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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (May 5, 1969)
OuOliinatfBlKJ few things done, but mostly a gray year for Old NU 1 Reflections on a gray year " The academic year 1968-69 now slips into the great gray fog of University history, to take its place with sock hops and pep rallies. .:, Miraculously, the nine months did accomplish '; a few things: it proved that students, when motivated, can effect change in this rigid institution (thanks to Wayne Williams and the black students); it proved that educational progress can be made (the Centennial College); it proved that 20-year-olds can drink without self-destructing. But, all In all it was a colorless year veiled '- in various shades of gray. While revolts and reforms were sweeping other campuses, the University of Nebraska plodded along. But this, however, may have its rewards.' Rumors are that if President Nixon does speak ' at the graduation ceremony, he will deliver a policy - statement on campus disorders. " At what other school could he feel safe to do so? ;! ROTC men on the march A national poll just released, if you believe 7t In national polls, shows that a huge majority of the students favor ROTC on campus. (Which goes to show that you can fool most of the people most of the time or that they are fools all of the time.) - Therefore, those who despise the anti-intellec- tual and militaristic implications of ROTC had best do some fast figuring if they intend to get it off campus. : What the world needs . . . At the end an evaluation At the end of every semester there is time for Z evaluation Indeed, this is one very unique attribute of college life forced, measured evaluation. ' For a staff member of the Daily Nebraskan it ? is also a time for stock-taking. What has the paper said this semester, how has it filled its role as THE . campus publication? V. In reviewing the editorial page, there was, per ; haps, a too eager readiness to criticize, to question '. motives, to deny relevence. While capturing large issues of the day, many small accomplishments were missed. Not enough was said of: a Union board willing to sponsor Cabaret, Martin Luther King Week and Beyond the Law. a faculty innovative enough to charge the 'I University with projects as significant as the Cen ' tennial College. an administration willing, basically, to ignore the mindless rumblings of Terry-people and work toward a better university. a student body able to develop a unique sense of the ridiculous that allows them to read Eldrige Cleaver and the Omaha World Herald and maintain some faith in the world. And if there was an overriding statement of the year's columnists, cartoonists and contributors it was an old one. Tempered with wit or scarcasm, barbed or subtle, it repeated a repeatable truism. When all that's left is the shouting, when the chips are down, when you're up against the wall, when Aramageddon comes, it is those who had the ability to hear above the pounding of their own hearts who survive. To paraphrase all the inches of type, and Dusty Springfield, what the world needs now is not more federal funds, or committees, or meaningful dia logue, or confrontation. What the world needs now are not more words from more speakers, but more thought from more listeners. June Wagoner A little sentiment In a world where intellectualism is cold, where cool means no emotion, where maturity means repression of feeling, it is difficult to write warm, emotional, feeling words: The Dally Nebraskan is not just an activity. It could not survive if personal glory or passing power were its only rewards. Because of the time de- manded, because of the rigorous efforts to approx- imate professionalism, because of the responsibility of being the only campus publication, the Nebras kan exacts a toll from those who staff it. Because .of this commitment demanded of all, staff mem ' bers develop a unique pride and respect in fellow staffers. Because of this pride, because of this toll, there r. Js in the Daily Nebraskan a real sense of commun ity, a "bigger than all of us" feeling. This feeling comes not from the individual people that change ,very semester, but from the type of people who "-"are willing to care so deeply every semester. The Nebraskan Is its staff. And though its strength is greater than any one set of people, ; each staff brings to it a certain flavor, a real life. When a student looks at the Nebraskan he may see print, pictures and thoughts, but it truly wears the imprint of all who care, all who staff it. " To list deserving names would be meaningless. 'They know who they are, and more important the Nebraskan bears their imprint, honors their ability to give. .w. No more sentiment to disturb an unemotional -day. Just an old thought from someone who must .r.have been a journalist. "... ana my staff, they comfort me." DAILY NEBRASKAN fw4 Him !"