Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 14, 1952)
The Oregon Daily Emerai*!* published Monday through Friday during the college year, except examination and holiday periods, with issues on Homecoming Saturday anil Junior Weekend Saturday by the Associated Students of the University of Oregon. Entered as sec ond class matter at the post office, Eufenc, Oregon. Subscription rates: $5 per school year, per term. Opinions expressed on the editorial page are those of the writer and do not pretend to represent the opinions of the ASUO or of the University. Initialed editorials are written by lae associate editors. Unsigned editorials are written hv the editor. . „ Wire services: Associated Press, United Press. Member, Associated l ollegiatc Tress._ Let's Face Facts Would an honor system work at Oregon? We doubt it. Recently a survey made at UCLA revealed that over fifty per cent of the students cheat. The discipline committee at Oregon has just released a report which indicates that almost half of the Oregon student body has cheated at one time or another. We hate to be cynical but how can an honor system, which depends on each individual student, be effective when so many students seem so accustomed to cheating habits ? Not long ago we wrote an editorial on the West Point scandal in which we implied that an honor system at the Point could, and should work. Stanford University has an honor sys tem which seems effective. Both these institutions present a different problem from that at Oregon, or any other state university, for that matter. To attend either Stanford or West Point, the student has to prove he has lots of potential before he even enrolls. In addition, the military tradition at West Point is built largely un the ideal of personal honor and devotion to duty, even at the risk of life. It seems to us that such mental conditioning is basic to the thought patterns of our country’s professional soldier ieaders. And the system has been perfected over a long period of time. You might say the students have been propagandized until they believe (most of them) in the honor system. A nicer name is esprit de corps. Esprit de corps is that intangible quality which make Marine Corps casualty lists so long, and the Corp’s list of battle de feats so short. It’s the same thing which would make a stu dent stay his eyes-when he has the tendency to copy from his neighbor’s test paper. Without it an honor system would be come a fiasco. Without it, an honor system would have to de pend on the fear of reprisal for cheating to be a success. And that would not be an honor system. We don’t say it can’t work here. But it’ll take time and we still doubt the end result. All that is necessary to enroll at Oregon is a birth certificate, and a more or less satisfactory high school diploma or its equivalent. After that, if Mr. Average Oregon Student is clever enough at the cheating racket, he’s got it made. Perhaps an honor system for upper division students in certain schools would work. But that’s somewhat like taking sold pills for cancer. Many professors give the type of exami nations which make it next to impossible to cheat. You might call that an honor system, too. Right now, we’d call it a realis tic approach to the cheating problem.—B. C. This Man Would Honor Any by stem Capt. Henrik Kurt Carlsen—for many days the world has been aware that he is a valiant and courageous seaman. Now we also know that he is an honorable man. Since his arrival in England from his sunken ship, the Flying Enterprise, Captain Carlsen has been surrounded by promoters eager to grease his palm. But his resistance to their blandish ments has been as steadfast as was his determination to re main with his ship “until vessel is saved or sunk.” Carlsen declared that his vessel was sunk by an act of God and that he is not interested in capitalizing on that act. So he is passing up hundreds of thousands of dollars that might be gathered from movie rights, book rights, lectures, etc. The idea of cashing in on the sinking of his ship could not be reconciled with the stubborn pride of “Captain Stayput in his ship and his calling. Carlsen felt the honorable thing to do was to stay with his ship. Now that is finished and he wants to avoid acclaim and return to the sea.—D. D. No Hope for the Single Gal Girls . . . Have you ever wondered why you aren’t married? If you’ve been blaming “us men” for your failure to grab a man—don’t. It’s all the fault of Ma or Pa. That’s the opinion expressed in Public Affairs Pamphlet No. 177, “Why Some Women Stay Single.” If you are to be a single woman, there’s not much to be done about it. The whole thing got started years ago when your parents were possessive, puritanical, falsely youthful or what ever they were. Thus you grew up, but you didn’t grow up as a self-confident female. What a relief to know that we males aren’t responsible for that multitude of unmarried women and unborn children.