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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 13, 1966)
OREGON DAILY EMERALD Opinions expressed on the editorial page are those of the Emerald and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the ASUO or the University. Opinions expressed in signed columns are those of the writer. CHUCK BEGGS, Editor LOUIE ABRAMSON Business Manager LARRY LANGE News Editor BOB CARL Managing Editor PHIL SEMAS Associate Editor WILBUR BISHOP, JK. Advertising Manager MAXINE ELLIOTT Associate Editor *age 6 University of Oregon. Eugene. Wednesday. April 13, 19b6 The Hearings Missed the Mark The Student Union Board proved little or nothing in the hearings it held last week, which were supposedly an airing of ideas for its improvement. Objections have been raised—and justi fiably so—that the Board is not truly carry ing out the wishes of the students, who sup port it financially. The Board's decisions on the Lobby last year and their poor handling of the Terrace problem this year would justify that assertion. And representation on the Board hasn t been as it should be: one school had two representatives for 7.000 students—or one for 3,500 students—another had one for about 500, another has one for about 160. It doesn't really make sense. But the crucial question is student con trolwer the Board's actions, and the Board only paid lip service during the hearings. We wonder why. It's been proposed that the Board's deci sions be subject to review by the ASUO Senate, the only student-elected body on tiie campus. This would probably be the fairest and most efficient method of making sure the Board was acting in the students’ interests. That way, those who had the greatest expertise in the administrative problems involved would be in a position to take care of them, and. at the same time, the student body could check the board whenever it went too far—like refusing to let students use the Terrace. That’s only right. The Student Union was built for the students’ use, and any policy which prevents that should be elimi nated. But the Board, in its “compromise” of proposals given last Thursday at the hear ings, didn’t deal with that problem. Instead, they decided to “guarantee the ASUO four positions” on the Board—which could mean anything, as it's worded now. According to Chairman Dick Lawrence, the Board would present proposals to the Senate whenever they feel that a review by that body is necessary. In other words, when they just happen to feel like it. They could simply use this device as a token demonstration ol acqui escence to the student body that really didn’t exist. The student body still wouldn’t have the control they rightfully deserve— the Board would simply eat humble pie once in a while when it didn’t really matter, and hope the students believed it. So we’re a bit cynical about the three afternoons of dialogue that the Board con ducted last week. It almost seemed as if the Board was merely out to beat to the punch the growing dissatisfaction with its policies. What they’ve come up with doesn't really solve the problem. Open the Meetings The general faculty will meet today to act on an ASUO Senate proposal to allow two students to attend faculty meetings, one of the students being the ASUO presi dent. As we have said before we feel this is a reasonable and moderate request of the fac ulty, and is a step toward better student faculty relations. The newly-formed Fac ulty-Student Council has endorsed the idea, and we hope the full faculty does the same. While this would be a step in the right direction we would, of course, be much happier if the faculty went a step further and opened their meetings to everyone, in cluding the press. There is very little that should have to go on behind closed doors, and any secret matters could be dealt with in an executive session. Faculty action to open up the meetings would not deprive the body of the power to close those meetings off at any time it wished. Martin Acker, associate professor of education, made a good point in the Council meeting Monday —if the faculty wants students to demon strate responsibility, then students must be given the opportunity to do so. Unnecessary restrictions will do nothing but hamper this opportunity. Free, open discussion of faculty action will do much to insure an aware and re sponsible student body. Open meetings should be given a trial. pus MU 3 .. "“l'1,n" Students Should Be Heard, Too Max Rafferty, California’s conservative superintendent of public instruction, lit into the new generation of ProtestinK students the other day in a column in the Loa Angclea Tim s Much of what Rnfferty said isn't even worth commenting om It was mostly ravings against the Free Speech Movemen Berkeley and "the illegitimate progeny” across the country which followed it . One section is most bothersome, however. Says Rnfferty: i"Our college students . . . ought to be able to understand that the purpose of an institution of higher learning is not to afford them a built-in public address system and a captive audience. "It is to make them learned. It is to teach them to pursue the truth and to recognize it when and if they catch up with it It is to hand from one generation to the next the intellectual artifacts which are the rungs of the great ladder leading us over the centuries from savagery to civilization. “Students are in school to learn, not to Instruct—to listen, not to shoot their mouths off. When they have become at least partially educated, they may be worth listening to by the rest of us. Until that time, quite frankly, they are not " In other words, Rafferty is saying that students are second class citizens, that they can have no new ideas, that they | should “be seen and not heard." EDUCATION’S NOT THAT That would be One if the educational system were all that it should be, if it really did make us "learned," whatever that means, if it really did teach us to "pursue truth and to recog nize it when and if (we) catch it,” The trouble it that too much of modern education is devoted to talking about “intellectual artifacts ” Higher education does not force students to think It only has them learning enough facts to regurgitate on a test well enough to earn a grade Then those facts are quickly forgotten You have to learn facts but you also have to learn what to do with them. That s what s * been left out of higher education Sure, it's partly the students' fault Too many students don't make an effort to change the system and only a few more go ahead and do some real thinking. Hut then why should they’’ The system does nothing to on courage it. You can get by in the system, go all the way through a college and get your degree with fairly decent grades—with out ever having uttered anything but regurgitation of subject matter. STUDENTS UNSURE Students are so unused to having to do anything more than this that when they are confronted with a course that does challenge them, they don't know what to do. More than one professor can tell of how he has developed a program that really forces students to do some independent thinking, only to lind that the students complain because there's not enough guidance in the course. Unfortunately faculty members who develop courses that really challenge are too few, and so are students who ask for this kind of course. Most students don’t care about the kind of education they're getting. Most students are passive. They only want to live within the system as it stands because they aren’t asked to do anything else. There are some, of course, who aren't like this. They're the kind that Rafferty is attacking, the ones who question the sys tem and challenge the faculty to change it so that higher edu cation can have some meaning for students. NUMBER GROWING As can be seen on this campus, their number is growing More and more students are finding that they don’t like the lecture and test system that encourages regurgitation and dis courages thinking. And they run into the attacks of people like Rafferty What people like Rafferty fail to realize is that few academ icians want to change higher education. They like it the way it is. Take this University. You don’t hear many faculty members (Continued on page 7) —— Jules Feiffer MV' FATH5R mw FftX | MOW J XU- \ looic i back Oto XU *TH6' >. Ak)P ftUM r iNe OTEG WH-P,. REPORT TO THE FIRING., RANG# m/f me IT, AA) £7/e*. poor mm? Mf-IH OUST FOUffl m cmS' PIPN' Wf a i&C&rfl mrm \ IM \ caM FROM I'll im mx Ok) Ml THf^ A r me _
