Herald
The Ouom Daily Enuu published Haadn through Friday during Ike college year
I Jan. 5: Feb. 23: Mar. 2, 3, S, 9.10 and 11; Mar. 13 through 30; June 1.2 and 3 by the
' Publication* Board oi the University of Oregon. Entered aa aeeond claas natter
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_are those of the writer and do net pretend to
of Ike ASOO or of the University. Editorial* are written by the
the members af the editorial staff.
Yes, It's
Someone (
Special j
See that nice looking worn- 0
an over there? B
We're kind of proud to £
have her here. Know why?
Because she’s someone. |g
Someone who was brought S
up in another generation, but Vi
understands that some things ■ '
hawe changed. Or at least .
she’s willing to give lip serv- 2
ice to that idea.
Someone we like to intro
duce our friends to.
Someone who understands
why we don’t write regu
larly.
Someone who fusses over
us a little, yet feels we are
old enough to stand alone. If
we slip, though, she’s there. ’
Someone who stands by us
when we're right, but will tell
us if she thinks we're wrong. ;
Someone who, in addition
to all this, has all those nice
qualities that poets attribute
to her. Not being endowed '
with poetic skill, we won't
even attempt this. There’s a
chance, though, that the poets ^
are using the better approach.
She’s someone, all right.
Someone special.
The disquieting thought.. [^>
V r
... and the ‘best’ girls. [^>
THIS COLLEGE LIFE
1953's Student: No Intellectual, But Solid
By BUI Gurney
tmwH Mhi|1«| Mh>
College days tend, after a few
years to take an aura of the In
finitely desirable to the alumnus.
Truly, they are perhaps the best
days of one’s life, and should be
savored, and appreciated, like
fine wine.
Let us investigate. Let's take
a long, hard look at the Univer
sity of Oregon today. Not at its
buildings, or its faculty, but at
its students—for they are the
university.
Robert Maynard Hutchins
once said “A university is a
community of scholars..
Was he right in the case of
Oregon?
We do study. We have to, or we
do not stay long. Is it the search
for ideas, or the storing away of
financially useful facts that we
are about? It would seem to de
pend—the prevailing atmosphere
surely is not one of intellectu
ality. There are some who have
sparks of serious scholarship, oth
ers who sport intellectual pretsn
tions. In the main, however, we
are not seekers after ageless
Truth so much as after grades
and a diploma and a "good” job.
The males must look forward
to service in the armed forces, a
somewhat disquieting thought in
the middle of this no-so-cold war.
In us, you see, is not the flame
of chauvinism, avante garde lib
eralism; nor do we swallow gold
fish, or espouse causes.
There is, among us, a lack of
unbridled enthusiam for any
thing, it seems. Terhaps the
world is too much with us. Per
haps we read of Malenkov, and
the atom bomb, and the New
York vice trials, and our illu
sions are “down the drain,” to
use a current campus col
loquialism.
Conventionality is perhaps our
outstanding attribute. We are
orthodox, and aren’t desirous of
setting the world on fire. We
, know it Is already burning, so
we just hope the somewhat tenu
ous status quo will remain extant
long enough for us to get de
grees.
Wendell Wilkie once said: “If
a man isn't a radical at 20,
there's something wrong with his
heart; if he is at 30, there's some
thing wrong with his head.”
Somehow, we seem to have con
founded Mr. Wilkie's aphorism,
for we are not radicals, nor is
there anything basically amiss
in our hearts. We have only the
outward stamp of maturity, and
it is a hothouse product of trou
bled times. Our outward calm en
ables us to face what is hard
impassively, if not with genuine
understanding.
Meanwhile, we spend our
tigie in various ways. We study.
We drink coffee at the Student
Union and Taylors. We go to
picnics, to house dances, and to
movies.
Among us, to be “pinned,” or
engaged to be engaged, is a mark
of social prestige, of having made
the team. This pinning is a rela
tively new sort of custom. Per
haps it is one more reflection of
our desire for certainty in all
things.
