Architects' inferno: KU's building boom
(Editor's note: If KU students aren't gripping about the weather, their bad humor turns to another controversial Kansas topic—the architecture on Mount Oread. Here's what a Kansas daily, the Hutchinson News, has to say about the matter.)
The board of regents has approved architects' plans for KU's experimental biology building, total cost estimated at $3.5 million.
However many points this venture will win in the game of man-studying is an open question. It already is clear, however, that the building is another loser.
AS SKETCHED by the architect, it is eight stories of stone and brick, mostly row on row. It resembles a well-ordered pigeon roost. It is completely undistinguished.
It thus will join a growing family of KU buildings, which are also completely undistinguished.
Mt. Oread architecture may best be described
as a grab bag, out of which one may pluck a Victorian cupola or a motel glass door. Sometimes, as in the Student Union and the nearby natural sciences building, samples of four or five different generations of architecture are combined. Campus critics say this has some use: historians can trace the growth of the university simply by studying the building styles, like a geologist peeling back the earth.
PERHAPS ONE SHOULD just be grateful that the university has the buildings, which are adequate and probably functional. But a university, of all public institutions, should have the opportunity to turn mankind's skills to imaginative purposes.
Inspiration can come from architecture, as from a textbook. The inspiration one gets from the KU campus is the dread thought that Conrad Hilton and Holiday Inn architects are taking over the world.
The people say...
To the editor:
Thank you very much for the publication of "U.S. boot to Chiang?" in the Daily Kansan of Feb. 22nd. However, there was a mistake that I have to point out.
Evidently, most of the American students get confused with the term of "Taiwanese" and "Formosan." Actually, Formosan is the other name of Taiwanese. In Asia, we are used to call that island "Taiwan." "Formosa" means "beautiful island." It was named by Portuguese when they discovered that island in 16th century.
The "Taiwanese" you mentioned are the students from Formosa but indeed not Taiwanese. They are the so called "political refugees" from the Chinese mainland following Chiang Kai-shek. The difference between them and
us are the contrast of "oppressor" and oppressed." It started from the day of their "liberation of Formosa from Japanese." As regards this matter, Doak Barnett wrote that "At first the Taiwanese had welcome the Nationalist officials as liberators, but within two years they became openly rebellious against the Mainland officials who acted like conquerors and exploited the island as carpetbaggers."
USUALLY, "CHINESE" can be classified into four kinds of political attitudes: 1) Red Chinese, loyal to Peking; 2) Neutral Chinese including most of the oversea Chinese, loyal to no government of either China; 3) KMT Chinese, most of them from Formosa as described above, they are the elements of Chiang Kai-shek's political arm, Kuomingtang, a
To the editor:
We realize that the KU budget for next year has been cut. Are the perpetrators of the Kansas Union trying to dramatize this fact by flying a faded flag with orange stripes?
Back in the "old days" when the monumental edifice, New Fraser, was conceived by its architect and artists' conceptions of the project were heralded in all the local papers, all the cramped, squeezed and bulging departments gave a great sigh at the promise of delivery.
Now the building is finished and there is space for us to spread out. For that we are eternally grateful; however, a truly great edifice is more than a structure occupying space and performing a function. It must, rather, be an integrated continuum of its environment, and it should reflect as a monument its function—in this case the embodiment of human knowledge.
To achieve the above we feel that further landscaping of the lawns surrounding New Fraser is vital. We suggest planting 253 Giant Redwood Trees.
Dennis Yapler, Lawrence sophomore and John J. Hill, Lyons junior
semi-public party backed by a secret police organization; 4) Taiwanese so far without a country, who do not share the common identity with Chinese, who hold the passports of Republic of China, but who resent it deeply in minds.
KANSAN TELEPHONE NUMBERS
Newsroom—UN 4-3464 — Business Office—UN 4-3198
The Daily Kansan, student newspaper at The University of Kansas, is represented by National Advertising Service, 18 East 50 St. New York, N.J. 10922, for postage paid to Kansan at its postage paid mail at Lawrence, Kans. every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays 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
Formosans are a group of peaceful people. Our highest aim is the "liberation" of our mother-island and to have an independent country, but not to conflict with any kind of Chinese student here. The revolution is just a self-concern and part of human emancipation from tyranny. We ask your understanding of our situation and our positions.
The opinions expressed in the editorial column are those of the student 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 of the State Board of Regents.