-D. D. 1Cdit&Ual It's Your Money Way back about the middle of September, 1951, you then returning Oregon students were mighty unhappy to find slot machines (in the guise of telephones) replacing the former non pay apparatus. At least we thought you were unhappy . . . from all the verbal irriniiur we heard. After reading today's front page we’ll bet you're unhappier. Ten cents should double your gripes. Last fall everyone (except those house managers who found they were saving money formerly spent paying off un a c c o u n ted for long distance hills) thought the phones were unfair. Kvery body thought, that is, but no one DID anything about their thoughts. Eventually, the matter came up in a senate meeting. A group of Oregon students met with their OSC neighbors, who'd been doing things and succeeded in stalling pay phone installation on their campus. An Oregon phone committee chairman was appointed. He's Dick Kading. He, the committee secretary and Emerald representatives attended an informal meeting with PUC and phone company officials in Salem Nov. 30. At that meeting an alternate plan—of an intra-campus exchange (minus pay phones)—was proposed by the phone company. And that’s where this tale ends. Nothing has been done since says Mr. Kading. He’s been too busy, what with finals and Christmas and rushing and all. However, he said Sunday he’ll do something right away. We would say this is an excellent idea. We would even suggest that students concerned (and that takes in about all of you) take an active interest in this thing and do some checking on your own, or urge the phone com mittee on, or heckle our senate or our student body president into getting on the ball. -A Dtuf at the Zoo Fraternity Rush Week Is Over; One Brave Rushee Lost in Action ___ By Bob Funk - It was the morning after rush week. No one was up. No one intended to get up. Ever. The living room was littered with namnhlets en titled “Our House is the Neatest House Ever and the Iota' Omicrons Smoke Mari j u a n a.’’ The dog was lying quietly on the floor, gnawing on a left-over i usucc. v-v ture cawed (or whatever BOb FUNK sound vultures make. Tweet, maybe) softly from a rafter. Upstairs the house president was just going to bed. He had been up all night trying to figure out how to make out a preference list. Finally he had sent a note to student affairs saying simply “We withdraw from rush week. It stinks.” The rushing chairman was lying in a pool of blood in the middle of the hall. There were footprints across him where people had walked. A pledge passed. “I think the rushing chair man would look more effective as a front door mat,” he thought to himself. (To sensitive readers: do not worry, the blood does not belong to the rushing chairman. It belongs to someone who said, on Friday, “When does rush week start?” That is another, rather morbid story.) Several members finally got up and started packing. One was going to join a monastery, or maybe a nunnery. One was going back to Grant high school. The others were just going. They went downstairs (we have already de scribed what the downstairs look ed like. By this time it was even worse, somehow). There was a gaping hole in the wall where someone had shot a large some thing millimeter shell through the charter. They stood in the middle of the room arid'sang One last fraternity song:- Everyone half-heartedly whispered the password. It was over then, over and done with. "IT’s over and done with,” they said. The truth of this statement rankled bitterly in their hearts. Or maybe their stomachs. They hadn’t had breakfast. Each man kicked the fraternity dog;, and then they filed slowly out the door. There was no sound but that of the wind howling through the hole where the charter had been, and the dog chewing on tfie rushee. A newspaper blew across the littered floor. It's large black headline said “Rush Week is Over.” (Columnist’s note: yippee!) 1 Letters to the Editor Undemocratic Emerald Editor: I do not agree with you whi rl you nay that perfect scorers and 3.5 average Htudents are on the honor role. It la lignin proved last term aa it haa been in pre ceding years that only those stu denta are on the honor role who scored the average wanted, and who alao happen to liuve the luck that their professors turned In their grades within a certain time limit. Even only one day lntc makes the big difference for the students involved. I personally detest the grading system, but whenever a university employs it, its registrar should be con sistent and should put all the students on the honor roll who are, according to their efforts and not according to the accuracy of their professors, supposed to be on the honor roll. Have you ever been sent up and down from one counter to another in the registrar’s office because you put u comma instead of a full stop on your registration cards? If you havr, you certainly have blamed yourself. Hut who Is going to be blamed for the * mistake of a faculty member? The student. What ear be done about It ? Nothing. The regls trar refused to add the unfor tunute student to the honor roll and to publish an additional list. When such things hitp)>cn the University of Oregon stops bring ing democratic principles to the attention of the mnny foreign students here in Eugene. And poor Emerald your headline is now proved wrong, for I know for a fact that at least 23 instead of 22 scored perfect grades. A Foreign student (Name withheld by request fynom tlte MotUfoe... 19 YEARS AGO •Inn. 13, 1933—A four-day Em erald in ruled unconstitutional by tin- tnlverslty Judiciary Oxn niittee. It must be published fl\e days per Meek to lx- railed a daily—UK It is called by the ASl O constitution. Pont office department refused use of mails to Kmeruld unless it Is reclassified. Business manager refuses funds for extra day’s publication. 10 YEARN AGO .Ian. 18, 1942—President Roose velt Monday named Dean Wayne I- Morse us a member of a 12 man war lubor board to adjust labor disputes for the duration of the war emergency. Honor System Needed? _ WJT