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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 29, 1968)
lliuiii -d FllSt EdltOnal >-»ifcr:it -n iHi ‘Mi'ii “r ,|i;™ Some Unfinished Business The University has some major unfinished busi ness to turn to. President Arthur S. Flemming is leaving the University for a challenging position as Presi dent of Macalester College in St. Paul Minne sota. In Flemming’s seven years here the University has made momentous gains toward becoming the type of university we’d like it to be—a university where underprivileged as well as privileged can receive a relevant education and where students can share in making decisions that will effect their education and ultimately their lives. However much still needs to be done. President Johnson’s National Advisory Com mission on Civil Disorders said in its report: “It is time to make good the promises of American democracy to all citizens—urban and rural. White and Black, Spanish-surname, American Indian, and every minority group.” That same pronouncement applies to the Uni versity. It is time for the University to make good the promises of higher education to all who de sire them. This means the expansion of programs such as Upward Bound and Work-Study. It means increased financial aid and more flexible entrance requirements. And it means curriculum reform. The Kerner Report and the murder of Rev. Martin Luther King indicted White America for its overt and covert racism. The University is not immune to such a disease and steps must be taken to alleviate racism on campus. The Black Stu dents’ list of grievances and demands and the University’s committee on racism are beginnings. The demands must now be met and the commit tee’s recommendations carried out. Other changes are necessary. SEARCH needs to be expanded and more instructors need to be involved. The Conduct Code needs revision and the faculty must be incorporated under the Code. Curriculum changes are necessary, especially where a Black curriculum is concerned. The fi nancial situation at the University needs to be cleared up and new means of funding Erb Me morial Union education activities need to be found. But most important, the University must con tinue to move toward the establishment of com munity government. In his first editorial as editor of the Emerald, out-going editor Mike Fancher said student equal ity in the University decision making process can only be won “when students as a whole show ac tive concern in participation.” We agree with this point of view. Students should have a part in the making of decisions which will affect them and the events of last week’s sleep-in in Johnson Hall showed many have the concern. Again, however, that was just another step. The students won, but it was not a complete victory. They probably gained the balance of power on the Presidential Search Committee for the stu dent viewpoint, and they gained a commitment by the State System of Higher Education to the concept of student involvement. But in the aftermath of the agreement reached between the students and Chancellor Lieuallen it was apparent the concept of community gov ernment was still unclear. It was also apparent many felt student government needed drastic reform. These are the major problems the University faces and the changes it must pursue. Some steps have been taken but business is still unfinished. Forces for change must not let the coming year, under an acting president or a new president, become a stagnant interim year. In the past the Emerald has been a force for change and it must continue to be so in the future if it is to live up to its responsibility to its readers and consequently to the University community. However, that responsibility does not, as some would like, include reflecting “student opinion.-’ The Emerald must reflect its own judgment and must act upon its own conscience. That conscience says the paper must present news that people ought to read, as well as news people would like to read. It says that the paper must separate news from opinion and supply means for presenting both. It says that it must supply evidence for needed change and at the same time provide a forum for defense against that evidence. The Emerald’s conscience says that the world is our campus—that no university can isolate it self and still provide a meaningful and relevant education. That conscience says that the Emerald must attempt to be as professional as possible in cover ing an active campus. Only by acting upon its own conscience can the Emerald best serve the University community. The conscience of this newspaper commits it to tending to the major unfinished business at the University. There can be no higher priority for this newspaper nor for the University itself. —RON EACHUS lllllllllllllllllllllllllilllllllllllllllllllllillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllHID Wad Sd luefeij ....... Student Government Must Stop And Take Long Look at Itself Editor’s Note: The following column was submitted by for mer ASUO Senator Mark Schive ley. It is an explanation of his resignation April 25. As of Thursday, April 25, I have resigned from the ASUO Senate. Unlike many of my colleagues in the Senate, I feel some alle giance to my constituents, and feel that I owe the people who elected me an explanation of the rationale behind my deci sion. I’ve really already mentioned one of the reasons: the fact that our student government is not representative of the stu dents of this University. Most members of the heirar chy of student government, par ticularly the Senate, don’t give a damn what the students think, but only what that in dividual senator feels is good for his own particular philoso phy, or for his future as a “po iiuciau hi mis insiiiuiion. Last year at this time, Dave McCloskey was running for ASUO President and h i s theme was, basically, that it was time for us to stop and look at what we’ve got and think about it and decide if it was really the direction in which we wanted to go. I admit that at the time 1 dis agreed with him, thinking that what we had was just what we wanted and needed. During this past year, however. I’ve become more and more involved in stu dent government and have found that Dave was right all along. It’s time to step back and critically and analytically re evaluate the system as it stands and tind how it can be im proved. I submit that this must be done, or student government will disintegrate, and with it kill all of the students’ chances of helping to decide how this University will be run. The non representation prob lem mentioned above has cre ated a tremendous gap between the general student body and student government, with the latter taking an elitist attitude towards the system. This, once again, is particularly true in the Senate, where some sena tors go so far as to think that students are too stupid to think things out for themselves. The Senate itself continually bogs down in parliamentary games, which some senators term "necessary,” but which I (along with a few others) term “ridiculous.” It is no wonder that people that visit Senate meetings and participate in the Senate committee structure be come so disenchanted with stu dent government, when they spend almost four hours (some times more) on a Thursday night watching certain senators argue, debate and hassle over work that should take about an hour, if done properly. Within the Senate is a committee that at all times has been almost more powerful than the Senate itself: the Ways and Means Committee. 