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
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