Pass-fail carries; speech is required
By Pat Crawford Kansan Staff Reporter
A proposal to allow students to select, at enrollment, one course each semester to be graded on the pass-fail system was approved Tuesday in a College of Liberal Arts and Sciences faculty meeting. A proposal to abolish the freshman-sophomore speech requirement was defeated.
Under the pass-fail proposal, juniors and seniors would be allowed to choose one course outside their major to be graded as pass-fail. The measure must now go to the University Senate for approval before it can be put into effect.
The purpose of the pass-fail proposal is to enable students to take courses outside their major field which they would not take on a regular grading basis for fear of receiving a low grade. Teachers would grade a student on the regular system, but the registrar's office would register the rage as pass or fail. According to the Senate definition of grades, a D would be registered as passing.
A letter from the Ad Hoc committee to ban ROTC from campus was presented to the faculty members. The committee requested the College to consider whether ROTC courses should continue to receive University credit toward a College degree. The matter was
referred to the Educational Policies Committee for consideration and will be brought up at a future meeting.
In a discussion on the proposed abolition of the speech requirement, it was pointed out there already is no necessary requirement because of the speech examination. Sixty per cent of those who have taken the exam have passed it.
An objection to the speech requirement was that the two courses which are approved for the requirement differ in content. A member of the speech department said both courses deal in the same basic principle—the sender-message-receiver communication process.
The Educational Policies subcommittee, which made the proposal, conducted a survey of graduating seniors from the College concerning College graduation requirements. A majority of the seniors polled approved all the requirements except the speech requirement.
In connection with the pass-fail proposal, an amendment to limit the eligibility of students taking a pass-fail course to only those on the honor roll the previous semester was defeated. Another amendment to limit the proposal to only juniors and seniors was also defeated.
N. Viet test U.S.
LONDON—(UPI)—North Vietnam was reported Tuesday to be using the fencing over a site for preliminary Vietnam talks as a probe to determine U.S. toughness or readiness to comprise in negotiations.
Diplomatic sources said the United States was fully aware of these designs behind President Ho Chi Minh's tactics in the current squabble over the locale of the projected talks. Both Hanoi and Washington have spurned each others' suggestions for a site.
Hanoi Tuesday again attacked the United States for its failure to accept North Vietnamese demands that Phnom Penh or Warsaw be the meeting place.
The official Hanoi Communist party newspaper Nhan Dxo said the United States had "broken President Johnson's promise to hold peace talks 'anywhere, anytime.'" It termed "unsound" Defense Secretary Clark Clifford's explanation that Johnson meant any responsible place.
The London sources said that despite the haggling over the site, there was good reason to believe that a compromise would be reached, with Hanoi backing down from its demand that it must be their chosen site or nothing at all.
In Paris, United Nations Secretary General Thant also expressed optimism, predicting preliminary talks would start "very soon, probably this week." He said Phnom Penh, Warsaw, Geneva or Paris all would be suitable.
In Washington, however, the State Department flatly denied rumors circulating in New York financial circles that the United States and Hanoi already had reached agreement on a site.
The Communists have rejected 15 different meeting places proposed by the United States, while Washington has objected to Hanoi's call for Phnom Penh and Warsaw as the locations for talks.
WEATHER
The U.S. Weather Bureau predicts fair weather and warmer temperatures today and tonight with partly cloudy skies Thursday. The high tonight will be 65 to 68 and the low tonight will be 40 to 45. Probability for precipitation Thursday is 20 per cent.
But the North Vietnamese have dropped their original demands for Phnom Penh, limiting it to Warsaw on what presently appears to be a "take-it-or-leave-it basis."
Hanoi, the informants said, wants to discover whether the United States is so eager to negotiate that it will give in and accept any Communist-proposed site.
They suggested that North Vietnam appears to be proceeding from the assumption that if the United States bows to its demand, it will be a measure of Washington's compromise mood and a reflection of an American willingness to "negotiate from weakness."
New York —(UPI)— David Rockefeller, president of the Chase Manhattan Bank, called today for an immediate tax increase coupled with restraint in government spending to meet what he called "the crisis of the dollar"—called "the crisis of the dollar."
Dollar crisis is seen
kansan
78th Year, No. 119
A student newspaper serving KU
ROTC. Salsich, explaining his opposition to Reserve Officers Training Corps this morning said, "It's not voluntary. A young man has no choice—it's either ROTC or military service later. That's like a choice between dying in fire or in water." Dean Heller this morning said ROTC at KU is an "elective proposition" and that a student may or may not join, as he chooses.
Military research. The military is not dedicated to expanding "the frontiers of knowledge," Salsich said. The only research by the military is to make it possible to do its job "destruction of human life" faster and more efficiently. Researchers are dedicated to the pursuit of new knowledge, Heller said, and the application of that knowledge is done by others. "A researcher does not ask what the eventual use of the knowledge will be." Besides, he added, individuals not the University as a whole conduct research.