1 have voiced my fear of this commit tee since the night last spring term that we voted for the new committee structure. 1 have also voiced my continu ing anxiety concerning this committee throughout this year, to individual senators as well as the Senate meetings. The pur pose of this committee, as we were led to believe when we voted for it, is to go through the bills and make sure they are properly worded and have had enough research done on them. Realistically, however, t h e ASUO vice-president takes care of those functions. What, then, does the Ways and Means Com mittee do during its afternoon meetings that once lasted four hours? It has become a "Little Senate" and argues every bill, only to go through the whole thing again that night in the Senate meeting. The tide of discontent is rts ing on the third lloor. Several senators have resigned this year, many for the same rea sons 1 have mentioned. Of all the senators whose terms of office terminate this election pe riod, only three are running again, and all three have been senators only since the middle of winter term. Even members of the other departments and committees in student government are dis gusted with the direction we find ourselves in. I’ve even talked to members of the Erb Memo rial Union Board, a “non-politi cal” body, who have voiced grave concern. The purpose of student gov ernment should be to unify the students behind certain goals and provide a direction in which these goals can be implement ed. Instead, we find factions tear ing it apart, using the Senate floor to call each other names. We find that certain segments of the University aren’t repre sented at all, and that those that are represented are repre sented poorly. The Black students and the International students, the ofl campus and the Greeks, the dormitories and the co-ops all must be represented properly; all must be included in the de cision making process; but also in the executive branch to ad vise and carry out the plans and goals of student govern ment. (Continued on page 11) |^'l|||!l|||||||||||IIIIIIIIIIII||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||illll||||||l!IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIllliiillllllllllllllllllllllllllllIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!lllllllll^ Emerald Editor: | Enlightened Minority Emerald Editor: We are three White girls whc believe that the so-called “White man’s burden” is not and nevei has been to lift up his “little brown brothers” to his own exalt ed level. Rather we think t h e burden, not the duty, of the minority of enlightened White men is to try to light a can die in the dark swamp of ig norance in which the major ity of his race wades. The Kerner Report gave offi cial sound to the centuries’ ole voiceless cry of the Blacks: the root of the evil is spreading anc thriving in that swamp. We would therefore like to public ly extend an invitation to Jer ry Scranton to again display his moral courage by explaining his theory to uj in greater detail at his convenience. Eleanor Montagna Graduate, Comparative Literature • Betty Bernard Sophomore, Anthropol ogy Nancy Bartow Freshman, Art * * * Well After All Emerald Editor: Isn’t Oregon a wonderfully lib eral campus? It is evident at a glance. Look at all those McCarthy buttons Sure is funny that the campus McCarthy headquarters could get only eight students to can 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. However, the Emerald does present on this page columnists and letter writers whose opinions reflect those of our diverse readership and not those of the Emerald itself RON EACHUS, Editor John Anderson Hick Fitch Gil Johnson ASSOCIATE EDITORS Linda Meierjurgen Doug Onvon Ron Saylor John Sasaki Sally Schippers Dave Sonnictisen Jaqi Thompson RICH JERNSTEDT Advertising Director LMJUU CKIUHTUN Advertising Manager BAKBAnA stone National Advertising Manager University of Oregon, Eugene, Monday, April 29, 1968 vas the Medford area last week end. Well, even so, just look at the racial harmony. You can see Blacks and Whites talking to each other all of the time. Of course, I do know this girl who talks to lots of Black guys but said she would not date any be cause, “We’re all a little pre judiced, you know.” But isn’t her conversation meaningful? And then there are the Kerner Report seminars. There the stu dents are learning how bigoted their parents are. It certainly is nice that none of the stu dents have been contaminated. Well, there is the petition to have equal student representa tion on the Presidential Search Committee. I know that the students really care, but you really can’t ask them to drop out of the race for a table in the Fishbowl, just to sign a pe tition. After all, there is a lim it. Rosemary Ryan Senior, Sociology * * * Poor Treatment Emerald Editor: I consider the selection of candidates for the future presi dency of the University of Ore gon to be of significant impor tance and concern to the stu dent. However, I dislike the overemphasis on this issue in the April 23 Emerald. Roughly three-fourths of the front page is concerned with the protest against unequal student representation on the Search committee and with the Edi torial. The remaining one-fourth contains an article about the Conference on Asia (in small print below the protest pic ture). The editorial itself I found to be of questionable value. Since when can one ignore those with whom one disagrees? The editor points out that since “we” disagree with Chancellor Lieuallen and ASUO President Farleigh the “students” must “ignore both to obtain equal representation on the commit tee.” The last paragraph of the editorial in which the editor advocates continuing “to de mand equal representation through any means necessary” (Continued on page 11)
