ASC apathetic during post-war quiet
(The KU All-Student Council (ASC) died last Thursday night. This is the second in a series of articles on ASC's 26-year history.)
By JOANNA WIEBE Kansan News Editor
The post-war quiet of the Eisenhower administration from 1952 to 1960 was reflected on the KU campus. A vice chairman of the ASC attended a student body presidents' conference at Ann Arbor, Mich. in 1957 and reported back that apathy about student government is found on every American campus.
Most o' the ASC news from this period deals with elections, the appointing and hearing of reports from endless committees, a quiet storm over stuffed ballot boxes, various constitutional amendment referendums, and measures to curb ASC absenteeism.
In 1957, ASC became an active member of the National Student Association (NSA) in an effort to "improve student government." At that time NSA favored overall "gradual elimination of segregation as best suited to the individual interests of the school," the ASC president said.
Hoover committee
A drive that year unified the House and Senate of ASC into a unicameral legislative body.
Many Kansans of that era report that at the ASC meetings
"no quorum was present so no action could be taken."
A "Hoover committee" took a four-year look at the student committees of the ASC. The report severely criticized the Public Relations and Labor and Housing Committees, and complimented the other four. Of the 32 committee members mentioned in the report, nine were unaware of being appointed. Two committees (12 members) had never met.
In 1958, another committee was appointed—to study racial discrimination in Lawrence and at KU. As usual, this strike for liberalism did not go unopposed.
"The Negro students would be put in the limelight again and they wouldn't like that," said the ASC vice chairman.
A liaison committee was set up to advise the Kansas Board of Regents, the Kansas Legislature,
2 KANSAN Feb. 24 1969
A committee—yes, another one—was set up to investigate the adequacy of Watkins Hospital and came up with the conclusion that the Hospital was doing fine, considering its overcrowded conditions.
The same year, 1961, ASC wound up in the red, and was bailed out by a $1,100 appropriation from Chancellor W. Clark Wescoe.
the Lawrence City Council, and the Governor in matters concerning KU students.
Hospital
A Civil Rights coordinator of the ASC told the members in 1962 that the status of black KU students is constantly improving. He said there was little "open" discrimination on the KU campus. He cited the winning of the Military Ball Queen by a Negro girl and the selection of
the first Negro counselor at a freshman dormitory, a black Hilltopper, and the number of blacks participating in sports and competing for top scholastic and political honors.
Yet, two years later, ASC voted to withhold support of the Civil Rights Coordinating Committee (CRCC) in their protest demonstrations against certain Greek activities.
People-to-People came under fire the same year because of alleged discriminatory practices of the club in past years. A suggestion, not adopted, was that P-to-P be divorced from ASC jurisdiction. ASC chose, however, to let the group choose its own officers and make its own policies.
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