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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 13, 1961)
The Homecoming Job Anti-Sophs The A S U O senators are smiling this w e e k. The demands of their consciences, their constituents and the Emerald have been met—they have acted on something. The senate has arbitrarilly decreed that the Sophomore class shall be assigned Home coming as a “project,” in the tradition of Junior Weekend activities being undertaken by the Junior class. This would mean that hereafter the Sophomore class president would chair Homecoming weekend activi ties and be responsible for staffing the week end committees. ONE OF THE main arguments support ing the delegation of this weekend to the Sophomore class is that the Junior class successfully stages Junior Weekend, so why couldn’t the Sophomore class successfully handle a comparable weekend. This analogy is almost a complete fallacy. First, the juniors working during the spring on Junior Weekend activities have almost three full years of campus activities behind them while the sophomores work ing on this fall term activity would only have one year of experience. SECOND, the capabilities of the chair man of an event is a strong indication of the activity’s success. The chairman must be familiar with the event; must be familiar with the talents of students in campus act ivities in making his committee appoint ments; and must know campus channels. Work on Homecoming begins in the pre ceeding spring, and it would be nearly im possible for the newly-elected Sophomore class president, after only eight months on campus, to be as enlightened in these areas as he should be, and as the Junior class president generally is. THE CHAIRMEN and committee mem bers, after two and one-half terms on cam pus, cannot possibly be well acquainted with campus channels and the intricate de tails of Homecoming. A very limited num ber of freshmen have a bigger part in Home coming activities than selling buttons. THIS WEEKEND was given to the Sophomores for another reason; because they sometimes lose money on their Soph omore Swing which is held after Homecom ing. The “'logic” here is hard to follow. If they lose money on a small event, why give them a larger event just so they can have a class “project.” Let them find the answer to their need for a “class” activity in some area where there is more assurance of suc cess, and where the stakes are not so high. As Bill Landers, Acting-Alumni Director has suggested, why not let the Sophomores sponsor the Homecoming Dance and con cert. .BUT, CRY THE proponents of this senate action, “the Sophomores gained ex perience in their freshman dance, the Frosh Sno-ball.” Arranging for this dance in the SU Ballroom has only a little in common with Homecoming Weekend activities. This function gives them no experience in con tacting and contracting the nation’s top per formers: no experience in decorating Mc Arthur Court; no experience in managing state-wide publicity and promotions; no ex perience in making arrangements to feed several hundred people at a luncheon; no experience in mass ticket selling; no experi ence in planning a rally parade and bonfire; no experience in staging two all-campus queen elections; no experience in defining and enforcing traditions; no experience in establishing registration and hospitality ser vices for alums; and no experience staging half-time activities and after-game recep tions. One member of the Senate stated that he could see “nothing too complicated” about staging Homecoming, indicating the gener al inability of anyone who has not worked on the event to understand even what the job entails. Placing an inexperienced soph omore class, however dedicated, in charge of these activities is like throwing an inex perienced swimmer into a swift current; he may manage to stay afloat, but only with a lot of floundering and wasted energy. And finally, Homecoming doesn’t belong as a “class project.” If year after year Homecoming emerges as the “unifying” link of the Sophomore class, the actual func tion of Homecoming will become secondary to cohesiveness. Homecoming is not held for the benefit of the students, but for the thousands of alums who wish to attend an organized and eventful reunion. YES, THE ASUO senate has “unani mously” acted; acted without actual fore sight or insight. We wonder what the sena tors were doing at their last meeting. We are pretty sure they weren’t sleeping. Per haps they were writing their campaign plat forms. Pro-Sophs The proposal that the Homecoming Weekend be delegated to the sophomore class was given a unanimous vote of approv al by the ASUO Senate. This is a true measuring stick of the worth of this pro posal. THE PROPOSAL can really only be de bated on one issue, that being whether or not the sophomore class is capable of han dling the affair. It would be extremely diffi cult to judge that the sophomores are not capable without first giving them a chance to prove that they are. In the opinion of SU Director A. L. “Si” Kllingson, who has certainly seen enough sophomores to judge them fairly, they are capable of doing the job as well as anyone else. He made the suggestion to Doug Greer, and Greer, after further investigation, made it to the Senate. ALTHOUGH the sophomores will cer tainly not have the experience of upper classmen, it can be questioned whether this experience is really necessary. Much of the job of handling a Homecoming weekend is busy work, and this certainly doesn’t take much experience. In those areas which are not busy work, the sophomore class will be able to obtain all the advice needed from the Student Union and the Alumni office. It is a good wager that the alumni office would not let any group destroy the effec tiveness