KANSAN COMMENT
First priority: a new hospital
In 1931, Mrs. J. B. Watkins donated Watkins Memorial Hospital to the 4,000 students of the University of Kansas. The building provided good service to those mid-Depression few, but remained virtually unchanged as the number of students quadrupled and the campus extended far to the south and west.
Criticism of the hospital's leaky walls and roof, poor lighting and ventilation, faulty plumbing, and most of all its lack of space, mounted over the years. The complaints were met by varying degrees of promises and placation, but the promises remained unfilled and the placation resulted in festering student disgust with the long interval between check-in and treatment, and the halls-turned-crowded-waiting-rooms.
In November, however, the Student Senate Health Committee issued its 13-page report on the state of Watkins. The report proposed either an addition to the present structure (which it termed a "half-way" measure) or a new hospital at a more favorable site. The Senate approved a resolution supporting the second choice—a $2 million, two-story structure providing for later expansion.
Final action depends on the results of Tuesday's student referendum. Two of the nine questions on it concern health service.
The first—Do you favor construction of a new University Health Center?—should and, in all likelihood, will be answered in the affirmative. Phrasing the question in terms of a new building, instead of an addition to the present one, reflects the Health Committee's findings that the annex plan would mean a great deal of disruption of the old building's operation while the new wing was constructed, that the parking situation would become worse with increased congestion of vehicles serving the hospital, that further expansion could only be upward, and that the result would be somewhat unpredictable and very costly.
The second question—Would you be willing to pay $10 a semester to help finance a new hospital, without which it cannot be built? (student funds alone pay for university hospitals) is not only crucial to the hospital plan but is the most significant issue on the ballot.
If the Health Committee's recommendations
are followed, the new structure would have waiting rooms with adequate space and proper ventilation to prevent infection, sufficient secretarial and record areas, reasonably soundproof examination rooms, dining rooms for special diets and in-patient meals, and a large pharmacy area. The site would probably be the parking lot north of Allen Field House and east of Jayhawk Towers apartments, where the parking problem would be eliminated and there would be room for new wings.
So a yes vote on this issue which has been the focus of a multitude of student gripes seems the only reasonable, consistent and provident one.
Yet there are two other money questions on the ballot. The satellite union would require about $6.50 a semester and the humanities building $7.50 a semester.
Should all three be accepted, students would be tacking $24.50 to their semester fee statements next year, in addition to the incidental fee raises already announced by the Board of Regents. (The Senate might subtract a few dollars from the student activity fee, but maneuvering room is limited within the $12 amount.)
The total might be reduced another way, though—by rejecting the satellite union, the need for which is small compared to that for the hospital. The Wescoe Hall fee is probably in, whether the students approve it or not. Some members of the Board of Regents have already said that they will take the Student Senate's previous yes vote as their mandate to continue with plans. Only a sizable defeat by a large voter turnout might change the Regents' minds.
One avenue is open to students who disapprove of the precedent of using student fees to finance academic buildings: rejecting the question which asks just that.
Given those escape hatches—minor as they may be—the $10 assessment for Watkins should be approved.
After years of crying in the wilderness, KU has an opportunity to guarantee many of the students here, and all those to come, relief from the intolerable hospital situation that otherwise can only deteriorate.
—Monroe Dodd
hearing voices—
To the editor:
It is time for the students, faculty, and administration of this institution to stand up and be counted. The current ill-advised and unwarranted actions by the Board of Regents threaten to destroy the University of Kansas. For the first time in the history of the University, the Board of Regents has questioned the promotions of faculty members after the recommendations have been made by the administration. This action has been clearly provoked by the ignorance of Senator Shultz who somehow feels required to make political hay out of minor incidents occurring on one of the quietest large campuses in the nation. Such a reaction does not discourage the type of actions that Shultz objects to, but merely brings unwarranted attention to bear on minor incidents.
It is clear that the response by the student body to the actions of the Board of Regents must be carefully planned. While it is necessary that a quantum of pressure be applied, it must be applied in a fashion that is not counterproductive. Actions which produce a negative response in the minds of many people can only subject the Regents to greater pressure to crack down on the academic freedom and autonomy of this University.
The net result of the actions of the Board of Regents is to cast a pall over free speech and academic freedom. Such an action can only result in the eventual erosion of the quality of students and faculty at this University. If the Regents do deny the promotions there is a distinct possibility of mass resignations among the faculty and of censure by the American Association of University Professors. These events would be catastrophic to the future academic excellence of the University of Kansas.
Thomas E. Ashton, III Lawrence
second year law student
BY SOKO10FF
© David Sokoloff 1970
National pastime... upside down under
(Editor's note: the writer is a native of Australia who became an American citizen in 1960.)
By JOHN B. BREMNER Associate Professor of Journalism Cricket Blue, 1936
The rounders season begins today. Americans call it baseball. It is a national passion, a sacred tribal rite. To Americans, baseball is even more sacred than the Constitution, the Statue of Liberty, plastic food franchises and the separation of church and state.
Foreigners, particularly those of us who learned cricket at their mothers' knees and at other joints, never quite understand what baseball is all about.
It seems to center on a character grotesquely garbed in 19th century bicycle breeches who throws a five-ounce leather ball the length of a cricket wicket at another character similarly costumed. Any weekend cricketer, especially an Australian, could clout this ball into the next state. But these baseballers get three chances. And they rarely connect. All hell breaks loose when they do. A man who misses only two balls out of three becomes a national hero.
These two breeches boys and the seven other characters who make up a team receive higher salaries than university professors and are far more highly respected.
So Character A, the bowler, throws this ball to Character B, the batsman. Figuring he has a couple more chances, the batsman lets the ball pass through to Character C, the wicket-keeper. A dignified gentleman in black, clothed in a Mae West life preserver, raises a snappy finger and apologetically announces, "Strike!"
The foreigner at the ball park does not know what "strike" means but he can see that the dignified gentleman in black is considered by many of the patrons to be more than somewhat unreasonable and maybe even a little prejudiced. The gentleman in black is supposed to be the umpire. If the foreigner happens to be British and therefore brought up to regard an umpire's decision as infallibly sacrosanct, he blushes in bewildered shame.
The batsman then insults the umpire's mother. The batting team's supporters throw beer cans. The manager leaps out of his trench and shakes a naughty finger. The umpire insults the manager's mother. The bewildered foreigner wonders whether anybody in the whole stadium was born in wedlock.
The bowler throws the ball again. This time the batsman taps it to a fieldman, hurls his bat away and starts running. The fieldman stops the ball with gloved hand. Remember, that ball weighs five ounces. In New Guinea the fieldman's father used to catch grenades with bare hands. The son now pirouettes, gavottes and tosses the little ball to another gloved gladiator standing on a white piece of canvas. The batsman charges into this gladiator. They roll on the canvas in a flurry of white chalk. The mob yells, the chalk settles and the umpire's mother is back in the script.
And so it goes on. It goes on for three or four hours a day from April through September. October comes around, and two teams chosen from the best in 13 states, one province and the District of Columbia stage a series of games to decide the championship of "The World."
It's good clean American fun. You never get to understand what it's all about but you can't help loving this childlike, big-hearted people.
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