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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 4, 1950)
First Day of 'Classes' The Board of Deans, which sets the academic calendar for the University, seems to have gone overboard in the hopes of cramming as many actual class days as possible into the school year. They defeated this purpose by having final exams start in the middle of the week, meaning many professors called off Wednesday classes if an examination was scheduled for the following Thursday. Now we have registration and classes beginning on the same day—again many professors call off their first class; other professors lecture to half-empty classrooms. Comes spring term and we get a short four-day vacation. How many students will hurry back to the campus for the first day of classes, and how many will drag back the second, third, or fourth day is anybody’s guess. But miracle of miracles, all these inconveniences reuslt in the University term’s end coinciding with that of OSC. A no table and worthy achievement—but OSC reaches the same goal with less actual classroom days. And just how “actual” a classroom day is when some classes are called off and others are attended by half the num ber enrolled, is a question the Board of Deans may best answer. It is hoped they will find a suitable answer and adjust next year’s academic calendar. We Are Not a Bloodhound We are not a bloodhound. And even if we were a bloodhound with five pedigrees and a double barrel nose we could not find our way through the bureaucratic chaos of the present registration system. What do we (and the editorial we means you, too) do when, taking up the registration cards we laid down three weeks ago we shiver through the sub-zero weather to Emerald Hall, and after asking at least a dozen glassy-eyed persons what to do next, get sent to McArthur court? What do we do when we go to McArthur court, find all the entrances marked EXIT, brave a booby-trap by venturing into one of the exit entrances, finally find an official and are told that unless a veteran we should go back to Emerald Hall? Thinking that if veteran means veteran of registration lines we certainly are, we head north again, into the wind. And what do we do when back at Emerald hall, we bring the girl at the other end of a stamp to near tears by being the jackpot-one millionth person to tell her, “I’m lost?” What do we do? Why, we decide, To perdition with this old stuff, and go out to coffee with other poor lost sheep picked up along the way. And while out to coffee we decide that the 500 people who are being fined for completing certain registration steps late should not bother to pay their fees until Easter—because it says in the catalog that one can’t be fined twice during the same registration procedure. And we conclude that, if blame can be laid, it should not be placed on Registrar Constance, but rather on the bizarre ac ademic calendar cooked up last year by the Board of Deans. And while thinking of the august Board of Deans we begin to laugh. It occurs to us that maybe this is just a gigantic ac ademic version of a carnival fun-house planned for our enter tainment by the powers that, sadly enough, be. Without the 40 cents plus tax admission, yet! And then we remember that we really ought to get regis tered somehow. We stop laughing for we still don’t quite know how to go about it. We repeat, we are not a bloodhound.—B.H. Daihf EMERALD Tbe Oregon Daily Emerald published daily during the college year except Sundays, Monduys, holidays and final examination periods by the Associated Students, University of Oregon. Subscription rates: $3.00 a term, $4.00 for two terms and $5.00 a year. Entered as second class matter at the postoffice Eugene, Oregon. Don A. Smith, Editor Joan Mimnaugh, Business Manager Haruaka IUywood, 11Kirn Sherman, Associate F.Jitors. Glenn Gillespie, Managing Editor Cork Mobley, Advertising Manager News Editors: Anne Goodman, Ken Metsler. Assistant News Editor: Mary Ann Deism an. Assistant Manager Editors: Hal Coleman, Vic Fryer, Tom King, Stan Turnbull. Women’s Editor: Connie Jacksou. Sports Editor: John Barton Desk Editors: Marjory Bush, Suzanne fock eram, Bob Funk, Grctchen Grondahl, Lorna l.arson Chief Night Editor: Lorna Larson. Crotchety Old Vet / Witty So Sanity? Who in the heck ever thought of starting winter term so early in the year? I see no reason why February first wouldn’t be just as good or better as a starting date for the ungodly term. It’s tough enough with all the extra ex penses we all have without; items like fees and board and room. My license plates on my car were in fine shape and could have been used at least an other three years and my liquor permit was still okay except for being a little dog eared and the fact that I weigh more. One of my res olutions was to not buy one this year. That is as long as I can borrow one. There seem to be lots of familiar faces back on the campus. Dan Garza, Dick Wilkins, and Norm Van Brocklin. Anita Holmes is missing around the Emerald shack having gone to Wash ington, D. C., to cash in on some of the gravy. Several of the first string , frosh basketball crew are ^ now at Vanport. Things to look for in the > new year. What’s going to happen to Dick Tracy and ; his wife? Will Little Orphan ; Annie have a birthday? Will deferred living keep the dor- ; mitories full? Will the Stu- ( dent Union be finished for i Junior Weekend ? Will Loy , graduate? ! If you haven’t signed up in the co-op yet hurry down and 1 get your petition in. Frankie 1 Laine needs another jackass a for his mule train. 