EXECUTIVE STAFF
Managing Editor Joan McCabe
Public Relations Pam Group
Editorial Editors Dan Austin, Earb Philips
Here is a free country. We are not afraid of any kind of blackmail. In addition, today's Formosan youth has already determined to sacrifice their personal interests for the attainment of dignity and value of human beings. Nothing can any longer stop our struggle and our efforts. However, we wish people understand the reason that we did not publish our names on the paper because of the concern of security back home. The lives of our folks in Formosa are at the disposal of KMT dictatorship.
Sincerely Yours, A Formosan
Lecture, 7.30 p.m. Dr. James Woelfel, KU "Christian Ristle- Movement in 'Nazi Germany.'" University Lutheran Church.
Graduate Students: Graduate level foreign students who will be 1 aiving the U.S. after current academic ar may apply for one of the following Colonial Williamsburg, Va. See Office of Dean of Foreign Students, 226 Strong.
Foreign Students; Check March issue of International Campus N newsletter for important items and cal ndar.
Official Bulletin
Lecture, 4.30 p.m. Dr. Leslie Lipson,
U. of Cal., Berkeley "Coll city Security
& Alliance Systems." Fo unm
Kansas Union.
TODAY
Poetry Reading 8 p.m. Jonathan
Room, Kansas Union
Forum, Kansas Union
Rockton School
Cham Music Series 8 p.m. Die
Rite. Solisten. Swauth out.
Ritalie
Classical Film, 7 & 9 p.m. "The
Futurist," British, Derech Aud.
S *n* or *r* *c* *t*al. 8 p.m. Roger Stoner,
trump, Seward Barger, French
Swainburh at 10 a.m.
Lecture, 8 p.m. Dr. Milos Samara J. U. of Bulgaria, "The Yugoslav Raio to Socialism." Forum Room, Kaman Union.
2
Daily Kansan
editorial page
Tuesday, February 28, 1967
"What's The Excitement About Combining The Departments Of Labor And Commerce?"
UDK Review Boyd's Jesus
By SCOTT NUNLEY
Episcopal priest Malcolm Boyd is proud to be considered "radical." His political orientation is left-of-liberal, making him more at home with SDS and SNCC sentiments than with those of the Liberal Establishment. It is amazing that this radical tendency is so little apparent in Father Boyd's religion.
"Are You Running With Me, Jesus?" is Malcolm Boyd's collection of prayers for the modern world, published in paperback this month. Father Boyd turns his religious interest upon vital problems of today: self, society, race, city, campus, film, sex, as well as more traditional themes.
"I shouted for your crucifixion, Jesus. I taunted you as you bore your cross, and I stood in the crowd to watch you die. —I did this again just today, Jesus."
This excerpt is typical of Father Boyd's personal prayers. First he accuses himself with great candor, then he details the extreme difficulty of doing right, and finally he asks his "brother" Jesus for aid.
"AFE YOU RUNNING With Me, Jesus?" is no litany of a new religion. Father Boyd's prayers are not to be chanted by the congregation, because they are unique to one man. But they can serve as examples to modern Christians who are wondering how to break through the "Old English" cant and be honest with themselves and their God.
Father Boyd's religion is not radical in itself. It seems based upon traditional concents of love and forgiveness. It is refreshing, however, in a world that little employs these guides.
Orthodox Christianity may fault Father Boyd most strongly on the "brotherly" relationship he has established with Jesus. As man in past needs has been guilty of anthropomorphizing God, Malcolm Boyd fleshes out his Saviour into a comfortable companion.
BOYD'S JESUS IS a close friend, a confidante, an ally. Perhaps this is a healthy direction to turn from the distance of ritual or the awe of wrath and judgment. Perhaps this view is after all more traditional than radical.
Malcolm Boyd is no proponent of "hip" religion. In an afterword to the paperback edition, a friend of the priest cautions against "Victorian piety cast in hipster talk, not merely official Christianity adapted to the coffee house in order to recruit church members." So familiar to the college student!
Father Boyd is frankly dedicated to humanity, not to heaven; to the freedom of the soul, not to its punishment; to the problems of 1967, not of some never-year of conservative theology. This is his high point, and the solid contribution of his thin volume of prayers.
IT IS A MYSTERY that the fathers of the Established Church should find it so difficult to sympathize with Boyd. Here perhaps they smell the "taint" of Vietnam protests and civil rights marches. But, Father Boyd's religion is not his politics, though they both share his commitment and honesty—his religion is very obviously and refreshingly Christianity.