! pats' at Uneoia. Nrt T-lrphon. Edit., in iVO. Nrwt 7J-1M aataaaa TM - utmrrtptna raiaa ar X par Mtnaatar ar aar acaaairtta Puhiunod Monday Wadnaadaa Tauradu ui frMu VIM twar axcspl duruu vacailoa. Editorial Staff Jailor! H kaflflfWi Mra1n Editor Lr" Oottaakatki Nawi Cl ira Cliuari NixM Naws Mim Kan! Cacni tdiiarlal Aaalnua una Waii.nart Autatant Nawa MHnr nd Woedi Imxv acinar Mar Cntuat Ni-biutaa tiuf) fcniara Joh Dvaraa. Jim raiaM. waw Business Staff aaa Maaatw Rar tai Local A Maaanr Jaal Hartal fVartuctimi Manaaar Rand, trayi Bankkaapar ilwt Bawllai tarnxar Jaoat Buatiuaai Ctawu .j Ada Nancy Mil CuharrljXKia Miaal k Linda Ulrtrhi Orralauoa ktaaarara R-at favalaa. R!rfc Dm. Jamaa iwlHCi Advertorial RarraawMau-aa Ma Rrvwa. rar flraaaaiat luda aoUMoa. J. L. feonuut, CwlMta Malkar. It appears impossible to change the minds of the "true Americans," who know that America has the God-given duty of protecting the world from evil men and thoughts. They cannot unders tand, apparently, that kicking ROTC out would not necessarily mean the demise of the civilian armed forces. They cannot understand that college men would still emerge as officers, whether trained on campus or off. Incidentally, if what the United States has is a civilian army, a professional army must be a real horror. The only aspect of the United States' military-industrial complex that is actually civilian is the owners of weapons-making industries, whose interest seems to be in keeping wars alive. Perhaps, then, students in American colleges should concentrate on providing a social conscience for the hondos in the military-industrial complex. And rather than attempting to kick ROTC off campus, they should roll up their sleeves and get involved in changing the programs. This way, ROTC can eventually produce officers who are aware of the world around them, and who will question the straight-line propaganda that seems, too often, to typify the military. Students should be working on curriculum committees to verify and make truthful the begin ning ROTC courses which are now used only to present a one-sided view. Students should be working towards accredita tion of ROTC instructors and control over them by the Regents and other administrators. And they should be publishing evaluations of ROTC courses and instructors, as they should be doing for all courses and instructors. If ROTC remains in colleges and the majority of Americans feel this is correct then students should turn their efforts to making it an honest, truth-searching sequence of courses, devoid of the brain-washing that now constitutes training. This Is a difficult task. But, it is one w h i c h should be faced and completed. Then, if a real civilian army can be achieved, the schools will be producing people with brains, not rulebooks. and academic credit Academic credit for most ROTC courses is wrong. Marching and drill courses, and courses without substance, should be stripped of credit. And classes which provide honest inquiry and are taught by competent teachers should have credit. But the question of academic credit goes beyond ROTC. As has been urged before, courses which are not at least primarily academic should be con sidered professional and trade courses on a dif ferent plane than academic courses. That is, students should be allowed a certain number of hours (say 25-30) in professional or skill courses. These would count toward graduation only; there would be no grades assessed, for the student would get credit as he masters the skills involved. This sort of approach would be valid on many ROTC courses. But, it would also be correct for some natural science courses, all physical education courses, some journalism courses, some engineer ing courses, and so on. The decision on what courses are primarily academic would have to be decided by an evaluating team of faculty and students. The student next year University students next year should be a more integral part of the decision-making process. The Council on Student Life must be implemented, with a student majority, and all student social, housing and governmental concerns must be placed under it. Students should be Consulted on curriculum and on other general areas. For this reason, a student liaison with the Board of Regents is needed. (Asid not a representative to the Friday afternoon formal meetings; but to the non-public meetings where the work is done.) Black students should be involved equally with whites But they should have greater control over the areas in the recent Afro-American Society's list of concerns. The future of ASUN looks brighter than it has for several years, in light of the executives and senators elected. Finally, student government may come to mean something significant to aU students. And so, students . . . And so, students, get ye home this summer. Eat lots of Nebraska beef. Eat lots W Nebraska corn. Then, come back and (for a change) do something that counts. Make this cow college into a place to learn. There have been enough gray years here. Ed Icenogle vqiiiKimiiiiiiimii iiiuiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiii mini iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiHiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiuiiiiiiniiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiit iiiiiimiiiiiitiiiiiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiitiiiii mm liiiiiiimiiiiiimin iiiiiiiiiiimiimmiiiiiiiiiiiiiiH Publications Board member urges re-evaluation Dear Editor: It has become extremely evident that a number of very serious mistakes were made by Publications Board during its May 1 meeting. These mistakes were not made maliciously nor intentionally. But the fact that they were made in the first place justifies discussing them now. Clearly, the Board put far too much faith in the technique of interviewing to select top staff members. All the obvious shortcomings of judging journalistic competence on the basis