
Jim Hess
Rick Myers
Sam Jordan
- * *
Managing Editor ... Fred Frailey
Business Manager ... Dale Reinecker
Editorial Editors ... Jacke Thayer, Justin Beck
Our presence is not intended primarily to deride the KU Committee to End the War in Viet Nam. Instead, our presence is intended to voice the feelings of the vast majority of the University student body. Our demonstration is, by design, small and orderly. Our purpose is solely to make known the majority opinion and rational position concerning the place of the military in our society as its protector and defender, and the necessity of a dynamic foreign policy. We have no desire to interfere with the demonstration by the Committee, for they are utilizing the rights that our military forces and national sacrifices maintain. It should be inferred from our presence; moreover, it is the basic intent of our presence, that the KU Committee to End the War in Viet Nam is not assumed to be the representative voice of the University and/or its students.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS
2
Daily Kansan
Monday, April 18, 1866.
" BUT IT DOESN'T SEEM FAIR TO COUNT ME ABSENT WHEN
IT TAKEN ME ALL THIS TIME TO FIND A PLACE TO PARK. "
Not against reporters ex-columnists say
Perhaps the dispute involves quality. One can be a bad journalist or a good journalist, but it would seem imperative that the good journalist, at least, must be a writer. It has always been our belief that journalists are also writers (many of them exceptionally fine writers, e. g. Tom Wolfe, Ring Lardner, Ernest Hemingway, etc.) but that writers need not necessarily be journalists.
THAT IS, of course, unless one defines "journalism" as simply as does Mr. Joslin, in his letter. But the definition he offers is so general as to be useless. One might define "art" as "anything man-made." In this sense, and rightly so, a toothpick manufacturer might be called an artist.
By Mr. Joslin's definition, all attempts at self-interested communication are "journalism." Very well. Then how are journalists "forced to deal with realities?" As I say, Mr. Joslin's issue is confused.
Leaving the question of "art" vs. "journalism," and turning to the "realities" themselves (which Mr. Joslin has also confused) we would like to reiterate the import of our final column. We did not discontinue the column because of any hatred of "journalism" per se, but because, as we attempted to point out, we felt we were contending with faulty and inept journalism. Certainly, all is not bad journalism, but, we are sure Mr. Joslin would agree, it must meet some standard.
LAST, WE would like to deal with two of Mr. Joslin's sarcasms: the reference to us as preferring "obscurity rather than falling under the heel," etc., and the reference to art as a "rationalization for lack of success." Both would seem to indicate that writing for the Daily Kansan is Mr. Joslin's idea of success, the opposite of obscurity, which he has attained and we have not
We must confess that we did not take the affair quite that seriously. We originally accepted Miss Thayer's request to write the column, at no gain to ourselves and with only casual enthusiasm. Our resignation was certainly no occupational martyrdom and obviously involved no essential "bravery." Unlike Mr. Joslin, we do not gauge our success or failure as writers in terms of the Daily Kansan.
Jim Girard
Mike Miller
Voices from the Wilderness
Well, Norman Mailer is in paperback again. And that "dazzling nationwide bestseller," as the publisher puts it, can stir up some more controversy among those who did not buy the hardcover or wait in line at the local library. The book is called An American Dream (Dell, 95 cents).
Posterity, probably, will have to deal with the merits of Mailer. He has really produced nothing of general acceptance since "The Naked and the Dead." American dream, maybe; perhaps American nightmare—the story of one of Mailer's World War II types and life in the big city. Not at all for the squeamish. The book catalogues almost everything this side of the Marquis de Sade; well, almost this side of.
Mailer again in paperback
Easier to take for many readers will be historian John C. Miller's The First Frontier: Life in Colonial America (Dell Laurel, 75 cents). A gentle kind of history, and novel in many respects, for Miller introduces us to the way the people lived in the colonies, their farms, their shipping towns, the forest to the west.