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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (April 20, 1966)
,III,IHI mi Illlllllllllll I I" Illllllllllllllllll mug VMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII CAMPUS OPINION Jo Stohlman, editor v ? -"J f , l.'. a. J 1 it it Hi 1 o r y . r4 - 15 I, .' 'V I ft I . .? -; Mike Kirkman, business manager Page 2 Wednesday, April 20, 1966 Dr. Hall 'That Man' At rare times, a job and the man who takes it match so well that the require ments for the job are defined as, "That man." This has happened at the School of Journalism, where "that man" has been Dr. William E. Hall. The job, when Hall accepted it ten years ago, called for a builder. Hall is a builder. He led development of advertising and broadcasting sequences within the School of Journalism framework. He persuaded Nebraska editors to provide greatly-increased scholarship money. He strength ened the news-editorial sequence with depth - reporting and integrated-class (where students in newspaper reporting, editing and photography join in a news room atmosphere to produce a mock paper) courses. He increased School of Journalism prestige to the point where Nebraska ranks universally on lists of outstanding journalism schools. Accreditation of the Nebraska School of Journalism has be come matter-of-fact. The job called for a fighter. Hall has fought. When a former state senator publicly criticized the Daily Nebraskan as what he considered too much an advocate of the Democratic Party in its outlook, Hall, ac companied by other School faculty, was the first to defend the Nebraskan. The fight could easily have been avoided. The Nebraskan is independent of the School of Journalism. But he felt, as we do, that freedom of edi torial expression is staked on the out come of every such fight. This summer, Hall will become direc tor of the Ohio State University School of Journalism. His critics at OSU have been outspoken. One of their fears reportedly is that (1) he will become an administra tion yes-man and (2) this will lead him to muzzle the OSU student newspaper. That newspaper is sending a reporter to Lincoln. We doubt he plans to scout for the Ohio welcome wagon. His assignment will be to study both Hall and the School. We believe a fair analysis will disprove both the critics' premise and their con clusion; Hall has been part of the NU faculty for a decade with no known at tacks on his integrity. His job called for more than a quiet pipe-smoking man of integrity. It demanded leadership. Hall has led. Blueprints for making journalism schools are fine for lining shelves. They work just a little bit better when drafted on the back of a signed check. Hall drafted what we consider a solid blue print, blending the academic and the pro fessional, and he found the money to make it work. A Unicameral education leader once praised Hall as the only NU facul ty member to contact him during a legislative session to explain his de partment's needs. Dollar-for-dollar, he may not be the School's greatest money-raiser. But he has been responsible for building a School good enough to make it easier for men to reach for their wallets. We wish him the best of fortune at Ohio State. But at the same time, we're not sure OSU will have as much of Hall as the Nebraska School of Journalism will keep. A large part of the School's success probably the major part can be traced to the outstanding faculty Hall has recruited. The vacuum of leadership at the top has not been able to unravel the unity of this faculty. The new director apparently will come from within this faculty. We believe he will enjoy their support as much as Hall has. And the School of Journalism will quickly return its full attention to ed ucating journalists with no loss in momentum. Mike Baxter Test Revieiv Students muif UMf in jim i irnif jMiiiiriiirtiiiiMiitif 1 1 luiMiMiiiiiiiiJUMiriiiiiMtiriiiiiiijiiiiiMiiMiiftitiffiEiirtifrirjiiiT 1 More Letters ... I Sllblllit Negroes in Fraternities Questions (Editor's Note: A few in structors at the University have used the plan outlined below. We feel it is an ef fective method in students' preparation for finals and suggest that more teach ers make use of it.) Madison, Wis. (I.P.) A good way for teachers to encourage students to re view for exams is to have them submit questions which might appear on the exam. That's the conclusion reached by a University of Wisconsin psychology pro fessor who has analyzed the difference between student and teacher-constructed exams. "Student participation in the construction of a multiple-choice exam results in better test performance," Prof. Albert R. Marston has found, "although the aver age grades of participants are only slightly higher than those of non-participating students." Participants im proved their grades about five per cent over those of non - participants, he ex plained. Prof. Marston reported that the review technique was used in a psychology course with 278 students. All took a six-week's exam ination composed of multiple-choice questions con structed by Marston. A few weeks later, at mid term, about a third of the students handed in multiple-choice questions, from which Marston prepared a student-constructed exam. Of the 68 students who turned in questions, 37 had one or more of their ques tions appear on the exam. All students who prepared questions took the student- -constructed exam. Half of the non-participants