KANSAN Comment Elections? Until Thursday night, the presidential candidate for the ISP and/or ACT political parties had been anyone and everyone's guess. The candidacy of Dave Awbrey is supposedly and hopefully the last word on the "un from many" candidates. Until then the name of the game had switched from student politics to "To Tell the Truth." To determine the candidates took an educated panelist with problems such as these: Number one, what is your name and what do you do? My name is Bob Stoddard and I always run for student government. I am a mild-mannered candidate, with an even milder platform. Number two, what is your name and what do you do? My name is Bill Hansen. I am running on the Independent Student Party (ISP) ticket and/or the Action Coalition Party (ACT) ticket. I am your on-again, off-again student candidate. I specialize in trying to please all of the candidates all of the time with my un-candidacy. Number three, what is your name and what do you do? I think my name is David Awbrey and I think I'm running for student body president. In a few minutes I may not be, but for right now let's say I am. My un-candidacy has been compared to the Kansas weather-if you don't like it, wait a few minutes and I'll change. Well KU students, it's time to decide and vote on the real student un-candidate. Is it number one? Number two? Number three? Time's up! We will now have Miss Marilyn Bowman, the un-running mate shake the hand of the real ISP and/or ACT student government un-candidate. With hand extended Miss Bowman heads for number two, then number three, now back to two. Tension mounts. Wait a minute, she's heading for three. Wait a minute, she's heading for three. The audience is going wild. Even poor Miss Bowman can't decide who the real un-candidate for student government is. It's little surprise. In 72 hours the ACT and/or ISP parties banded and disbanded three times. Mr. Hansen jumped in and out of the political arena thrice. Mr. Awbrey's moves were anyone's guess. Mr. Stoddard seemed to be the most capable of the three but unfortunately he left the whole mess. And Miss Bowman, the un-running-mate . . . Well, even Miss Bowman was having her troubles. Ah, but future of student government certainly looks bright. Rusty Leffel is supposedly alive and well for anyone who cares. Concerning the un-candidates Hansen and Awbrey and/or anyone else who had entered the race at one time or other—the future looked equally bright. Reflect on the past week's activities of their un-party(ies) and look forward to the transition of a new form of student government. As for the moment, if you don't like the present political scene—just close your eyes and pretend it's whatever you want it to be. It's a "never-never land" for campus politics and any of our un-candidates can easily perform the leading role of Peter Pan. (JKD) 'See? I knew it wouldn't work. All rights reserved Publisher/Hall Syndicate The Western Civ. program A voice from the establishment By CALDER M. PICKETT Professor of Journalism 1. Is it really necessary to read all that stuff in primary document form? Is it conceivable that after a few paragraphs of Calvin or Galileo you have got the man's drift and his style (in the case of Calvin I find Having been an unpaid discussion leader in the Western Civilization program for 10 years I would appear to have the right to make known some views about this much-hated student requirement, and hereby petition the Kansan to permit me to do so. Brickbats this time likely will come not from students but from persons involved in the program. I teach my students that they must be prepared for the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, so here proceeds another world adventure in print. I start with a powerful commitment to the concept of Western Civilization. And with deep admiration for the dedication of those persons who have administered Western Civ over the years. The young man who bluntly argued with me recently that Western Civ was a lot of nonsense does not get my sympathy. But maybe it is. Maybe the starting point should be a consideration of the very validity of kowing all that business. Or its relevance. That's undoubtedly what stops many students, who cannot see what Western Civ has to do with their jobs, with their futures. Americans are so intensely practical-minded that we, or at least many of us, are unable to grasp the significance of something unless we can see how we can use it on the job. Can one use Luther and Hobbes and Marx and Sartre on the job? Probably not, but he certainly can use Machiavelli, and understanding the social contract and laissez-faire and population problems and communism and fascism certainly would help in understanding many news stories of the sixties. But you've all been through this before, maybe starting with that first discussion session when someone was trying to offer his rationale for the program. In a more negative sense I would like to ask some questions about the program: even a few paragraphs too much, and I continue to marvel that the unreadable John Locke influenced our founding fathers so much)? Why not let the student see how badly the man wrote and then put his words into English and interpret them and attempt to show their relation to their times and to the present? 2. Is it vastly important that the student be able to identify particular quotations from the writer? Is it conceivable, that is, that the kid who has learned what Newton said from a secondary source is as well off as the one who learned from the original (probably didn't learn it would be more like it; at least this would be my observation from years of fighting with kids on this stuff)? 3. Is it necessary that the discussion leader sit back and let the students struggle through what sometimes is little better than an argument, and give them no direction. What if he lectured once in awhile? What if, out of his own knowledge, he stopped the class, said all this is utter nonsense, and clarified things? I started doing this years ago when it occurred to me that a student generation separated by many years from the Great Age of Hitler was talking utter bulge in considering whether Nietzsche's superman wasn't maybe a great thing. Since then I have been reading to them about what Edward R. Murrow saw in Buchenwald, the ultimate of supermanism, and if this is in violation of the program and its concept then somebody can fire me. 4. For that matter, might it not be a good idea to have some solid authority offer lectures? Or maybe the teachers should be solid authorities themselves? Is it not curious that one of the toughest courses on the campus should, in some cases, be directed by people with little more education and experience than the students have themselves? (Now that one should draw fire from somebody.) 5. Does the examination have to be so blasted hard, so ambiguous? Isn't there some way to structure an exam that would seem less of a hardship to thousands of kids every year? 6. Must the quality of the discussion sessions be so uneven? Some are excellent, some are good, some are bad, some are atrocious. Some, by report over the years, are handled in an atmosphere of near terror. Should a student ever be placed in a kind of peril because he expresses opinions that do not agree with the dogma peddled by the teacher (this question could apply not only to Western Civ but to many other courses on this free campus)? 7. And finally, shouldn't there be deep concern, voiced by faculty all over the campus, that a course apparently deemed by them to be of transcending importance should be one of the most-hated things at KU? Western Civ, like math, speech and foreign language, is just an obstacle. That's all, at the moment. Even some of the most "enlightened" students loathe it. Shouldn't we try to make this valuable program an exciting educational experience rather than something to be dreaded like the annual invasion of Asian flu? Newroom---UN 4-3646 Business Office---UN 4-4358 Publications: UN 4-3646 Academic year except holidays and examination periods. Mail subscription rates: $6 a semester, $10 a year. Second class postage paid at Lawern, Kan. 66044. Accommodations, goods, services and employment offered to all students without regard to color, creed or national origin. Please contact those of the University of Kansas or the State Board of Regents. 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