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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 21, 1972)
Board visit -Editorial profitable session Four members of the State Board of Higher Education were on campus Monday. The bulk of their time was taken by University administrators and local government officials interested in making a case for their interests. But for the first time in recent memory students were also given a chance to plead their interests. For one hour in the early afternoon the four members of the Board sat down and informally chatted with University students. The exchange was organized by the ASUO which deserves credit for devising the innovative informal format. That format would have worked better had members of the Board listened more than they did. As a general rule most answers to student questions lapsed into lengthy explanations of prior Board ac tions. Such one-sided dialogue does not really permit students to effectively argue their ease. Nevertheless, there was more give and take between students and Board mem bers Monday than in all the previous structured Board visitations. In one of the more interesting discussions Board member Elizabeth H. Johnson talked with students on the merits of future tuition increases. Johnson listened intently as students graphically described the hardship repeated tuition increases can cause. She even looked sympathetic at several points as students documented hassles with financial aids, government loans and scholarships. But her perception of the issue did not fundamentally change. Johnson is in favor of charging the student the full cost of his or her higher education. That would mean not just a $30 per term increase in tuition, but rather something on the level of $300. She would then support massive financial aid to the “few” students who could not handle the increase. To support her contention, Johnson cited an Illinois study which showed most students and their families could handle similar tuition increases. The discussion reflected Johnson’s at titude — an attitude shared by other Board members — that students are statistics rather than people. It is easy for a statistic to handle a tuition increase — but students know, that as people, the money doesn’t come easy. Nevertheless, the visiting Board members — particularly Johnson who was not a member of the official visitiation committee and didn’t have to come — deserve credit for engaging in the informal discussion. Within limits prescribed by time and space, the session was valuable. Letters . . . Editor’s Note: The Emerald prints all letters meeting stated requirements—i.e. typed, double spaced, 250 words or less and signed in ink—regardless of the viewpoint expressed in the letter. Surprise! From our smug little bastion of self imagined intellectualism, it is easy for us to look contemptuously down our noses at the electorate of this country, who recently voted 61 to 38 that Richard Nixon was a preferable alternative to George McGovern. Your Friday, November 10 quotation of Claudia Brown’s summary of the electoral process as “... what do they do but further Nixon and that’s certainly not in volvement,” unwittingly and vividly portrays what many people who consider themselves part of the silent majority view as the same self-righteous, condescending attitude displayed at the Democrats’ convention and by the candidate it selected. While I do not necessarily include myself in the silent majority, and I am sym pathetic to many of McGovern’s goals, I hope that Miss Brown and McGovern's adherents have learned something from his rejection at the polls: that if voters (rightly or wrongly) perceive that a candidate holds them or their central values in contempt, then they’ll go out of their way to vote him down. Given my perception of this paper’s objectivity. I’d be pleasantly surprised to see this letter in print. Michael J. Omohundro Stewart withdraws One of my campaign letters on Friday contained an implication that my then opponent Cliff Zukin was receiving a $40 a month salary for his position as Chairman of the Student-Faculty Liaison Committee. Cliff does not receive this salary and I take full responsibility for any implication that he- did- even though he did appoint himself as chairman of the committee. Cliff only receives his one salary as Senate President. I am sorry for any such implication ever being made. I am withdrawing from this senate race with many of the same misgivings I had when I entered it. I would like to thank everyone who helped me during the few days of the campaign and wish Cliff the best of luck in his second senate term. John T. Stewart Jr.Pol.Sci. Boycott lettuce! It appalls me that this university is a scab. It also appalls me that this univer sity is using the students to help it scab. The university is scabbing everyday that head lettuce is on campus, for by buying head lettuce, it is hurting the efforts of migrant farm workers to organize for their own survival. For many students, and certainly the university, the lettuce boycott doesn’t seem to be an important issue, but when you look at the facts, a person would have to realize that what’s at stake here are human lives. The average farm working family earns well below the poverty level for their efforts in the fields. Their life expectancy is 49 years. Disease is high, education is low, and many workers find that they are not even allowed the luxury of toilets and drinking water in the fields. To boil it all down, the only people that really benefit from their hard work are the agri-business capitalists in California and Arizona. The only way that farm workers can fight back at these conditions is to organize into a union representing their interests, and the only way that this can happen is through a national boycott of head lettuce. But the university seems to think that it can stand neutral on this subject. It believes that by offering students a so called “choice” between scab and non scab lettuce that it has relieved itself of its responsibility. But the university still buys head lettuce, and is using students’ and taxpayers’ money to do so. This scab policy has got to end. Boycott head lettuce. Dean Nolan Freshman uyj CMSTCMXe HUHAtO MATURE'. theeeu AUtWfS bOA-R. 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