Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 28, 1963)
Revise Our Constitution We Do Not Really Need Three ASUO Presidents, 100 Senators Last May 18 the Oregon Daily Emerald pointed out several flaws in our current constitution. The ASUO Senate has finally begun working on it. ASUO Vice President Art Erickson is not sure whether or not it will be completed in time to be on the Spring ballot, however. We urge that the Senate take all pos sible action to revise our ridiculous and antiquated constitution as soon as pos sible. Student leaders have wailed about its inadequacies for years. We would hate to see another ASUO Senate burdened by its existence. The writer of the original document were very careful to prescribe what require ments officeholders should meet to hold office. One of these is that an officeholder should be a student, but included as an ex offico non-elective officer is the Director of Student Affairs—a non-student. Another minor but potentially hazard ous oversight is the failure to establish a term of office for officeholders. This means that new officers can be elected in accord ance with the provisions of the rest of the Constitution, but that the old ones never go out of office until they become ineligible, usually by leaving school. Legally then, we have three student body presidents (Dan Williams. Neil Goldschmidt, and Walt Grebe) and over a hundred Senate mem bers. But this is not all. According to the Con stitution, the ASUO President (or all three of them in our case) has powers as outlined in nine separate clauses. Five of these deal with his appointment powers, one an ex officio position, two his presiding and co ordinating functions, one his responsibility to submit a budget to the Senate each term (which is not done now), and one clause making him responsible for carrying out the legislation enacted by the Senate. He has no other power. This means that every ac tion of the ASUO President in which he represents the University Students or takes action in their behalf may be illegal unless previously approved by the Senate. The Constitution establishes the Cabinet as an administrative arm of the President. Yet its function is an advisory one. No ad ministrative action is taken by it. In fact it would be very difficult for the Emerald Edi tor, Co-op Board Chairman, or the 1FC President to administer parts of the ASUO. Article V of the Constitution establishes a Student Court. No one has been appointed to it for a number of years, and its functions are handled by the Student Faculty Discip linary Committee. The court provision should be abolished. In the section governing Elections, there is a great mass of poorly organized material which tells the exact times and dates of fil ing, balloting, and contesting. Much of this material should be in the by-laws, not in the constitution, since circumstances will change so that new rulings would be more efficient. In fact, the constitution is incon sistent on this point. It states all the regula tions for the general election in the body of the constitution, and all the rules for the primary in 1'he by-laws. Confusing indeed. And. concerning the by-laws, they are not authorized as being legal in the consti tution. Therefore all the by-laws under which the Senate operates are invalid to be gin with. There is much more, including the under representation on the sente of under class dormitory students and fraternity and sorority members. We would also think that the Senate should consider many additions, such as the possibility of the ASUO Vice President presiding over the Senate, and giving the president a veto power. Revision of a constitution is a long process. The Senate should have started it much earlier in the year, but now is no time to worry about that. An ade quate constitution is necessary for an ade quate student government, no matter when it takes effect. All three student body presidents and all 100 senators should get to work on it right away. I Letters to the Editor 100 Rude Students Emerald Editor: There is one lecture class here at this university that is com posed of about 100 rude stu dents who need spanking. If this sort of behavior is typical of all U. of O. students I blush to be here. But I don’t believe it is typical. No mature group would car ry on a continual buzz of chat ter throughout 50 minutes of instruction on difficult material. No mature group would slam books shut, put on coats, and walk out of a classroom five minutes before the bell at a ‘ pause” in the lecture. No ma ture group would do this to any teacher, and to do it week in and week out to a man with a doctor’s degree is a disgrace. This could hardly be typical conduct for people who are so mature they don’t need rules! We are crying about dormitory and university rules when we don’t even know the rules of common decency. Margaret Brown Sophomore in Pre Nursing Protection Emerald Editor: I live in a dormitory. That is because my parents think I am a Big Girl Old Enough to Take Care of Herself. But a group on this campus doesn’t think so. I don’t exactly know who this group it—but I guess I’m not expected to, as long as I fol low its dictates. It is protecting me from the big, bad world—from vice, un feminity, and filth. First, it protects me against apartments. But what about cars? More male-type university students have cars than have apartments. Second, the group protects me from appearing unladylike. Thus I wear my slinky sexy skirt in 20 degree weather rather than my toasty-warm wool slacks. Be ing A Lady is much more im portant than getting pneumonia. Finally, it protects me against dirt and germs. My room is checked for neatness every week. But why do I get only one clean sheet in the same period of time? In keping with the logic behind many dorm policies, I’d rather have my room check ed every two weeks if I could get a complete change of bed ding every week. And why aren’t women work ing in the cafeteria lines re quired to cover their hair? Per haps, along with all the other rules we are