Are we degenerate, and pro
miscuous? Not any more so,
probably, than they were in the
1920s or 30s. If we are, our trans
gressions are performed quietly,
with little adolescent pride in
Knowing About Life. We've
known for a long time, so the
thrill of the forbidden has been
removed from sex. *
The climate at Oregon has been
subtly changed through deferred
living. There is more homogeneity
because most of us lived in dormi
tories, at least for a year. This
is not to say that social strata
have been abolished, for they
have not. The Greeks, as they
have long been, are the hard core
of the campus. They get the
“best*’ girls, and the top activity
jobs, and generally represent the
University.
Extra-curricular activities
are not In general favor. Few
strive to be “wheels,” Or “Big
Men and Women on Campos..”
Most are more pragmatic, and
say: "If I'm going to spend
that much time, I want to get
paid for It.” So they work in
kitchens, or lumber mills, or
jerk sodas, Or mow lawns, be
cause the cost of education Is
high, and taxrldden parents
can’t bear the whole burden.
pregon is not a large school,
with its enrollment of about 4,
000. The atmosphere seems
friendly, to us who know it.
Somehow, we have acquired a
reputation as a "snob school,”
and a "country club." This is
largely unfounded, at least in
1953. The postwar influx of seri
ous veterans is gone, but our stu
dents come mainly from the
state’s high schools- normal kids,
most of them, who don't have any,
axes to grind, or want to live fast
and loose.
They drink, many of them,
but not to excess, and largfly be
cause they enjoy it. Drinking, to
them, is not a ritual, or a show
of defiance. Two years ago, beer
was removed from the campus,
which action probably has not de
creased its consumption one bit.
The campus is also something
else; it is a number of exclusive
little worlds. In each professional
school, in some more than others,
there is a way of life, a unique
flavor.
Taken as a whole, the Univer
sity represents an attempt, a se
rious try, for something better in
man. Where it fails, it does not
fail miserably. Graduates are
prepared to fill their toles in so
ciety with adequate knowledge of ■
its rules, which is perhaps all
one may' ask of a state uni
versity.
TWO VIEWS (DIVERGENT) OF A THING CALLED TAPPING
By Bob Funk, Emerald Columnist
It was the all-campus picnic, and she had just put a slight stain of
potato salad on the two-millionth or so paper plate. She was part of a
jolly good-time, good-food assembly line that reached from Thirteenth
Street northward into a group of mothers.
She was, as were all the members of the food line, a member of a
Woman’s Honorary. First there were three Traumas in uniform, then a
member of the Woman’s Pastime Poetry Club, and then our heroine
ixieeu, uiesseu m au un-me-snoui
der blue formal with an I Eta
honorary emblem emblazoned
across the bodice, which was of
gathered tulle with suspended
Rhinestones.
There was a lull in the eating
and procuring of food, and from
about a half-mile to the north,
in the vicinity Of the Royal
Court and Sometimes Music
platform, came the whine of a
public address system.
The member of the honorary
caught her breath, and across the
rows of food lines fifty other I
Etas also caught their breath,
which caused a considerable dis
turbance around that area. From
the distance a soft female voice,
veiled with Junior Prom fatigue,
said “the members of the Satur
day Night Dignity Group, senior
women’s honorary, will now tap
..and from the manhole in
front of Friendly there emerged
the president of the Dignity Club,
parrying a bouquet of Calla lillies
and wearing “My GPA” perfume.
Behind her marched sixteen
other Dignity ladies, carrying
perfume atomizers full of hy
drogen gas. The band, in the dis
tance, began playing “Land of
the Empire Builders,” hesitat
ingly.
The Dignity Club members
wound in and out of the crowd, at
tempting to spot tappees. From the
center of the group a young wom
an waved the Gerlinger Cup,
which was full of lemonade, and
shouted “here I am girls.” They
surrounded her solemnly (Dear
winner of the Gerlinger Cup: when
we wrote this we didn’t know who
you would be, lady, honest); as the
fourteenth member filed past, she
raised her atomizer and sprayed
the Gerlinger Cup Winner with
gas. The fifteenth member struck
a match to her, and she shot into
flame. The sixteenth member
wept happily. Everyone cheered.
“Dignity Club taps Leemoan
Gruck,” the public address system
said.