took the student exam, while the remaining students took an exam pre pared by Prof. Marston. This allowed Marston to check any differences in dif ficulty between the two tests. The result? Student and teacher-constructed exams were equally difficult; yet students who helped write the exam did better than did those who had not pre pared test questions. Dear Editor, I wish to call your attention to an interesting article found in Time magazine titled "The Frats in the Fire." Among other things, the article disclosed that at the University of Minnesota with 42,000 students, there is not one Negro in a social fraternity (the Negro fraternity was excluded.) At the University of Wisconsin with 39,000 students, there is not one Negro in a social fraternity. While at Rutgers, there are 10 fraternities out of 27 that have Negro members. This is my first full academic year at Nebraska, and I am not acquainted with the Greek establishment, but I am curious. Are there now Negroes in social fraternities or sororities? Have there ever been? Are Negroes al lowed to go through the rush process? Are they welcomed' If not, why? Bill Powell, graduate student Editor's Note: To answer your questions Gary Lar sen, president of Interfraternity Council, and Miss Made line Girard, Panhellenic adviser, said that no houses hete have clauses excluding Negroes. Negroes may go through Rush Week, but must meet the requirements of grades, etc., that are necessary to go through. Miss Gi rard said that there has never been a Negro girl go through Rush Week here. Larsen said that a Negro went through Rush Week in 1962 and was well received by all houses. The boy did not pledge and did not attend the University, although one fraternity tried to locate him after Rush Week. Larsen noted that there is a Negro fraternity on campus, Kappa Alpha Psi, which has 34 members, and Miss Girard added that there have been girls from other countries in sororities here. Aii Editor Is . . . Dear Editor. In answer to your comment in "Sorry About That" that "a fraternity is an organization, the members of which have survived a rigorous culling process from which only the culls remain," may I point out that evidently an editor is a person, the thoughts of which have survived a rigorous culling process from which only the culls remain. Marilyn Mantel Independent Abbott's Remarks Answered Dear Editor, As a newly selected member of Vox Populi, I feel compelled to reply to Steve Abbott's denunciation of the party at Hyde Park. First, this year's Vox Populi members were not se lected solely on the basis of five-minute interviews; can didates were also required to submit written applications. Furthermore, Mr. Abbott should realize that since cam pus politics does not operate in a vacuum, most of the applicants for the Vox Populi party were already per sonally known by at least a few of last year's Vox Populi members. Second, Mr. Abbott stated that Vox Populi is a party without principles or platform. I would ask Mr. Abbott if he expects last year's members to write a platform, and select candidates to fit it? It seems to me that the candidates themselves should formulate a platform which they feel they can whole-heartedly support. And that is exactly what Vox Populi is doing. Finaly, Mr. Abbott's charge that Vox Populi has no party responsibility is an unfair and totally unfounded ac cusation. Last year, 18 Vox Populi members were elected to the Senate. If Mr. Abbott is interested he might com pare the platform they ran on with what ASUN has ac complished this year. There's a remarkable similarity. In closing, I might add that Mr. Abbott should get his facts straight before he tosses out careless accusa tions. Kathleen Costello Kinda knocks hell outa the espirit de corps, doesn't it? Sorry About That! Being a compendium of farce, humor and comment, selected arbitrarily by the Edi tor .. . Historical Note of the Day: In 1964, Rhumba, Columbia, Juan Valdex is hanged for drinking Brazilian coffee. In 1901, University of Nebraska students Agatha Scraaag and Edna Grudley are ex pelled for drinking coke in public (in the Union.) One presidential candidate has a suggestion for the ASUN electoral commission which we think is a good one. His suggestion: that the names of students running on a party plat form be accompanied by the name of the party. Because it looks as if real issues and real differences are divid ing the parties, we feel the idea has much merit. On return from vacation: "I had a wonderful time. How about you? Do anything exciting?" "Yep. I was coming back to Lincoln and I saw two flying saucers out of my plane window. Found out they were only Ashland and Omaha. What'd you do?" "Three term papers, studied for four tests, read my English assignments since the first of vacation, figured out my finals schedule, bought a textbook for my chem course, wrote letters to three teachers asking them to give me Incompletes, wrote the registrar and asked him not to give my grades to the draft board, planned a semester project, made some crib notes for philosophy, decided the alternatives to the alternatives I choose for registration An excess of money is a problem of the Student Senate at Arizona State University. Past senates have al lowed unappropriated money to accu mulate and there is a $72,000 fund to spend. Guess they could start by buying red note books for their senators . . . or remodeling ... or This column really isn't intended