fed, they are ex pected to keep their curls squeaky clean? This is what I tell myself whenever I find a lovely black strand on my hash. What a joke on Mommy and Daddy! They thought I was old enough to protect myself? Dear, dear old U of O protectors, who I will take care of me after I graduate? But I mustn’t question For this is a legislative year. Alene Sharff Freshman, Journalism * * * Protests Proposal If lawyers could devise a way to re-charter University of Ore gon as a private institution— and thereby free it from the grasp of your state legislature— the school, with its excellent faculty and location, could grow to the stature of a Berkeley or Chicago. Its only other hope (besides federalization of all state uni versities) would be for the vot ers of Oregon to eliminate scores of provincial legislators at the polls. Rep. Stafford Han sell’s (R-Hermiston) proposal to “limit non-Oregon students” to “10%” of enrollment (Feb. 11 EMERALD) and thereby sup posedly save the state money is typical of the attmepts by legis lators to intimidate the univer sity and reduce it to a over blown junior college. If Hansell’s proposal is adopt ed (and it might as well be mod ified to read “no non-Oregon students” the school will reel under a series of contingent losses. To just skim a few: en richment that foreign and out state students bring to any state school, resultant monolithic stu (Continued on page 3) ' ^ "AAOR.& Vl&AH, PLEASE." PU CoaMJt How An Educator Views Higher Education’s Future What will higher education be like in the year 2000? One possible answer to this question was discussed recently by Alvin Eurich, director of the Fund for the Advancement of Education, in an address given at the 49th Annual Meeting of the Association of American Col leges. Eurich predicts that whole new teaching techniques must and will be found to accommo date the tremendous increases in the number of persons seek ing higher education "If we were to continue oper ating our colleges along conven tional lines, we would need to construct more college facilities in the next 15 year than we have built in all our history," Eurich pointed out. “WE OBVIOUSLY cannot ac commodate such numbers with in the conventional framework of our educational system. We are virtually forced to consider how we can use available re sources more effectively and efficiently.” He adds that all our plans must be made with the aware nes that the world of the 21st century will be a quite different place than it is now. He said, "The changes of the next 4b years, we are told, well equal the -.significance those of the last 400.” The changes which are certainly coming "will affect higher education pro foundly,” he stated, "We must be prepared to meet them intel ligently.” Eurich, in his speech, then considered how these challenges might be met. He did this by use of the “looking backward” technique—pretending to be in the year 2000 and looking back ward to see what the changes have been. IN LOOKING backward, Eu rich sees an extensive junior college system, with a junior col lege “available for every young man and woman within com muting distance from home.” In addition, teachers colleges have completely disappeared and their place has been taken by large multipurpose institutions which, along with the strong lib eral arts colleges and univer sities, have discontinued the first two years, since these now come within the province of the junior college. “The transition took place with surprising smoothness,” Eurich states. “Once football, basketball, and other sports be came completely professional ized, and the social fraternities and sororities vanished from the scene, the need for the first two years of college abruptly ceased" OTHER CHANGES in higher education winch Enrich, tire dict.s include: • Giant universities some en rolling more than 200,000 stu dents • Strengthening of the con tent of education on all levels in two ways: (1) clearer definition of the objectives of education, and (2; production of "new cur ricula" due to growing alarm by scholars over our "soft educa tion • Development of new learn ing processes, which make the best teaching available to all stu dents and adaption of instruc tion to individual rates of learn ing Kurich predicts that the use of educational TV, individual learning techniques, and other advances will make the stand ard lecture obsolete “Together, these techniques enabled us to break through the ancient framework which used to bind college education into a rigid pattern No longer do we have to divide the day into fixed fifty-minute periods, no longer do we measure a student's prog ress by the number of credit hours he has hanked.' no long er do we march all students along through the same series of lectures and classes " Eurich concluded his speech by pointing out that his was only one man's view. "Each of (Continued on page 3) OREGON DAILY EMERALD Thr Oregon Dail> Emerald is published seven tunes m Srpinnlxr and five day* a week during the school yeur, except dur ing examination and vacation periidt by the Student Ptiblk »i»on* Board of the University of Oregon. Entered a* second clast. mater at the post office, Eugene, Oregon. Subscription rate- $5 per year; $2 j>er term. Opinion* expressed on thr editorial page are those of Thr Em-raid ami do not pre tend to represent the opint >ns of the ASUO or the University. RON BI EL, Editor MARTY KKTELS, Husinesi Manager TED MAHAK, Managing Editor EVKRETTE DENNIS. News Editor PHIL COGSWELL. Editorial Page Editor LARRY WILLIAMS, Advertising Manager JOHN »C( HNER, Sports Alitor DL'LCY MORAN, Assistant Managing Editor I)A V E SA N DS, JI M E U A K E, JANET GOETZE. Assistant News Editors GEORGE HIGH AM, Photo Editor LINDA BROWN, Entertainment Editor RON COWAN, C ATHY NEVILLE, THORA \\ I LLIAMS, Associate News Editors DICK RICHARDSON, Feature Editor EDITORIAL BOARD: Ron Bucl, Phil Cogswell, Ted Mahar Everette Dennis, Dave Sands Dnlcy Moran, Linda Brown Bob Forsyth, Hal Snow, Grant Ledger wood, Dong Ragen Janet Goet/e, and Bill Hutchison
