KU
kansan
Serving KU For 77 of its 101 Years
77th Year, No. 87
WEATHER COOLER
LAWRENCE, KANSAS
See Weather page 2
Monday, February 27, 1967
Oliver lacks mailboxes
By MERRILY ROBINSON
The women at Oliver Hall have no mailboxes. They get their mail by calling for it at the desk, often after a long wait in line.
According to Ernest Pulliam, assistant director of housing, the mailboxes were due in September before the residence hall was scheduled to open.
A large bare bulletin board now covers the space where the mailboxes should be. It was installed in November.
PULLIAM SAID they hadn't been able to get the contractor to deliver.
"We've been in almost constant contact with them, trying to get the mailboxes," Pulliam said. "We're also withholding a sizeable portion of their payment until we do receive them.
"We don't know yet just when we will get them."
Students injured
Five KU students were injured in three major accidents in Lawrence over a weekend plagued with police calls.
with pence.
Thomas H. Ball. Manhattan sophomore, suffered minor injuries Sunday evening when three cars collided at 6th and Colorado Streets. Nancy Field. Bartlesville, Okla. junior, complained of injuries. She was a passenger in one of the cars. Damages amounted to $3,200 to a 1967 Corvette driven by Ball and $3,100 to the other cars.
cars.
Howard L. Kuhn, Dodge City junior, complained of minor injuries when he was injured at 12:16 a.m. Sunday at the intersection of University Drive and Emery Road. His car struck an elm tree and a hedge row.
TWO STUDENTS were injured at 1:08 a.m. Sunday in the 1000 block of Emery Road when the car in which they were riding went out of control, struck a stone wall, bounced off and hit a light pole.
Douglas C. Powell, Oklahoma City, Okla., sophomore, driver of the car and Phillip R. Sturgis, Wellington sophomore, a passenger in the car, were taken to Watkins Memorial Hospital. Hospital authorities this morning reported that they were believed to be in good condition but that no information could be released concerning their injuries.
Bulletin
WASHINGTON — (UPI) — Teamster Union President James R. Hoffa lost two 11th hour appeals to the Supreme Court today, bringing him to the brink of an eight-year penitentiary sentence for jury rigging.
This could mean that the head of the nation's largest union may have to go to jail conceivably within a week.
PULLIAM SAID the delay was probably due to the war in Vietnam.
"Delivery on a lot of items has been slowed up. It takes months to get any cotton goods. We had to order mattress pads three months ahead of time."
Pulliam said it would invlove
more expense than it would be worth to try to get the mailboxes from another supplier.
"The frame and interior have already been installed. We couldn't get combination lock doors that would fit the frame from any other source. We'd have to rip the whole thing out and start over again."
Women displeased with inconvenience
By LINDA McCREREY
"Ridiculous!"
"Asinine!"
"A gross inconvenience!"
These are typical reactions of Oliver Hall women when asked about their mailboxes.
What provokes their annoyance is the fact that they have been living in Oliver since the fall semester began, but their mailboxes are not yet ready for use. Residents must stand in line at the main desk and ask a switchboard operator for their mail.
MOST WOMEN are not sure of the reason for this, but many venture opinions. It seems that the mailboxes are installed, but they have no locks.
"I heard that the locks were here," said Cheri Salomon, Wichita freshman, "but nobody could put them on."
"I heard we had combination locks, but they were sent back to be exchanged for locks that could be opened with room keys," said another girl.
"Why can't we use combination locks like the other dorms?" asked Sharla Strait, Topeka freshman.
New ID's given soon
The cards, which will be about the same size as the old ones, will be embossed with the student's name and student number as in the past. Students will receive cards printed in red; faculty members will receive cards printed in blue.
All KU students will be issued a new KU-ID card the week of March 13 or March 20, the Registrar's Office has announced.
The new ID's will be necessary, according to John Nugent, head of circulation in Watson Library, because of a changeover in Watson to an IBM book checkout system.
KU Medical Center students and faculty will also receive new ID's.
THE NEW CARDS will be perforated with several small holes which will supply information to the library data processor.
According to Nugent, the library's IBM system "is designed to alleviate the problem of keeping track of books. It will save students and the library staff much time."
MOST OF THE WOMEN feel that it's a aste of time for a switchboard operator to check the mail.
Cindy Houtman. Overland Park freshman, said, "I'd just as soon walk up to my own mailbox to see of there's any mail," expressing the feelings of most Oliver residents.
