Issues,policies & concepts
(Continued from page 5) commitment and academic provisions.
Dealing with organization, I think it's very important right after the election to get this thing rolling, because we have got one month before the summer starts so we don't get off to a bad start. We have to make committee appointments, and all the various functions that are very crucial to the success and operation of the student senate.
Secondly, I think the University commitment to the community is essential. We are in the only institution left in our society today that does not have an inherent interest in the advancement of our political and social structure that exists. It's time that our University began to challenge the policies of our society. It's time that our University got turned on to doing the research and developing the programs necessary to implement the things in our society that are necessary.
The polarization in our urban areas is one of the problems that is very crucial. Eighty per cent of our population in our country is living in urban areas, and yet, few college campuses are doing research in this area.
And again, I hit on the war in Vietnam. How much research is being done by the University on the war in Vietnam? How many policies of our government are being challenged? None. It's because we are a state institution and a state institution is not supposed to do that because we get money from the government. I say it's time we start standing up and doing research and making stands on the university scale on commitment.
We have a commitment to the Lawrence community. We haven't lived up to it. We're starting to make this change
PSA Rick von Ende
with Advocacy Planning. We've started to make this commitment, but it's not enough. It is only one course in the hundreds that are offered here.
The third area is academics. Most of the students who come here, come here as freshmen. They aren't exposed to another University. They think they're in, (quote) "Excellence in education." I doubt that.
Before I came here, I spent 18 hours in a junior college which naturally was inferior because they don't have the football teams, basketball teams or whatever make a big university. But I never had one undergraduate student, one professor who was too busy doing research to talk to students.
I think the first two years at our University, the freshman and
6 KANSAN Apr.22 1969
sophomore students are being robbed of an education. Undergraduate students and professors are too busy doing research to teach. Our professors are being saved for the junior and senior courses, and I think that if a student cannot learn to independently study and do his own research and know who to go to to find out the facts by the time he is a junior or senior I seriously doubt if he belongs in a higher education institution.
We need to get the person when he is a freshman and a sophomore, give him a qualified instruction at these times and make him prepared to go on his own in independent research.
In these three areas, organization, university commitment, and academic revision, I think are the most important things we can handle in the beginning.
YATES: I would like to ask each of the candidates what they feel the role of the student body president might be in dealing with the problems that too many people run up against with off-campus housing. I know this is something people say is not relevant to the operation of the University. The Kansan has been running a series of articles dealing with some of these problems and we've run into some very disturbing things that we have seen around Lawrence that you wouldn't imagine the conditions the students are living in. They really stagger the imagination.
I would like to know if there's anything you feel as the president of the student body you could do to implement a cure for this problem.
LEFFEL: One of the most crucial decisions that we make that affects our entire university experience is housing.
We have our on-campus housing, and we have our off-campus housing.
The decision we make on where we live affects our experience at KU. The problems in Lawrence with housing are really bad. The study that Ron is doing I'm sure will reveal the drastic situation that exists not only for students, but for the entire community of Lawrence.
The New Jersey Street project which started last weekend, revealed to all the people in those realistic terms, just how poor some of the housing conditions are.
We have an immediate interest in our student body and how students are related to off-campus housing. One of the most outspoken persons in the off-campus housing area are the black students and foreign students who are often discriminated against.
So, we hear about this, and not an awful lot has been done. The persons who live in unorganized housing have a tendency not to get together.
They are discriminated against because they "don't speak quite so good English," like they say, speak just a little, or because of the color of their skin, when the ign goes out and says, no, we don't have any space.
To get off this and down to the real basis, there is an unorganized housing association provided for in the new senate. This group is beginning to develop. In certain areas, especially in the Graduate School, there are some persons who are getting very interested in this. Bringing together people that live in the off-campus areas, and are willing to work together and to speak out, both to the city of Lawrence and to the University about the conditions that prevail.
needs. Here, we have a health center or a legal center.
We have a need for legal assistance in this area, possibly more than some of the other
We propose in our platform to have legal service available to the students who have been discriminated against,who have questions on contracts and rental agreements.
Finally, we have those students who come from out of state or from a foreign country. In the first few days, they are trying to search for a home, and yet have no place to live here.
