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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 3, 1950)
We've Had It The revised academic calendar this year has presented several problems, particularly noticeable this spring term. These seem to be the major complaints: 1) Too short a spring vacation. 2) Registration the first day of classes. 3) Finals beginning in mid-week. 4) No sure way to learn of Winter term grades before Spring term begins. It was, presumably, the hope of the Board of Deans in set ting the calendar that University students would leave school at the same time as Oregon State College students. This would allow University seniors and other students an amount of time equal to that of OSC students in which to seek employment and summer jobs. This was a notable aim; and to achieve it may be worth some inconvenience. However, the aim has not met with complete success; and the inconveniences seem more significant than they were expected to be. Oregon State seniors are not required to take final examina tions .They will, therefore, have an additional week to look for employment; the week that University senior and other stu dents will be taking examinations. The inconveniences that seniors have suffered under this year’s academic calendar, then, do not pay off. The inconvenientes suffered by the rest of the students will result in term’s end the same time as Oregon State. Whether it is worth the inconvenience is doubtful—it depends upon the individual. Then the question arises—are OSC students forced to take finals in mid-week, do they have no day set aside for registra tion, do they have a shortened spring vacation? And the answer is—no. OSC finals were over the Friday ours began. Students did not need to return to school until the Tuesday after Oregon classes began. OSC classes did not begin until Wednesday, allowing freshmen and new students two days, old students one day, in which to register without worrying about class at tendance. OSC had 10 days vacation between finals and classes; Ore gon had 4. No Oregon State student was throttled with an 8 a.m. Fri day final, after a 3-5 Thursday class. No OSC student must wait until the second week of Spring term before he will know his previous term’s grades. No OSC student was bored with a repetition of opening day announcements for three lecture periods, a situation which was foced upon U. O. professors by the small attendance Monday and Wednesday. Bearing these things in mind, we suggest: It would be worth the time of the Board of Deans to recon sider next year’s academic calendar. It would be worth the time of the University administration to study the possibilities of, and recommending to the State Board of Higher Education, a uniform academic calendar (in sofar as is possible) for the two major state educational insti tutions. Like Little Bo Peep The term grades are not out. But they’re expected by the middle or end of this week. Delays have been attributed 1) to faculty members who turned grades in after registration, and 2) to loss of potential full-time student employees, who couldn’t work full time be cause classes had started. Meanwhile worried students have been running from depart ment to department and from school to school, tracking down those capital letters. But some faculty members with large classes and book keeping problems have refused to release them. One house we know of wants to hold initiation of new offi cers. But since it doesn’t know if all new officers have 2 points, it can’t write back east to the national for an okay by their dead line, or register the new chiefs with the University. And what about the frustrated souls who must quit school if their grades weren’t high enough? They can do nothing but bide their time and lose their money for another few days. The delay also affects “safe" students—those applying for scholarships due last Saturday, but who didn't know what to put for a GPA. Looks like getting out of school earlier in June carries more than one disadvantage. Perhaps, if the same short vacation exists next year, the professors and registrar’s office might combine forces for a quicker grade turnout. —A. G. Sap'fuMtO’ie fli/iiAo4K Idiots Ly Galt- Quttk Now spring term at the country club is, according to all the oldest and most beat-up dogs, a completely delightful thing. Who among us, even the most adventurous soul, would trade spring at the University for a sun-tan on the Riviera, a sampan on the Yangtze, or a padded cell at Salem ? Spring term is the time that it is so easy to make grades. No body goes to class, nobody stu dies, and the curves (GRADE curves) all dip earthward. Even an idiot, supposing he attended all his classes and studied a little for tests, could make a three point spring term. Well, two or three idiots have, but few of the rest of us. The rest of us are among the nobodies who don’t attend class and don’t study. We are sitting behind a bot tle in the Side or up the river. We, the degenerate lotus-eaters. And don't ask me where I picked that up—I think it was in the one class of spring-term English Lit I attended. Spring is also the time it is so easy to get up for 8 o’clocks. The sun is up, the flowers are blooming, the history of west ern civilization is ripe for the fray, and the Emerald is on the doorstep. Who could stay in bed ? Ha! And the nights. The nights we stay up all of. (Your English probably isn’t so hot either.) We can’t say enough about mid night snacks at the Pit, break fasts at Harry’s Snappy No. 3. And lunch? We always sleep through lunch. So farewell, and each to the digestion of his own