Chicken dish causes illness
Bu PAUL HANEY
Contaminated chicken casserole caused last week's illness in McCollum Hall, according to preliminary tests of food samples, said Dr. James W. Campbell, KU physician.
He said a bacterial organism was found in a sample of the casserole. The casserole contained chicken, gravy and cornbread.
chittens, gary Campbell and Dr. Raymond Schwegler, health service director, treated 74 men and 76 women residents of the hall Thursday morning for acute gastroenteritis.
SYMPTOMS OF THE ILLNESS were abdominal pain, diarrhea and in some cases vomiting. Two residents were admitted to Watkins Hospital Thursday night because of fainting. They were released after treatment.
Samples of meatball gravy chicken cassereole and salad dressing served in the hall cafeteria Wednesday evening were cultured at Watkins Hospital.
Campbell said tests conducted on food handlers Friday showed "no source for contamination."
Tests are being conducted today on a sample of the caserole by the Kansas State Board of Health in Topeka to determine the exact organism involved.
CAMPBELL SAID final results should be known tomorrow. He said he does not anticipate the finding of "gross contamination."
Schweegler said Thursday tests on the food samples probably would be negative. He said organisms, are usually killed when food is cooked.
is counted.
"The toxins remain, and they're what cause the illness," he said.
All residents who were ill from the contaminated food recovered by Saturday.
Most became ill between 5 and 6 a.m. Thursday. This constant incubation period led Schwegler to suspect food poisoning.
'Pass or fail'
By ALLAN NORTHCUTT
KU considers change
KU soon may join the increasing number of diverse colleges and universities which are experimenting with a "pass-fail" grading system.
perimenting with a pass-fail system, KU administrators have been considering several possibilities for experimenting with pass-fail grading.
"Although there currently exist no formal proposals for such a system, there has been a good deal of discussion on the topic," Aldon Bell, assistant dean of the College, said.
THE EDUCATIONAL Policies Committee, policy-making body for the College, has considered experimenting with a Princeton-type grading system in KU's Centennial College, Bell said.
The Princeton system allows a student the option of taking one course per semester in which he receives either a passing or failing grade.
BELL, also director of KU's honors program, said he may try a pass-fail experiment with honors students if not other such experiment evolves within two years.
Now that KU has smaller divisions of the College such as Centennial College, discussions of pass-fail grading soon may become actual working experiments.
working experiments. "Experiments just aren't practical or wise with the entire College," Bell said.
ONE SCHOOL that has found sufficiently small student groups to test the new grading system is K-State. The school's geography division is now requires its new graduate students to take a one-hour credit geography course in which only passing and failing grades are given.
Dr. William Siddall, chairman of K-State's geography division, says the pass-fail system allows the students to focus attention on subject matter, rather than on preparing for examinations.
While many universities are discussing or conducting limited pass-fail experiments, more
and more colleges and universities are offering pass-fail courses as part of their usual curriculum.
THE FACULTY of Columbia University decided in December to join other Ivy League universities such as Prinston, Brown and Pennsylvania by offering students the one-courseoption system of pass-fail grading.
Other large universities using similar systems include Stanford, the California Institute of Techonology and the University of California at Berkeley.
Smaller colleges such as Mount Holyoke and Queens College in the East, Pomona and San Jose State College in the West, with Carleton and Grinnell in the middle also have initiated pass-fail grading.
MOST OF the schools limit the pass-fail grading to courses outside an upperclassman's field. A few of these colleges do not count passfail courses toward graduation requirements, somewhat like KU's course audit system.
Students at Columbia University may take the first course in their major field under pass-fail grading "to let them get a taste of" their major, according to John W. Alexander, associate dean for student affairs at Columbia.
Unlike most universities with pass-fail, Cal Tech uses the system in all of its freshman courses—a required block including math, physics, chemistry, English, and history—to reduce the competitive strain of the school's technical curriculum.
FOSTER STRONG, dean of freshmen at Cal Tech, says the program has reduced dropouts and encouraged "self-motivation rather than grade-grubbing."
Pass-Fail systems as vehicles for arousing student motivation have stimulated a Ford Foundation-sponsored program currently in progress at six universities, including the University of Colorado. Students are free to choose all their courses without grade or credit requirements.
Few of the schools with pass-fail grading Continued on page 3