The disagreement over military presence on the campus falls into three categories:
LAWRENCE, KANSAS
Wednesday, April 24, 1968
Military recruiters. Recruiters represent a non-educational institution which coerces young men to train to kill, and shouldn't be
Heller, calmly attempting to discuss University actions and decisions, was, at times, met with hisses, catcalls and curses.
In their fight for a university free of the military, it was the anti-war students who threw the punches, accusing the "administration" of "complying with ROTC—a repressive part of our society," and engaging in research which could "exterminate a great number of persons."
KU military debated
By Joanna Wiebe Kansan Staff Reporter
The dialogue between Heller, acting provost and dean of faculties, and three graduate students —Hamilton Salsich, Webster Groves, Mo., graduate student and assistant instructor of English; Jay Barrish, Kansas City, Mo.; and Bob Cherry, Brooklyn, N.Y.—was planned as a discussion of the role of the University and its relationship with the military. About 90 students, faculty, and administrative officials attended the discussion.
Voices rose and tempers flared in an emotion-charged, $2\frac{1}{2}$-hour confrontation between Francis Heller and a group of antiwar KU students Tuesday night.
allowed on campus, Salsich said. The University is not an "employment agency," he said, and added that military recruiters apparently are chosen while other recruiters are rejected. Heller said the University follows an American Civil Liberties Union guideline and accepts all recruiters "without reservation."
Salsich began the marathon meeting with the query: "Mr. Heller, what are your attitudes as to the general function and purposes of Kansas University, particularly as these functions and purposes relate to social change?"
Heller gave the answer he has given before: "I will start with the premise that the University is dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge and truth," postulating an ideal he said he hopes the "institution comes as close to as possible."
The students, concerned about militarily funded research projects at KU, asked if students could make a "significant" change in military research policies, perhaps through a vote on faculty committee.
Heller, who earlier had made clear that he "was not giving vent to personal views" but was a representative of the University, said students had no voting voice in this or other decisions of the University, although student comments and ideas were invited.
"We're not a part of the University, we're just transients," a student in the audience muttered bitterly, and a majority of the students began to applaud.
"Yes, you are!" Heller replied angrily, slamming his hand on
the table. "I've been waiting for someone to say the University is here for the students.
"The University is dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge and truth." Heller repeated. "In view of the transiency of the student body . . .," he began, but was interrupted by Barrish.
"Rational discourse is meaningful only when there is a willingness to compromise," Barrish said, accusing the "administration" of being unwilling to compromise on any of the topics under debate. He said the students represented were willing to meet the "administration" half-way.
"Give us credit as men of good will that we do take the students' ideas into account," Heller asked. "But we find it exceedingly difficult to fit into the University decisions the contributions of individuals whose commitment is of a passing nature."
Salsich interrupted to say that unless students were given a voice in University decisions, unless the administration was willing to listen to the requests of the 15,000 students on this campus, "this University is going to blow up in two or three years just like Berkeley did."
Heller answered, "We have seen the impatience of student groups all over the country, and sometimes they have been regrettably violent."
Heller closed the discussion with an assertion that it would be "less than candid to say these are things we can take care of overnight."
"How can less than one per cent of the student body change anything at KU?" asked one student.
Gene wins easily
PITTSBURGH — (UPI)— Sen. Eugene McCarthy won an easy victory in Pennsylvania's Democratic primary Tuesday. His was the only name on the ballot.
The presidential primary, known as the "popularity poll" because it is not binding on convention delegates, drew only light numbers of voters.
Former Vice President Richard M. Nixon led Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller of New York and Gov. Ronald Reagan of California among the Republican write-ins.
McCarthy piled up a commanding early lead over the Democratic write-ins—Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, President Johnson and former Gov. George Wallace of Alabama. Wallace will be on the state's general election ballot in November under the American Independent party banner.
With 1,712 of the state's 9,460 precincts counted in the Democratic primary, McCarthy had 80,-865 votes; Kennedy 4,139; Humphrey 2,399; Johnson 1,044, and Wallace, 1,324. Republicans gave Nixon 4,750; Rockefeller 2,151 and Reagan 252.
ON A CLEAR DAY, YOU CAN SEE FOREVER
Photo by Bruce Patterson
More than 1,000 sorority and fraternity members took part in the Greek Week Banquet Tuesday night in the Kansas Union Ballroom.
Sen. Eugene J. McCarthy, D-Minn., campaigning in a ghetto area of Newark, N.J., was briefly trapped in his limousine by Negro youths who kicked and shook the car after one yelled "There's a white man in there." McCarthy was not injured and his reception was warm otherwise.
In the only statewide race, Sen. Joseph S. Clark of Philadelphia appeared to have won renomination to a third six-year term Tuesday night in Pennsylvania's Democratic primary against the challenge of U.S. Rep. John H. Dent.
With about one third of the state's precincts reported, Clark held a lead of more than 44,000 over Dent, who entered the race primarily to counter Clark's frequent criticism of President Johnson, particularly over the conduct of the Vietnam war.
Clark said shortly before midnight that there was "every indication that I have won."
But he added: "However, I've always been one who waits until all the returns are in. There have been no significant returns from the state. Not all the returns are in. I will wait for them."