of Homecoming weekend. Besides advice, the sophomore class has some other things on its side which an all campus Homecoming committee does not. First, being under-classmen they are more enthusiastic. This is indicated by the num ber of people petitioning in all-campus elec tions. Secondly, as a class, they have more unity than does an organization picked out of the wild blue. The sophomore class is al ready organized and under way when Home coming roiis arounci. THERE ARE several other points that caused Senate to give the proposal a unani mous vote of approval. It will help the fi nancial position of classes as they pass through the University, sometimes making possible the donation of a class memorial, or a gift to the development fund. The proposal will cut down on the campus so cial calendar, limiting the spring sophomore dance just to class members. It will add to class unity, and will give the sophomores a real job to do, as it requires much greater participation than does the sophomore dance. Finally, it will cement class relations with the alumni. With these things taken into considera tion, it is quite easy to see why the ASUO Senate made their decision UNANI MOUSLY. The Best of Bibler —] * r 18 f‘**t* "W6V6 PPClOTPTO MAK6 AN Z%tZPr\W-YOU PL.EPOB U$ AW rr'LL Pf- aK res veuK valet tc take yeu£ tlepge training" dj nu ar Symbolism: A New Game For Solitary Intellectuals From the general run of published comments about to day’s college student we can find that we are a generally In tellectual bunch at least com pared to our forbears. In that case, one might expect that our games and hobbies would take on a more intellectual bent than simply collecting stamps and building model ships. One might expect that. WHAT, then, are the games that we can play ? Preoccupied with matters of the mind as we are. the games are likely to be those that one can play. That is, they will be some sort of mental pastime. Since I can't remember any right off hand (or on hand, now that I've looked), and I have made up one of my own. It’s called Symbol ism. Symbolism is a game that cannot be copyrighted, and is, as one might expect coming from a college student, econom ically non-productive. The me chanics of the game are such that the game can be played anywhere at all. You need only watch something anything — and think. THE BASIC assumption of the game is that everything is something else, or stands for something else. The player de cides for himself what will stand for what, or what will symbolize what. Freud has pro vided us with more than enough symbols to play the game. I would go into them here, but you never can tell who might read the paper. Just suffice it to say that the most superficial reading of Freudian symbolism will tell you enough to play the game. Contrary to some lines of thought, though, Freud did not think of every single thing that can ever be thought. There are other areas outside the realm of sex. This may not be imme diately apparent, but if you think about it long enough (and go without food long enough) you will come around. HER55 is a little example of how I play the game; maybe it will give you a start in the right direction. As you all know, the Pioneer Father directly face the Pio neer Mother. If you stand be hind him and look in the direc tion in which he is striding forthrightly, you can see (through Johnson Hall’s glass doors) the Pioneer Mother sit ting on a chair looking up at the Pioneer Father with a crafty leer on her face. Now Just sup- . pose, for the sake of the gam**, that Pioneer Father has been out In the woods pioneering for several weeks, and that he wants to do something affec tionate, like buss the Pioneer Mother on her cheek. IIKT-I.. NKVKK make it. The a administration (building! is in the way. True love will never be fulfilled because the bureau cracy stands between the lov ers. You might on the other hand imagine that he is bringing . home some nice freshly-killed rabbit for supper. Again, he'll . never make It. The Univer sity prevents him from feeding - the family. Married students should get a kick out of the 4 latter. Does your girl friend com plain that she has too many - freckles? Clearly she is dissatis fied with more than that. She * probably feels culturally, physic ally, emotionally, and intellec tually inadequate as well. It follows. Does your boy friend com- . plain about your hair style? He is really criticizing everything about you, including your par ents’ social-economic status. As you can see, just anything at all will do for a symbol — traffic lights, sports cars, foun tain pens, bowls of soup, those little circular pins that girls wear on their blouses, record shops, actions, procedures, ad infinitum. You can make your own. And they can stand for anything you want—political (Continued on page 3) OREGON DAILY EMERALD The Oregon Daily Emerald is published (our timca in September and five days a week during the school year, excrpt dur ing examination and vacation pcrioda, by the Student Publications Hoard oi the University oi Oregon. Entered as second * class matter at the post office, Eugene, Oregon. Subscription rates: $5 per year, * $2 per term. Opinions expressed on the editorial page are those of The Eme rald and do not pre tend to represent the opinion of the ASUO or the University. „ JIM IlOYI), Editor STEVE MILLIKIN, Husiness Manager * LARKY LYNCH, Managing Editor RON BUEL, News Editor * TED MAHAR, Editorial Editor DAN PFAFK, Asf,t. Managing Editor — KEITH POWELL, Associate Editor PETE DOWNS, AL IIYNDING, LARRY KURTZ, Triumvirate EDITORIAL BOARD: Jim Boyd, I-arry Lynch, Ron Buel, Teel Mahar, Keith Powell, Gayle Charles, Sue Hunter, Gayle Osburn, Dan Pfaff, Phil Cogswell, Virginia Anderson, Nic Nicholseu, Arlene Saunders, and Jim * Fields,