CC Frank Zilm
We feel that University facilities are available in late summer and should be made available to foreign students and out of state students for them to stay in while they are searching for a place to live.
The housing office at the University has not been as effective as it could be, so I think we should decide what we want this housing office to do, and let's get them to do it. Last year, we saw new progress made in the field of off-campus housing by Frank Hummer in the People-to-People program and these other associations who have done a very fine job in trying to inform students of the problem of housing and what's been going on.
The low-cost housing in Lawrence is limited, and we need it, and the University should take a role in the student senate by working through cooperatives and through housing programs and the new renewal programs in Lawrence and the federal government must become involved and can become involved. The organization to do that is first the unorganized housing association and the student senate working as a background to support these activities.
AWBREY: The eighth point of our platform states, "In connection with the law students', Civil Rights Research Council, we will establish free inspection service for University Housing, especially for foreign students and minority group housing to see that housing units meet minimal standards to
insure that discrimination is not practiced by Lawrence property owners who rent to University students.
The University has absolutely no power to reprimand property owners in the city of Lawrence.
The city of Lawrence has a housing code. The city of Lawrence has an open housing code also. These are not enforced. We intend, if elected, to make sure they are enforced. We are going to do this by having some discussions with the city council of the city of Lawrence. We are going to ask the prosecuting attorney to prosecute people who discriminate—and they are doing it every day, to prosecute slum lords, many of whom are University professors and University people. The University is doing nothing to police their own people in this regard. We have a few very notorious ones on this campus and I think there are some people in this room who could testify to that fact.
Therefore, our position paper number seven has stated that we intend to have a very active housing administration on this campus.
We feel that the student senate should set up a rating system. We think if you want to live in a $200 apartment, you should be able to, but you should live in a slum if you want to, also.
However, we feel that housing laws should be enforced to a certain degree, and a rating system such as an A, B, and C should be set up. Mainly, the way this would work is that the University Senate would establish a committee to investigate all this housing. I think the UDK has taken a tremendous step in this direction already. These results would be filed in the housing department, and students could come and check on them and see what kind of conditions such and such a house has, whether they meet the minimum standards or not. I thoroughly defend the right of each person to live wherever he wants to, that should not be taken away from him at all.
We cannot say, "You cannot live in that house because it's bad." We cannot say that.
The University tells freshmen and sophomore girls they have to live in dormitories. How can the student senate tell other students where they should live? I don't think that's right. I do think minimal standards set by law in the city of Lawrence should be enforced.
VON ENDE: We believe essentially the same sorts of things, except that Lawrence Ordinance No. 3580, which is the minimum housing code, is rather weak in that it provides very minimal standards. Kind of low-rent. That could be beefed up, and it could be beefed up
through student demands or student boycotts if they could be properly organized.
Let's face it. What we pour into this community in terms of pure dollars and cents is enough to shut the place down if we hold it back.
It's easy to talk about rating houses A, B, and C, but once again, there is just so much housing in Lawrence, and somebody is going to end up with D or F. Somebody is going to end up with the low-rent stuff unless we make certain that the minimal standards are enforced, and that the minimal standards are upgraded.
As far as discrimination goes, this is probably the most abominable part of the Lawrence society.
We passed a resolution that was approved by the Chancellor's office, it's been approved by the Dean of Student Affairs, it's been approved by the attorney of the state of Kansas that anybody who feels he has been discriminated against either racially, religiously, or for any
ISP Marilyn Bowman
other reason, can file charges in the press, and the Dean of Student Affairs has been instructed by the Chancellor's office to publicize any case of discrimination that is brought to his office by anybody who feels he has been discriminated against.
The laws have to work, but where they don't, we should apply student pressure, and we can do that through the press.
See tomorrow's University Daily Kansan for the final installment of last Thursday's debate.
Kenvatta to speak
Charles Kenyatta, chairman of the Mau Mau Society of Harlem and Honorary Chairman of the Joint African Committee on Biafra, will speak at 8 p.m. tonight in the Kansas Union Forum Room.
Kenyatta, a former Black Muslim, will speak on "What is Truth in Biafra."
Class of '70 Don Farrington—President Gary Patzkowsky Vice President Paid for by FP