4.
Photo by Mike Radencich
Professors speak at annual debate
Robert E. Nunley, left, and Robert W. McColl, right, professors of geography, talk on overpopulation problems facing the human race. Nunley took a "conservationist" point of view while McColl upheld more of a "human conquest" point of view.
Los Angeles school officials made plans Sunday to conduct huge open-air classes today in the face of a strike promised by teachers in the nation's second largest school system.
by United Press International
Teacher walkouts continue
In Minneapolis, Minn., students will have the day off Monday while administrators and non-striking teachers regroup after two days of teacher walkouts which closed half of the city's schools last week.
School board lawyers in Butte, Mont., prepared petitions for an injunction Sunday in efforts to halt a teachers strike that began Friday morning, idling more than 9,000 students.
Los Angeles' 616 schools will be open for business Monday, and even teachers who planned to picket urged students to report for classes as required by state law. Members of the United Teachers of Los Angeles voted 11,899 to 5,752 to go on strike.
School Supt. Robert Kelly sent instructions to principals to consolidate classes and have students meet in auditoriums and outdoors where administrative aides and non-striking teachers would instruct them.
Beginning teachers in Los Angeles make $7,200 a year. The union rejected a proposed 5 per cent raise.
Negotiators representing the 3,435 public school teachers in Minneapolis met during the weekend in efforts to reach an agreement on salary.
Teachers, seeking 20 per cent raises on their current pay scale that ranges from $7,500 to $16,765, began vacating their classrooms Thursday. At least 70 of the city's 99 schools had either closed or curtailed classes by Friday.
Minneapolis school officials offered a $2.5 million package calling for 10 per cent raises but it was rejected.
The decision to close Butte schools came after negotiations broke down Friday. Administrators said there will be no more
Overpopulation discussed at debate
By MIKE RADENCICH Kansan Staff Writer
talks until teachers return to their classrooms.
What are the problems of overpopulation facing the human race, and how can they be solved?
Butte teachers, whose current salaries range from $6,366 to $10,845, rejected an offer for a 7.9 per cent raise.
Nunley said he took a "conservationist" point of view, saying man could live with his environment by adapting to it instead of conquering it.
Those were only two or one questions discussed in an annual debate on population between two KU professors of geography, Robert E. Nunley and Robert W. McColl.
McColl took more of a "human conquest" point of view, saying that man could control his environment to make it work for him while keeping it intact.
- A philosophical point of view, taking into account the environment.
- There were three major points discussed by both professors:
- Absolute numbers of people and the problems involved with the already great numbers of people.
- Rate of growth; how fast the population is increasing and the problems involved.
The amount of land space never changes but the population increases, so the ratio of people to land area is growing into alarming proportions, Nunley said.
"How much of this land will be used for technology?" Nunley asked. He said we talked too much about what we could do with the land and not what we were actually doing with our present technology. When we look at our present situation, we could not provide enough food and shelter for today's needs with our present technology.
Nunley said that the problems involved with the first point, the absolute numbers of people, were many. The total population of the earth is now about 3.5 billion people, living on a total land area of 57 million square miles.
McColl took up the argument by saying that the basic question was "How can we supply the growing numbers of people?"
Muskogee, Okla. teachers served notice Friday they would withhold services until the school board comes up with an integration plan acceptable to the federal courts. Pupils from 22 schools will have the day off Monday.
The only problem involved here, McColl said, is distributing the food, a problem that is manmade, not environmental. Presently we cannot actually get the food to the people that really need it, but if we concentrated the people into the big cities, we could solve this problem, he said.
The population of the earth, McColl said, is not distributed evenly across the face of the earth. The great cities demonstrate this, he said.
12 KANSAN Apr. 13 1970
If, he said, we could continue this concentration of the population and open up the western lands for food growth,we could feed the population.
Discussing the second point- the rate of growth-Nunley said the problem of population was becoming progressively worse.
From the year 1650 to 1850, the total population on the earth approximately doubled. It doubled again between 1850 to 1950. By 1975, the population will almost have doubled again. This, Nunley said, shows that the time for the population to double itself is becoming rapidly shorter.
The growth rate in the under-developed countries, he said, is staggering. In Costa Rica, for example, the population doubles every 17 years, so the number of schools has to double, the number of hospitals has to double, the food output has to double and so on, he said.
Nunley said these underdeveloped countries could not keep up with this staggering growth rate, and they become progressively backward. He said that the only way to stop this tremendous growth rate would be to curtail it by using technology to find better methods of birth control.
Given varying categories of jokes, 72 per cent of the soldiers and firemen preferred the sex joke, a type teachers tended to react to with a tired smile, Victoroff reports in Atlas magazine. About 58 per cent of the teachers preferred the more sophisticated absurd joke, while most students revealed a penchant for grotesque satire.
McColl said that eventually the total population of the earth would actually level off, following the "S-curve" idea of technological growth in relation to population growth. He said that the population tends to level off after times of great technological growth and that we could expect the same to happen in our case
The professors agreed on the third topic of the debate, the philosophical point of view.
Parent numbers grow birth boom reflected
The National Industrial Conference Board estimates that between now and 1880, the parent population will increase by 23 percent. The pace is faster than during any comparable period since World War II. By 1980, nearly three out of every five families, totalling 35.5 million, will have a child living at home.
NEW YORK (UPI) — Numbers of parents are on the rise, reflecting the birth boom of the 1950's.
HE WHO LAUGHS ETC,
NEW YORK (UFI)--You are
what you laugh at, according to
French psychiatrist David Victoroff,
who made tests on the laughing
habits of 700 soldiers, firemen,
teachers and students.
HE WHO LAUGHS ETC.
McColl said man would have to conquer the environment to make it work for him. This is especially true in his idea of concentrating the population into the cities and
using the remaining land for food production.
High school teachers in Santa Maria, Calif., seeking a 15 per cent raise, went on strike Friday and voted to continue their walk-out through today. Maria voters have rejected three efforts to generate school revenue in the past year.
Nunley said we were fighting a losing battle in this conquest because the environment could not take it any longer. We must adapt to and live with our environment, he said.
This annual debate was used as a learning experience for students in geography, said Nunley. By presenting two basic points of view, he said, the students can make up their own minds about how to approach the problem.
Nunley outlined this idea by saying that as we see these staggering facts about population growth, we can see that without proper methods of control we run the risk of damaging the environment.
Nunley said this was the fourth year that he and McColl engaged in the population debate.
This brought up the basic point that the professors disagreed on: how can we approach the problem of living with our environment?
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