breakfast. Sincerely Yours One of the hue and cries about deferred living concerned the lack of proper counseling for freshmen in the dormitories. At the time, Donald DuShane expressed his desire to improve the dormitory counseling program, realizing that it is at present inadequate, and that it is the obligation of the Uni versity to properly orient and aid the new student to college life. ASUO President Art Johnson, not one to let an opportunity slip by (fortunately), got to work and appointed an ASUO Committee on Dormitories to study the counseling program. Late last term, the committee made its report. The report suggests a number of changes. If Mr. DuShane and the administration are sincere, and we have no doubt that they are, it seems to us, after reading the report, Mr. DuShane should start carrying the ball and make some very necessary changes in the dormitory counseling system. If the counseling system is not radically improved, deferred living has a good chance of being as bad as several groups ex pect it to be. The student committee that worked on the report, and turned in a very nice job, was chairmaned by Stan Pierson, and included in its membership members of dormitories, sororities, cooperatives, and fraternities—Betty Horand, Gloria Cooper, Joan Manning, Jim Sanders, Henry Panian, Mike Madden, and Bob Schooling. The Committees recommendations were placed in three categories: Orientation, Counseling, and Hall Organization. Recommendations made under each of these units will be discussed in fuller detail in later articles. Briefly, so you can get an idea of what the committee has recommended: During New Student Week, the committee recommends, that general assemblies be kept to a minimum; that freshmen meet in small groups and talk to upper classmen; informal social events be held to relieve tension; and the Hello dance be strictly no-date. The Counselors, the committee believes, should be carefuly chosen for their ability to secure the confidence of the students; they should be able to devote 25-30 hours a week during fall term towards counseling; they should live with the group they counsel; they should have a training program by the Uui versity; they should take the initiative in getting to help the freshmen; they should be familiar with campus life and activi ties. Hall organization as the medium for social expression should “ideally seek the maximum voluntary participation by members, consonant with good study habits,” it is the belief of the committee. It recommends encouragement of interdorm competition; freshman councils; handling of discipline cases within the hall whenever possible; even distribution of fresh men throughout all dormitories; revival of an all-campus social chairman organization; and investigation of changes in the intramural set-up. These suggestions mentioned are only a few of the recom mendations of the committee as presented in its report. The next article will deal in more detail with the recom mendations on Orientation. Copies of the report will soon be available for study in the Student Affairs office. Any comments upon the report in the form of letters will be readily accepted for consideration for publication by the Emerald. And we are sure the committee will welcome comments and discussion by the students. State £lectianA, The Case of the Student Voter /7 Que&t Z&ii&Ual By Clay Myers (Chairman, College League of Young Republican Federation of Oregon) The Lane County Clerks office refuses to register University students for voting for the May 19 primary election, and has held fast to this policy for some time, basing its decision on a letter from the county district attor ney's office. This is not the only obstacle to college students vot ing in Oregon in the county where they are going to school—Benton county (OSC) is following the same general policy. However, in Marion County (Willamette University) and in Multnomah County (where several colleges are located 1 students are elegible to register and vote. At Willam ette three members of the College Young Republican Club have been sworn in as registrars and are now registering students on the campus. In the 1946 elections in Lane County students were allowed and encouraged to register with members of Druids (junior men’s honorary) acting as registrars, and in 1948 another registration drive was conducted on this cam pus with members of the local college Young Republican club sworn in as registrars. About 1,000 students were registered in the Co-op. But in 1950, reversing earlier stands, and with no new constitutional or statutory pro visions regarding students vot ing becoming law in the mean time, students can no longer reg ister to vote in Lane County. The registration office will forward an application to register in the county from which the student comes. Lane County states that it does not wish to discriminate or bar students from voting, but that the residents of Eugene must be protected, apparently from a feared united student vote, so that student votes wil not be de cisive as they have been on more than one occasion, namely the Mill Race issue. According to one authorita tive interpretation of the Consti tutional provision concerning registration, students can vote in the county of the college which they are attending, so long as they have satisfied the requirements of six months residence in this state. The College Young Republi cans are trying to bring about an official decision on the state level, since the interpretation of the State Constitution and laws should be uniform throughout the state—not different in each (Please turn to page three)