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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (June 1, 1981)
Emerald Vol. 82, No. 166 Eugene, Oregon 97403 Monday, June 1, 1981 Photo by Erich Boekelheide But is it art? Vandals may have provided some entertainment for young Jerome French by toppling the yellow modern sculpture in front of the University art museum Saturday night. But for physical plant workers charged with the task of setting it upright today, it's just another headache in a frustrating series of University vandalism incidents. Kesey lauds library Shakespeare, Bach By MARIAN GREEN Ol the Emerald Like a carburetor, the University Library fuels the community, according to noted author Ken Kesey. “The library has to be just as important as bike paths. If not, everything falls apart. The libary is the core, the soul, the heart of the University, which has always given the community its character. It's kept us from becoming Albany.” Kesey, author of “One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest,” "Sometimes A Great Notion,” "Kesey’s Garage Sale” and numerous articles, spoke at the Friends of the Library's annual meeting Sunday. “What we're really talking about is the library, the economy and the environ ment of this area,” Kesey said. “Beneath that, what we're talking about is the nation and the notion of what a classic is." Kesey used the recent 25th anniversary of his Springfield High School graduation as an example of the educational changes that have occurred since then. "You know what we have in common with the graduates of Springfield High? We can recite the prologue of the 'Canturbury Tales’ in Old English,” he said. "How many kids can recite that today?” Part of the problem is that English teachers don't exercise as much control over course content, Kesey said. “What’s really going to be on the line in the next 25 years is the soul of this nation, and that soul has always been protected by the English teachers," he said. “For the most part we're going to survive. The real danger is in kids not appreciating that there's such a thing as a classic and that some things are better than others. “I’m the first Kesey to finish high school, let alone college, and it took me a long time to learn to like Bach. It takes a long time to realize that Shakespeare is the best writer that ever wrote, and by that time you’re old Kesey said he’s asked teachers at Pleasant Hill High School to quit teach ing "Cuckoo’s Nest.” "It's easy. The teachers want to teach it because it’s easy. They say ‘It’s what the kids want.' I say Forget what the kids want, If you're not smarter than they are then get out of the business.’ ” Kesey said the library and other insti tutions must work to raise money and shouldn’t rely just on donations from "liberals with a little money in their pockets," like himself. "I've seen the handwriting on the wallet. The library is going to have to go out there and fight for that dollar just the way anyone else does.” Kesey suggested a library turnstile with a slot for quarters and benefit con certs in front of the library as money raising options. "Support that library by making the money to support the library, not by appealing to the people who have the dollars. Kesey said the trouble in schools today is a “direct result of what a lot of us did in the sixties. ”1 believe what we did was right to do because authority was headed in the wrong direction. The nation was bound for kharmic doom if we hadn’t turned it around.” Kesey credited musicians and writers such as John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Wil liam Burroughs and “me, who attacked the sentence," for instigating the change. "Whether we were right or wrong, we were effective. But in throwing out the water we threw out an awful lot of nice babies,” he said Student infirmary killed by underuse The Student Health Center will put its infirmary to sleep at the end of spring term. A victim of declining use, the student hospital is being used by an average three student-patients a day, according to health center director James Jackson. And that’s just not cost effective. The closure will save the University $200,000 — and save students more than$3 in fees next year. “It was a good service for students who used it,” Jackson says. "But we felt responsible for maintaining a cost-effec tive management.” Jackson attributes the lack of use to changes in medical care in the last decade — and to changes in students Patients are no longer hospitalized for such maladies as mononucleosis, Jackson explains. And students today are independent and want to take care of themselves when they’re sick. The trend for reduced use of student infirmaries — and for their closures — is nationwide, Jackson says. The infirmary closes at the beginning of each summer term, and reopens in the fall. This year, it won’t reopen. The possibiliy of closing the infirmary — 26 beds and more than a dozen rooms on the second floor of the health center — has been discussed for several years, Jackson says. So the news comes as no surprise to the health center staff — some of whom will be out a job come fall term. The closure will mean releasing four full-time registered nurses, two full-time aides, one physician and five part-time nurses, Jackson says. What to do with the infirmary — which takes up most of the second floor of the health center — remains a mystery. While several possibilities have been con sidered, Jackson says nothing looks promising. Instead of 24-hour service in the fall, the center will operate 8 a m. to 4:30 p.m., with emergency care provided until 8 p.m. Jackson says studies show that 98 percent of the center's clientele will be unaffected by the reductions. But for hospitalization and after-hours emer gency care, students will have to go another hospital. The elimination makes it especially important for students to be covered by an adequate health plan, Jackson says, because students no longer will have the option of using the center’s free facilities. Photo by Erich Boekelheide A lack of patients, and an overabundance of empty halls, has resulted in the closure of the student infirmary.
