Senate Code vote today
Vote "yes" on the Senate Code proposal today or tomorrow.
The code is a pacifier for student activism; it doesn't provide a solution to the quest for student involvement in education. The code will only substitute one form of government for another and if the code passes, next year KU won't be much different than all the years before.
The publicity about the Senate Code has been ineffective and the majority of KU students don't know what the code is about, don't know how the new University Faculty and Student Seante would operate and don't know either the limitations or possibilities of the proposal.
Whether this is the fault of the All-Student Council representatives who haven't taken the time to educate their constituents, or the fault of the various news media on campus in not clearly explaining the code, or the outgrowth of plain student apathy makes no difference now. The voting is now and the ridiculously complicated legal language of the Senate Code can't be explained in 40 lines of editorial type.
But do vote "yes." Why?
The Senate Code, providing the mechanism for students and faculty and administrators sitting in the same governing body, will essentially have no more power or influence than the present University Senate has. And this isn't a great deal.
The only immediate increase of power could possibly be in the influence of
students and faculty on some of the standing committees in the executive department of the University Senate.
The real power centers of education, the individual school administrations and the top administrators of the whole University, won't be substantially affected by the code.
The Senate Code does,however,provide a workable structure for real student and faculty involvement and influence in education in the future.
Although much less spectacular, the Senate Code is a more effective and most importantly a more lasting way to establish channels of communication with the University powers-that-be than a direct confrontation with police on the steps of Strong Hall.
The students and faculty on the proposed University Senate could in the future give students more rein in deciding their needs and wants in education; it could explore the disadvantages of the tenure system for faculty and the dangers of too much scholarly research; it could involve the University more effectively in social action.
The University Senate could do all this; but the present code doesn't answer the problems: it only opens channels for further action.
Vote "yes." The Senate Code, as the pacifier of today, could be the active force of tomorrow. (AMS)
A use for rebates
The Kansas Union Executive Board is faced with a problem it must solve shortly after the end of the fiscal year June 1. The problem is what to do with extra funds received by the Kansas Union Bookstore.
The bookstore realizes about nine per cent in extra funds from the sale of books each year. Until now seven per cent has been returned to purchasers who turn in their blue receipts. The other two per cent has been used to pay off a federal loan, which was accomplished last summer.
For the present this two per cent has been put in the general operating fund of the union as a recommended reserve. A final decision on what to do with the money will be made by a vote of the operating committee after the end of the fiscal year.
Numerous suggestions have been made as to what to do with the money, including some that would take the whole student rebate and put it into a fund for loans and scholarships.
On the other side some people say the bookstore should stop overcharging students or give them the whole nine per cent rebate.
One of the best suggestions heard so far has been made by Clifford Ketzel, professor of political science. Ketzel suggested taking the two per cent, or an additional two per cent from the rebate and use it to finance an Upward-bound program at the University of Kansas.
The amount of money involved is considerable. Last year $77,611 was returned to students in the form of book store rebates. If two per cent were taken from the total to finance an Upward-bound program it would amount to about $22,174. There is a possibility matching funds could be obtained from the Office of Economic Opportunity under the poverty program.
Optimistically this would provide more than $45,000 to help persons from underprivileged areas and minority groups to become students at KU. Ketzel also suggested some money be put aside to pay a few graduate assistants to tutor these students until they are able to make the grade on their own.
Figuring the cost at about $2,500 per student, this would allow about 15 students to enter KU under the program. This doesn't sound like many, however, Ketzel said the program should be started at a size that can be handled and controlled to provide a working base from which to expand.
The program has merit, and more than that it provides the student with a way to correct a situation which his ideals say is wrong. The only way a program like this can succeed is through student support.
While allowing some relief from high book prices it allows students to make a contribution toward the grander goal of a free society with equal educational opportunities.(ATJ)
"We must preserve the sanctity of marriage."
A voice from the establishment
A 70-year-old southern editor who died recently in Atlanta may be of little interest to today's university generation. His advanced age automatically consigns him to the ash-heap, and many of his concerns might not seem relevant to our mod world of much hair and much thigh.
But he seems relevant to me, so I'll say a few words in his behalf. He was Ralph McGill, editor and publisher of the Atlanta Constitution. He had been with that paper for 40 years. He died a tired and sick man, and he died already recognized as one of the great editors of the land. Instead of commenting, in the safety of a quiet northern community, on racial bigotry, he did it in Atlanta, the big city in the state of Eugene Talmadge, Herman Talmadge and Lester Maddox. He helped to make Atlanta one of the enlightened cities of the South. In writing about the bigots, the Kluxers and the pseudo-Kluxers and those too "respectable" to be Kluxes, he came to know the sight of a burning cross, the feeling of an anonymous call in the night, the awareness that his life might be in peril.
Ralph McGill chose to be a hero, in a time when few of us care to be heroes, in an age that has taken the anti-hero, literary and otherwise, into its heart. He didn't look like a hero—more a Thomas Mitchell than a John Wayne. And he probably wrote, sometimes, scared of the consequences, as editors like him have done since Zenger and Lovejoy.
His relevance to a university campus? Well, he might provide cheer and inspiration to those who wonder if they have the courage to say what they think, to attack the bully boys who are forcing their views on newspapers and administrations throughout the country. Or those who make the anonymous phone calls and set off the bomb scares—scares that may be phony, but that may be real.
There were bully boys 15 years ago, just before Joe McCarthy finally got his. There were some five years ago, when one newspaper cartoonist—Bill Sanders of the Kansas City Star—got threatening telephone calls every night. There are some today, and they, too, have caused editors to wonder if they want to be heroes. Most of us will play it cool, for if there were more cowards there'd be fewer wars. Others will be like Ralph McGill, and their names will be the great ones in the history books.
Calder M. Pickett Professor of Journalism
Off the Walls
"Sacred cows make great hamburger"
"Ikonoclasts (sic) on the rampage go Griffs"
"Is Gentle Ben a laxative?"
"American apples support the best-fed worms in the world"
"Please ask attendant to replace towels"
"Trotsky will return"
"Ban books"
"Beware of the great armadillo"
"It is better to have loved and lost than to have put linoleum in your living room"
"Our grass is going to pot"
Kansas Telephone Numbers
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Newsroom—UN 4-3646 Business
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