KU students can bear pressure
By SOLVEIG EGGERZ
Are KU students bearing up under the increasing pressure of the draft; the heavy competition for acceptance into graduate school and the requirements set by a highly technological society?
Statistics indicate they are.
According to Dr. S. Schroeder, psychologist at Watkins Mental Health Service, the number of students who seek psychiatric care has grown in the past 13 years but has always remained at four percent of the student population.
RICHARD RUNDQUIST, a counselor at the University Guidance Service at Bailey Hall, estimates the number of students who seek advice at 10 percent of the student body, a percentage which hardly fluctuated over the past 15 years.
"Students come to us with all kinds of problems." Rundquist said, "most often they seek advice on a decision they have to make. More serious problems we refer to Mental Health."
According to these statistics KU students worry less than Chicago
University undergraduates where, according to a recent Newsweek article, one in seven each year turns to the psychiatric clinic for help; or Colorado University where 4,000 of the 15,700 students seek professional help each year.
At Harvard the rate is 10 percent of the student body; at Northwestern eight to 10 percent.
KU AVERAGES less than one suicide per year; Wisconsin University's 30,000 students average three a year.
Dr. William Binns, clinical psychiatrist at Watkins Mental Health, said, "Of the 493 students who sought help last year, 58 were treated for 'situational reactions', i.e., they had problems caused by outside stress."
The rest of the cases had problems dating back to childhood.
The number of cases caused by outside stress tends to rise. In 1961 62 it was 43; the wear before last it hit an all time high of 77.
BINNS SAID the number of those seeking psychiatric help reached its peak before Christmas vacation and Spring Break rather than before finals. He
ascribed this to the problem of reentering of home environment.
Schroeder admitted that pressures are growing but said, "Students are coming more prepared for college life each year. A little pressure is a healthy thing."
He referred to the real source of pressure as "a combination of all the factors that enter in when a student discovers that he must start to function independently."
He believed that those students who make a clean break from their parents "end up being happier and having a better relationship with their parents than those who don't make a break."
FOREIGN STUDENTS frequently take their problems to Dean Clark Coan, foreign student adviser. In those cases where Coan deems it necessary he refers them to Mental Health.
"In the case of a foreign student it's sometimes hard to tell whether a problem is a result from a neurosis or from change of culture," he said.
KC Philharmonics tabs offered at reduced rate
ATTRACTIONS APPEARING with the Philharmonic next year are Jeanne-Marie Darre, pianist; Lili Chockasian, contralto; Richard Tucker, tenor; Young Uck Kim, violinist; Jose Iturbi, pianist; Aram Khatchaturian, eminent Russian conductor and composer; Karine Georgian, cellist; Henryk Szeryng, violinist; Hans Richter-Haaser, pianist; and guest conductors Carlos Chaves and Siegfriend Koehler.
He said that national groups often exerted a lot of pressure on their members to excell academically.
College students, faculty, and administration may new obtain season tickets for the Kansas' City Philharmonic 1967-68 season for the reduced rate of $12 for 12 concerts.
KU and twelve other area colleges and universities have formed a Philharmonic "student council" to promote this venture. The concepts offered in this series are the same programs presented in the Philharmonic's regular Tuesday evening subscription series and will be repeated on Wednesday evenings for the college audiences.
This special price will reserve virtually any seat in the Kansas City Music Hell and is considerably lower than the regular price of $65 for orchestra section seats.
This concert series is being handled on the KU campus through SUA. Orders will be taken during enrollment in September. To insure the best possible selection of seats, students and faculty may place their orders now in the SUA office.
KU's dropout rate seems to indicate that many succumb to the pressure.
GEORGE B. SMITH, KU's vice chancellor, estimates in his report, "Who should be Eliminated?" that 40 percent of entering freshmen will drop out before their junior year.
Smith divides dropouts into three groups, 1) "the who are told not to return because they can't make it"; 2) "the who quit for miscellaneous reasons such as marriage, etc." and 3) "the who quit from inexplainable reasons, because they could return academically."
out rate is 20 percent, Calteech's also stood at 20 percent, however, since the introduction of the pass fail system for freshmen, the rate has gone down to 14 percent.
Another finding in Smith's report indicates that few of the dropouts come under the first category: "eighty-two percent of the entering freshmen each year are at the top half of their high school class."
Schroeder said, "KU exerts more pressure on its students than most Midwest schools and most students accept it as a challenge. Those who are anxious within themselves will, however, resent the pressure and panic."
AT CORNELL University with its selective admission the drop-
Dean Foster Strong at Caltech said, "Students are now becoming self motivated scholars and not grade getters."
Opinions differ on the possibility of introducing pass fail at KU.
Danforth Scholar Gary Gregg will spend the summer revising the school system at KU with the goal of introducing some new ideas on pass fail. The Intermediary College Board is also suggesting that KU take up the unit system whereby students take four classes instead of six and receive four hours credit in each class.
Jim Brink, Wichita senior and a member of KU's independent study program, is a staunch advocate of pass fail, saying. "The letter grade system is unfair and uncohesive. Your grade can depend on whether your teacher likes you or not."
HE ADDED, "I experience more satisfaction in education when the competition is not all that tough. Then I'll write a paper because I want to convey an idea to a teacher rather than because I'm forced to."
Some foreign students agreed that the pressure was too great and longed for a little more academic freedom.
Ada Kadelbach, Hildesheim, Germany, graduate student, said, "Sometime I feel like I'm going through a mill here. In one class I was so busy completing the 36 assigned readings that I hardly had time to work on my term paper.
"It's a good system for about two years," she said, "after that I feel we should have more freedom, especially in graduate school."
ANOTHER GERMAN graduate student, Hans Borchers from Wupperthal, said, "I'd like to see a combination of the two systems: the undergraduate system for young semesters in Germany and more academic freedom for graduate students here."
He added, "There are more dropouts in German Universities after the first four semesters than there ever are here."
Gilbert Ulmer, assistant dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, said, "We've tried various systems of grading at KU but have always turned back to grades. It seems that some form of recognition is necessary."
Summer Kansan Tuesday, June 13, 1967
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