1 (Please turn to page three) < i New Eras t With Time magazine, anum- i aer of other national magazines, uul most major newspapers i having big splurges on “great ( men of the half-century.” or j ‘far-reaching events of the past , half-century,” or “Professor ] Diddleheck’s survey of the first t half of the 20th century," there , ire a few malcontents who , raise their voice in protest. ^ These men sit smugly to one 1 dde and claim that, indeed, the ; half-century mark will not he i reached until December 31, 1 1950, and 1951 is the first year if the second half; and all these < niblications are a year ahead of ] hemselves. And they point to ( nathematical figures. But, who cares? If folks want l o start a “new era” a year ahead 1 af time, why should anyone i romplain ? i Pot of Gold—-Late Fees The late fee system is beginning to take on the aspects of a racket. And once again the Board of Deans comes in for a resound ing, WHY? Students who failed to go through step 4 of the registration process (student affairs check) On or before December 10, are assessed a $5 late fee. This fine, the Board of Deans (who legislated the plan) is supposed to have reasoned, puts teeth into their desire to have as much of the registration process as possible completed during the advance period. All this is very nice—the student, too, would like to get as much of registration as possible out of the way quickly, but there are sometimes reasons why this cannot be done. Approximately 5,000 students did get checked through stu dent affairs in the allotted time. But there were approximately 500 old students who got checked through today, in addition to a number who checked through last month, but after December 10. Five dollars from each of these 500 means the University will receive $2,500. This does not take into consideration the students who registered late in December, those who will go through the check later this week, nor does it include any late fines assessed students who do not pay their cashier fees before Saturday noon. True, lots of people could get through registration earlier than they manage to, and perhaps the threat of a late fee is needed for them; and the imposition of the late fee is their just deserts. But how many innocent bystanders are clipped along the way? We will probably never know, since everyone who is clipped may contend his innocence. There is some solace, however. The Board of Deans may relent, and place more trust in the students’ desire to finish registration as rapidly as possible Winter for Spring term. And those who have been socked the $5 fine for slow stu dent affairs check, may sit back and wait for the cashier’s line to dwindle: for $5 is the maximum fine a student must pay for late registration. cSoft/tostt&ie 'k/Udosft Rita, Ingrid Steal the Show 641- BoL fytutU We can’t help looking with a somewhat jaundiced eye on the mblicity accompanying recent lidos of some of America’s film greats. It would appeal to logic that ifter Rita Hayworth wooed ind won a checking account vhile tossing such hindrances s taste, morals, and religion >ut the window, any progeny esulting from such a marriage vould either be carefully ig lored or stintingly condemned. This, however, has not been he case. The reading public ias been steered through the vhole sordid thing (via reading uaterial and pictures), as if the vidently pleasant (for her, at east) outcome of the actress’s .dventures were the culmina ion of the ideals and hopes of he Christian world. It is particularly ironical that he Pope’s Christmas week leclarations were subordinated n American newspapers to sen ational headlines heralding the ove child of Lausanne. Cer ainly the Pope’s messages, the esult of hours of prayer and neditation, were of more im >ortance to the world than the >irth of Miss Hayworth's child, m event which was, if viewed mder even the most kindly ight, merely biological. Ingrid Bergman, too, has pained the attention of the >ress with her rather drastic leparture from the role of St. oari, which she so successfully >ortrayed on Broadway not ong ago. Miss Bergman’s great mbarassment has been turned nto a great publicity triumph by a number of journalists who seem to think that original sin is somehow rather noble and clever. We do not advocate a see-no evil attitude on the part of the press, but on the other hand it would definitely be possible to give less flattering attention to such unholy doings at the be ginning of a Holy Year. Christmas vacation was a life-saver for most of the people we know. They replaced the caffein in their bloodstreams with corpuscles, found many and various goodies under the Yule tree on the morn of the 25th, and spent a quiet New Year’s Eve. According to them. This we would doubt if it were not for the fact that most of the people in our circle have been extremely elderly since the end of final week. We welcomed the New Year in at the bus depot at Redding, California—playing “Don't Cry Joe” on the juke box and eat ing a cheese sandwich. How's that for kicks? =1= * * Back to books, basketball, the Side, and Canasta. 1950 is here, and some deluded fresh man is probably saying to that symbol of impending doom, the Scholarship Chairman, “Well, I spent my first term getting adjusted, and now this winter I'll make a four-point.” And so, as Tiny Tim ob served (this quote, if belated, is still applicable), “God bless us every one!” And you’re another 1 ’