to be a poetry corner. However, every so often we get unsolicited tidbits. Here's one: Spring is here and brings good cheer. Robins chirp and frogs burp. No comment. The Iowa State Daily defines "mid term" as the time when students aren't half finished with studies, but studies have half finished them. Thought for the Day: Only one week until ASUN elections. (Only one more week of speeches and debates.) Vacation's over. We're Sorry About That! Future of the University Dear Editor; 1 have been reading the reports on "why University faculty members leave Nebraska," and the sense of most of the articles seems to be a lack of money, an overload of work, and a lack of time for research, three cries heard round the academic world. As a graduate student from out of state I find it increasingly difficult to hold my head up high where the University of Nebraska is concerned. - I came here upon the recommendation of a faculty member that I had met while working during the sum mer of 1962. I am grateful to him and to the other faculty members of the department of Speech and Dramatic Arts for the opportunities they have afforded me in working on my M.A. As a graduate assistant concentrating on theatre my contact with other departments of the University has been minimal, but before everyone gets the idea that the whole University is on the fritz, I would like to sound the trumpet loud and clear for the faculty who spend their hours teach ing a full class load, and then go on to spend as much time in the direction and production of the plays for the University Repertory Theatre and still find time to at tend rehearsals and performances of the lab and experi. mental plays presented by the students in the theatres of Temple Building. - These men are not important because of the number of hours they spend at Temple, rather they are important because of their education and their ideas, and their will ingness to have their brains picked. If in the future the University of Nebraska becomes "a lousy University" and if it is true that now it is a "mediocre University," then I would prefer to have my Master's degree read "graduated from the Department of Speech and Dramatic Arts, when Joseph Baldwin,' Ste phen Cole, Charles Howard, William Morgan, and Dallas Williams struggled to make theatre a reality and chal lenged their students to learn by doing because no one learns by being taught." Just a note in closing, if the Regents are interested, and the people of Nebraska care, the theatre area is over worked and understaffed and underpaid, the Temple Build ing is falling apart, the roof leaks, the plaster's cracked, the theatres are not sound proof nor well equiped, and Howell Memorial Theatre and its facilities are outdated. Speech and theatre need a new building and a new thea tre, twice the staff and a lot more money. But in face of all that, the department has managed to launch a new repertory system and there are plays in con stant production in the Temple theatres, and graduate assistants still manage to graduate and each summer the theatre sends its students off to summer stock thea tres where they are applauded by their audiences and re spected by the designers and technicians. I am happy I was here during the years 1964-66, when if the University started to go under, at least my area of study was holding its own in face of the wake of destruc tion. But then a University is only as good as its faculty and who knows, had I come two years hence, the thea tre area faculty might have moved on, or would I find them still out in front because of Darwin's theory about the survival of the fittest? Michael William Congratulations In Order Dear Editor, The new issue of Scrip magazine is now on sale; and congratulations are in order for several interested par ties: to Steve Abbott and his staff, for the best-produced "issue of the magazine to appear under his editorship; lo Randy Rhody, Charlie Reynolds, Jeff Atcheson and Steve Perrin, whose work lends the magazine a professional tenor; to Jon Gierlich, for his cover collage of Ginsberg photographs; to the magazine's printers, for the high qual ity of reproduction achieved in the photographic essay; and lastly, to Our Chairman, who, with a stolid determina tion approaching missionary fervor, and exercising an au thority wliich he did not possess, forbid the appearanee in this issue of Allen Ginsberg's "Auto Poesy to Nebras ka," on the remarkable and shifting ground that it is not student work thus reversing a precedent of long stand ing, and forcing Mr. Abbott and his associates to issue the poem as a free supplement to the magazine itself. The insult incidentally offered Mr. Ginsberg, "who generously contributed his new poem to Scrip, instead of selling it to a national publication, as he could easily have done, is one of the more unfortunate concomitants of the Chairman's ill-advised policy of censorship. One wonders whether a poem contributed by Stephen Spender would have met with similar treatment at the hands of the Administration but the question would seem academ ic. To close on a note of hope: when an English Depart ment head is, in his appreciation of the creative and dem ocratic processes, a mere five or ten years behind a bright undergraduate, the future of the organization with which he is connected appears bright, indeed. yjuiifiiiirriiMiriitiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiJitiinif!tfiiiiiiiiifriiMifftfiiiMiiijiriiifiiiii