Monday
Editor in chief: Jack Clifford
Managing Editor: Jessica Blanchard
Newsroom: (541) 346-5511
Room 300, Erb Memorial Union
P.O. box 3159, Eugene, OR 97403
E-maii: ode@oregon.uoregon.edu
EDITORIAL EDITOR: MICHAEL J. KLECKNER opededitor@journalist.com
I
In the following accounts, all
names and classes have been
changed to protect the overstressed.
Marjorie is 20 years old.
She used to be cheer
ful and bright, a joy to
her friends and par
ents. Today, we find Marjorie a
very distraught woman.
“I don’t really have time to talk
to you,” she says, wringing her
hands. Her fingernails and knuck
les are black with grime. “I have
another geology lab ‘midterm’ this
week. We’ve had a ‘midterm’ four
times this term. And then I have a
10-page paper to write for English,
due next Wednesday — during
Dead Week! By January, I’ll have
forgotten everything I’m learning.”
Marjorie bursts into tears, un
able to continue. When she finally
calms down, her face now swollen
and red, she explains that she has
n’t done laundry this term and she
doesn’t remember what her
friends look like. A minor error
message from her printer caused
her to throw her computer out the
window earlier this week.
Josh sits before us, and his
musty, three-day-old odor is as
distracting, as are his knees,
bouncing from the effects of the
third triple espresso of the morn
ing. He’s 18, and his face is griz
zled from a lack of sleep, shaving
and sobriety.
“I barely sleep when I’m sleep
ing — caffeine still pumps
through me. I don’t even care how
papers or tests turn out anymore. I
just keep cranking ’em out. But
hey, ‘C’s get degrees.” Josh slits his
eyes like a feral cat and smirks at
us impatiently. “I had this group
project due yesterday, and I strug
gled to the last minute. Our group
couldn't meet regularly — people
were slackers or too busy — so we
faked it and each of us learned al
most nothing. What’s the point?”
OK, enough fun. Actually,
everything about the preceding
stories was fictionalized. The edi
torial board didn’t meet with stu
dents to hear their horror stories.
We didn’t have to. We can all feel
the pain. Conversations between
co-workers and friends have
changed; instead of asking, “How
are you?,” we just compare notes
to see whose workload is the
worst.
And for the good of the stu
dents, we do have a serious point.
It’s threefold, and it goes some
thing like this: Midterms aren’t
midterms. Group projects aren’t
group projects. And Dead Week is
n’t Dead Week. These truisms
need to change.
Midterms, by their name, are an
evaluation of curriculum learned
during the first half of the term.
They must be partnered with a fi
nal exam in holy matrimony. One
midterm and one final — group
marriages should not be allowed.
If a professor is going to have three
midterms, just call them “Really
Big Tests” and acknowledge that
the information will be lost by the
time there’s another “Really Big
Test.” Having too many “Really
Big Tests” won’t help the learning
process.
Group projects, in order to be ef
fective, take time. Class time must
be set aside for meetings. The
tasks involved must be effectively
broken into parts by the professor,
to teach students how equal work
can be accomplished. After all,
these are college students learning
to live on their own for the first
time, not project managers at a
blue-chip company. If there isn’t
class time for these efforts, then
scrap the group project and have
individual assignments.
Finally, Dead Week needs to be
sacrosanct. This is the time for
everyone to breathe deeply, catch
up on the 18 chapters of reading
they didn’t get done and prepare
their brains for the big download
coming during finals week. We
know professors hate grading fi
nals past finals week, but it does
n’t help students to have a “really
big test” during Dead Week and
then no final; some classes do
have finals and students’ won’t
have time to study. Leave Dead
Week alone.
These three points are bad for
students’ personal lives, bad for
their education, and bad for their
sanity. Students need time to
study; spending the term going
from one crisis to another — some
students call it “putting out fires”
— doesn’t lead to learning. In
stead, information is barely
stuffed in and then allowed to ex
plode onto paper. Things like re
membering to buy toilet paper get
shoved out of the brain.
The joy of education is in seeing
information come together and
make sense, as a whole. Finding
connections between knowledge
gained last year about the form of
governance in 18th-century China
and something learned this year
about the literature of the Greeks
is amazing.
A university education should
be about consuming and absorb
ing information. It is not con
ducive to this learning process for
students to be so overworked that
a slight mishap makes them freak
out. Please, professors and admin
istrators, let us learn. Don’t make
us prove it every three days.
This editorial represents the opinion of the
Emerald editorial board. Responses can be
sent to ode@oregon.uoregon.edu.
Letters to the editor
Bad Beaver behavior
My wife and I were in atten
dance at the Civil War football
game Nov. 18. We have attend
ed many “away” games and
have never been treated more
rudely than we were that day.
The student section's behav
ior was deplorable. They
cussed at us, held up signs
that said “F#$% the Ducks,”
gave us the finger, threw
things at us ... and to cap it off,
as we were on our way back to
our car, several of the most de
generate individuals I have
ever encountered taunted us
with dead ducks. I'm not talk
ing about stuffed animals, I'm
talking about mallards — the
real thing.
It is my hope that Oregon
fans, and specifically students,
would learn from this experi
ence. When teams visit here,
let's enjoy our victories; but
let's not be rude.
Brian Nobles
Class of 1990
In Pursuit of Healthiness
I feel that your editorial
(’’Council counsels morality,”
ODE, Nov. 15) criticizing the
City Council’s decision on the
smoking ban was seriously off
base. The primary purpose of
the ordinance is to protect
workers rather than cus
tomers. The latter obviously
have the right to decide
whether to frequent smoky
taverns or not, but the former
must otherwise tolerate expo
sure to carcinogens as a condi
tion of employment. This has
been determined to be unac
ceptable in all other work
places.
You speak of “only the
health risks of smoking” as a
“justification.” Only? Tobacco
smoke is the leading preventa
ble cause of morbidity and
premature mortality in the
United States, accounting for
some 300,000 deaths annually
— by far our most serious drug
problem. And the intent of the
ordinance is protection of non
smokers from secondhand
smoke, not the protection of
smokers from themselves.
Let the employees decide
where to work, you say. Unfor
tunately, there are very few
non-smoking bars in most
communities (there were only
three in Corvallis before their
ordinance), and relevant to the
University, alcohol service is a
very popular job among col
lege and graduate students be
cause of the flexible hours and
good income it provides. I
would think you would sup
port an ordinance which
prominently protects your
own student population, who
should not have to compro
mise their health in pursuit of
a livelihood.
Jack Dresser
Springfield, Ore.