The I Eta member stood at her
post, straining with every muscle.
Perhaps it was for nothing, she
thought, that she had climbed to
this pinnacle of activity points.
Who else had been more imagin
ative, more aggressive, on sub
committee for forced sales for the
I Eta Icky sale her freshman
year? Who else had risen during
Trauma meeting her sophomore
year and said, “I think this year
we should do something real
nice?”
Several cheers rent the air as
more junior women blazed into
the Dignity Club, and among
that number were several of
the I Eta faithful. The I Eta
Of course, it’s all a matter
of opinion whether the tradi
tional rigmarole of Junior
Weekend means anything.
Some say it’s important—oth
ers just laugh. Take, for ex
ample, these two discussions
of a senior women’s honorary
—one in fact, the other fancy.
The Editor
member stood trembling, and a ’
tear fell into the remains of the
potato salad.
And then, suddenly, there was a
sudden (good word, sudden) blare
of music from the band, and the
trees parted over her head and the
sun fell upon her. The crowd
parted, and the ladies of Saturday
Night Dignity Group tripped
lightly over the lawn.
The I Eta member held her
breath. Her eyes were fixed upon
the Dignity President. Her mouth
was slightly ajar; a fly flew in,
and then out again, landing finally
in the salad. The Dignity Club
came onward, onward, and wound
once, twice, three times about her.
In the distance she could hear
her mother singing “Hail, hail,
the Gang’s all here,” and her so
rority sisters singing “Anchored
in Quadruple Eta.” And as the
twelfth member passed by, our
hetoine felt the blast of hydro
gen gas. Ecstatically, she saw
herself put to flames. The public
address system was announcing
her arrival on Olympus.
She stood there, crying happily,
until they brought the fire ex
tinguisher to put her out.
By Members of Mortar Board
When the black-garbed Mortar Boards wind their way through the
picnic Saturday afternoon to tap new members, they will be performing -
one of their last official functions of a busy year.
Behind this simple process of presenting outstanding junior women
with the traditional red rose is a long and thorough process. As Mortar
Board is a national honorary, each woman who is selected for mem
bership must have the qualities by which each Mortar Board member
in every cnapter nas Deen cnosen—
scholarship, leadership, and service
to the University.
The process of selecting new
members for Mortar Board Is a
careful and thorough one. When
the Mortar Boards begin to scan
the lists of outstanding women,
they consider not only what they
know about each girl, but also
what deans, department heads,
and campus leaders have to rec
ommend. If possible, no avenue
of student participation is over
looked.
When the lists are complete, the
affirmative plan of voting goes
into operation. By this system,
no one is “black-balled.” The whole
process is a positive one—positive
discussion and positive voting.
When any girl receives a unani
mous vote, conducted by secret
ballot, she is declared elected to
membership.
The course of each girl’s cpllege
career is carefully taken into con
sideration. One of the firjgt points
is the scholastic record, for schol
arship is one of the three prime
requisites. The minimum require
ment is .3 above the campus aver
age for the past five terms. This
year, each girl considered had to
have at least a 2.872. In outstand
ing cases exceptions of a .1 were
permitted.
The second criterion is leader
ship. To qualify each girl had to
have shown definite signs of cap
able leadership, ability to handle
responsibility by herself. Contrary
to a common misconception, Mor
tar Board ia not a collection of *
presidents.
Leadership ability is probably
most frequently evidenced by
election to a position of president,
but being a president of some
organization is not itself a quail- ’
fication for the senior women’s
honorary. The ability to lead is „
found in those who may not
hold the "top spot," and Mortar
Board has sought to recognize
this. "
The third necessity is service
to the University. Thia does not'
mean a girl must have kept busy
for three years in a large number
of campus activities. The activities
of the girls, whether they be in
several fields or in only one or
two, should add up to some de-’
finite accomplishment that is N
credit t<j the school.
Thus, each year, the wearers of
the gold tassel have taken their J
responsibility seriously. They have
tried to overlook no girl really '
qualified; they have tried to ex
tend membership to only those
really deserving.
We are proud of each girl
whom we will present the rose
Saturday afternoon.
u