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 _