i in it iiiuirni uiif r mii f rtiiiiiixriuiiii tiniiiiuiriifff rrri iiTitiiirrtiiriiii rintiit r!iiiiij;ii(it(f Another Viewpoint j I Aii Out For LBJ I Support for CFDP Dear Editor; Terry T. Tilford From "The Nation" No president has ever read polls as sedulously as LBJ. He is conducting the Vietna mese war more or less by poll. This procedure suffers from at least two weak nesses. The first Is that the people are entitled to a certain mini mum of initiative and leader ship from their chief execu tive. To be popular ig surely not his first duty. The second weakness is that the estab lished polls are far from in fallible. The questions that are asked, however neutral the phrasing may seem to be, are often biased on the side of conventional attitudes, and this is the more likely when the countries at war. Prob ably neither of these pitfalls has exercised Mr. Johnson very strongly. The middle ground was where he wanted to be. Unfortunately for him, and unfortunately for the country, he found it impossible to stay in that safe part of the politi cal spectrum. He claims to be fighting a limited war. Actually be plunked down on the side of the hawks, and his only claim to moderation is that be has not satisfied the most rabid among them. At least not yet. For this decision he has sought justification in the polls, and the more weighted they were on the aggressive side, the more justification he found. But then seven social scientists at Stanford Univer sity decided on an independ ent study of public opinion on Viet Nam. The cost was $10,000 and the money was raised by the scientists themselves. The re sults show that opinion is not merely divided but as The Wall Street Journal says, it is fragmented a natural result A the obfuscations Mr. John son has thrown up around his extension of the war. When searching questions are asked, what emerges is not the consensus of sheep that Mr. Johnson would like to see, but a deeply troubled and incipiently resentful elec torate. The Administration has never conceded willingness to negotiate with the National Liberation Front, whose troops we are fighting. Yet 88 per cent of the adult popula tion of the United States fa vors negotiating with the Viet Cong if they are willing to ne gotiate. Other figures that emerge from t h e Stanford-Chicago poll are: 70 per cent In sup port of a UN-negotiated truce; 54 per cent in favor of free elections in South Viet Nam and ready to abide by the re sult, even If the Viet Cong should win; 52 per cent will ing to see the Viet Cong par ticipate in a coalition govern ment. The out-and-out hawks show up weakest, with only 6 per cent of the vote. Those who are critical of the President are mainly doves. The more or less level headed hawks have nothing to complain about. Opposition runs by j 2 to 1 margin against a 500,000 troop com mitment and 3 to 2 against bombing North Vietnamese cities . . . Those who made the poll possible are to be highly com mended. Their findings have given President Johnson a chance to extricate himself. If he fails to take advantage of it, he will have still more to worry about as this miser able war drags on. As a former student of the University I would like to mention the fact that it is partly because of the Uni versity that I am no longer a student. It is the fault of the University as far as trying to make me conform-usu-ally under the pretext of being 'for my own good.' Mrper "nal PMopnies. and goals for life do not permit me to attend this University or any one constructed like it. I resent being publicly stripped of my responsibilities, of my rights and of my whims. As a woman I resented strongly being told when or even where to sleep, how to dress and when to study. I resented the constrictiveness of the routine of classes I had not wanted to take in the first place. I did not have the option of becoming a 'well-rounded' (a favorite tritisra of educators) person. I much preferred to be narrow in my interests but I was not allowed to do this because someone felt it would limit me somehow. It seems always to be this anonymous 'someone' who restricts and limits the person's anonymity is his only asset. ' The purpose of this letter is to give whatever aid it can to the new and interesting political party, Campus Freedom Democratic Party. I am basically opposed to things of the organizational nature because I feel that or ganizations stifle me, but were I still a student I believe 1 d make a mad dash to the side of Mr. Davidson The need for an organization-for an attitude such as this one is so great. Why must a University be any thing less than a community of intellectuals? A University should be a broadening thang-not by force but out of cur iosity. The CFDP seems to support most of the ideals and principles necessary for a vibrant, vital University. Who is more capable of making rational decisions concerning themselves than the individual intellectual? I realiz that I here overrate the 'average University student but perhaps he too would develop into something more than he is, given a liberal view of life as well as a liberal education. Perhaps then the 'required' courses (if the antiquated situation of required courses still existed) would be the important, pertinent courses of the times. Perhaps more students would demand to be informed and the problem of student apathy would no longer exist. Perhaps. It would work-nothing else has yet. Linnea Sallach :';; . ,' .