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.