Craig vs. North: Issues and answers
KYLE CRAIG University Party
The two candidates for student body president, Ken North and Kyle Craig, present their views on student government and student issues below. They were interviewed together by members of the Daily Kansan executive staff Saturday, and the following is a transcript of that interview.
KEN NORTH Vox Populi
I think the Council (ASC) faces a number of problems. Most of these can be handled with the revision of the committee system of the Council. I don't think we need any earth-shattering revision of the entire Council system.
This is probably the key issue in our platform. We're trying to eliminate the committees that are dead weight by revising the committees that are non-functioning or overlapping.
But this is only half of the problem. You must establish communication between the committees and the Council, and they must be responsible to the Council or many of these committees might turn into non-functioning committees.
I feel that a lot of people on ASC committees in the past have been almost dead weight because they haven't done much. Give them a problem and let them get in and dig. This involvement will contribute to maintaining a more dynamic Council, for the more aware a person is of what's happening, the more involved he becomes.
BY INVOLVING COUNCIL MEMBERS on these committees we feel this problem will be alleviated. We have already passed much of this legislation and we have more pending. In essence what this would do is place Council members on the main policy-making committees on the campus.
One of these committees is COSA (Council on Student Affairs), and in essence, what this Council revision would do is provide for at least four Council members to be on COSA. This would allow the problems that COSA discusses to also be discussed in Council. It would also help to eliminate the secrecy on COSA. After all, it is the Council's duty to be aware of the problems discussed in COSA and to be able to make recommendations to the committee.
THE UNIVERSITY SYSTEM OF FINING for parking violations is unfair to most students. Most of the students, or at least quite a few of them, are getting through college on a shoestring, and suddenly they are paving $8 to $16 for parking tickets.
I think this can be handled with a reasonable and set fine. This would serve as just as great a deterrent to parking violations.
THE UNIVERSITY SPEAKER'S PROGRAM is another issue. Last year we had Maxwell Taylor, and Hoch Auditorium was packed. As a matter of fact, they had people standing out in the hall. However, this is the last speaker of international prominence we have had. In the past, we have had speakers like Truman, Clement Atlee, Hubert Humphrey, and Ralph Bunche, and we should continue to bring such people of note to the KU campus.
I think a great deal of our platform—like the committee revision—goes far deeper than meets the eye. The party platform is not detailed, but rather is a concise position on certain University problems. There are ideas which are not incorporated into the platform.
For instance, one of the things we're working for is the elimination of the Hare voting system. The use of students in an internship program in administrative offices where students would work in offices of deans of the different schools is another program we will implement.
I don't think the office of student body president should be a tool of the administration but rather a voice of student opinion. He must recognize the University is directly geared toward the students and student interest.
CERTAINLY THERE ARE PROBLEMS that exist which directly affect the student's needs. These problems must be the first aim of student government, but I wonder if the problems mentioned in the Vox platform in foreign housing and attacks on campus are really major ones.
Chief Moomau (campus police chief) said this semester there have only been four to five incidents of assault. There has been no charge of forcible rape, as some people have alleged. In fact the most serious incident occured when a girl was hit with about half-a-dezen eggs. Because KU's record of assaults is so low the police chief from Wichita State University was here to study how KU contained such incidents.
Moomau didn't feel this was a problem, but anytime this kind of thing happens it can be a problem and should be looked into. I do for example feel the lighting system is poor, and should be examined.
Dean Clark Coan said there have been no complaints in three months of abuses in the area of foreign student accommodations. The off-camups living committee, headed by Dean Woodruff, already deals with these problems. All of these issues can be channeled through the present systems.
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I personally believe one of the most pressing problems that the student government should focus upon is the critical area of student needs. It has given a lot of time to internal revisions and enacted them. The fact remains that even when enacted, they have still failed to re-focus on our students' needs, particularly in the areas of living conditions and on-campus security.
I would like to see an expanded concept of executive responsibility. In my opinion we have had a prime ministership on the Council this year, as we have had in the past years. If we have a greater sense of executive responsibility, the executive taking the initiative in the areas where he has the responsibility to perform, then the critical respect for student government could be recaptured.
PERHAPS THE MOST PRESSING PROBLEM student government has to face is recapturing the support which it presently lacks. I think extremely indicative of this lack of support is that both sophomore and junior class officers are uncontested.
There are a lot of things that can be done and should be done, but it would require an expanded sense of responsibility and a greater sense of initiative and aggressiveness on the part of the executive.
Student needs are not heard in the council. I worked hard with Al and was satisfied with the campaign, but there remains many needful and long-overdue problems. They have taken too much time in enacting them. The ASC has focused too much on themselves. They are introverted.
In the areas of off-campus security and dorm conditions, the student body can expect, that with decisive-timing and an aggressive approach, we will act. I think the council should serve as a powerful lobby group.
THE ASC HAS BEEN RESTRICTED in its approach and concepts of making student government more representative of the students' needs. They have ignored the relationship of each division. There should be more responsibility with the executive, more coordination with common problems before the legislature.
The departments facing elimination, in our opinion, is not an area in which responsible student power was consulted to determine student opinion.
If through responsible demonstration of student actions, we can bring our opinion before the legislature, these problems can be reduced. They are tuned to the problems of student needs, more so than ever before. The governor is sensitive to student opinion.
We do not have the proper organizations to do this. One method would be the Kansas Student Federation.
THERE IS DEFINITE NEED for greater coordination between the student body president and the administration. UP's suggestions are supposedly blended to the average student needs, but there is no such thing as the average student.
The student body president must have a sense of student body consciousness. He must look to particular and unique groups and problems.
We need an integration of council members with a greater emphasis on the delegation of role power. Committees must be the responsibility of the council and the people themselves. The student body president is responsible for telling them what to focus on. Efficiency has not been present in student government. Student government must be willing to take serious risks in order to recover.
Question: Getting into a more general definition of student government, what can it do and what do you think you could do?
I am definitely opposed to the status quo. Student government is political by nature, concept and original intent.
Students have a capacity for responsibility. People-to-People has proven this. Many organizations which are not in the spotlight have done a lot more for KU then student government.
It is a gamble, but the role of the student is changing—things like reduction of university departments, the loss of teachers through the lack of salary and overload—these are the sort of things that more students than we are willing to admit think about.
With a capacity for student responsibility, we can go forward with some of these "radical" goals. The ASC is in a state of deterioration. I think we have done some significant things this year, but if we are more efficient and integrated, administrative techniques can arrest the type of deterioration that we are going through.
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Tuesday. the Daily Kansan executive staff will endorse one of these two candidates for the office of student body president.
Watch for that endorsement on this page.