of a momen tary confrontation were not recognized. In addition, the level of questions directed to the applicants was disappointing. Many were trivial, irrelevant and betrayed an incredible lack of knowledge about the world of journalism. This glaring deficiency indicates that all the members be selected on the. basis of their expertise, rather than on their lack of it. THIRDLY, IT APPEARS that more influence should have been assigned to the recommendations of the outgoing editor and news editor. While these recommendations were not as clear as could be desired, they were sufficiently expressed to war rant more consideration than they actually re ceived. Conversely, a disproportionate significance was granted to the advice of certain faculty members. One man, whose role is constitutionally limited to advice concerning financial questions, participated in questioning and discussion. Another, whose position in the School of Journalism should have prompted him to avoid making any remarks which could sway the other members, made them anyway. All these factors could not have possibly pro duced anything but a bad decision. And, judging by the reactions of the campus, they certainly did. Our response must be two-fold: 1) Pub Board should meet Immediately to reconsider Its staff choices and analyze the im plications of them. 2) The appropriate university governing body, be it ASUN, Pub Board or the Student Affairs committee, must so restructure the Board or Its procedure to insure that a similar fiasco does not occur. As a member of the Board and as one who accorded in the decisions of May 1, I do not seek to disclaim any responsibility for the results. Hav ing realized that we were wrong, the only rational course of action is, to utilize an unfortunate term, engage in an "agonizing reappraisal." To refuse to admit our mistakes would be to sanction them. Very truly yours, Ken Wald Member, Pub Board i of the Board, not just the three students, should kiiiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiiimiiiimiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii rfirniit t riutinuMi t mi itiiiiBiiiiMiiiiiiiiuiniiiiiMitiKtiiiir tut imsiiiiiif iitniiiiiitit niiir;tt ifiuiiiciiif lit iiiiiitiiiiiiiiitiit!tf iiiitiif it t iiiiiiitiii4iiuiiiiiiiiMiMHMMiiaitjiMiiMiiiMMnaiiiMMMiiiiuiitiiieMtitMiiiiiiiuuiiitiiif iisti4tiisitiittiitiHtti: By Denis Calandra . . 'Royal Hunt of the Sun9 Choreography and staging must head the list of credits for the University production of Peter Shaffer's Royal Hunt of the Sun. To take thirty relatively inexperienced actors and shape them into the near perfect working units I saw on Howell stage last Thursday and Friday is just short of miraculous. The violent scenes were powerful and exciting, but did not degenerate into stage chaos while the ritual scenes were performed with a contrasting lyrical grace evocative of an Inca grandeur. In Act I, an army of Spaniards undertakes "a stumbl ing, torturous climb" over the Andes mountains no mean feat on a bare stage with only one accessible acting area and they sustain the Denis Calandra, English instructor and a participant in University productions, has written theatre reviews for the Daily Nebraskan this year. illusion beautifully. From the moment that Atahuallpa (the Inca Sun King, played by Bill Szymanski) cries out "Let them see my moun tains," freezing the soldiers in their tracks, to the awesome conclusion of the mime when the high priest Vlllac Umu and his attendants appear in a blast of white light all clad in white garments, all but a few slow witted adolescents in the audienct were spellbound. MV ONLY QUIBBLE with this aspect of the production is that when a mime begins stage center (as it does in the Indian toiling scene in Act I) simultaneously with some fairly important dialogue by other characters on the periphery of the mime group, it runs the risk of becoming distracting to a viewer unfamiliar with the play who has to be able to keep up with the speakers. This is especially true when, as happened Thursday night, one or two of the dancers is a half step off his beat. One's attention wanders to the "odd" Indian, and the mime no longer complements the speech but competes with it. All this praise of group effects is not meant to play down the individual performances. The bane of all large-cast university productions the klutzy actor in a minor role is for the most part absent from this show. Don Sobolik's Valverde, the predatory Dominican chaplain who makes a career of killing savages for their own good (shades of destroying towns to save them) is always a presence on stage, whether he is just fiddling about Dominican fashion with his sleeves and letting the light reflect from his cue-ball head, or shrinking away from Pizarro's blasphemous kiss in Act II with a horror worthy of the late great Belt Lugosi backing off from a Transylvanlan peasant crucifix. Paul Baker as the more reasonable Franciscan friar shows a depth of character needed to balance the thinly realized character of Valverde and to counter some of Pizarro's arguments with ex istence. I only wish Baker had gone easier on the hysteria during the first part of his "Peru is Che sepulchre of the soul" speech; the words should be no more unreasonable than Pizarro's and a more serene monk with Baker's ability could have conveyed that. Another sort of excess, this one called for in the script, is the boyish exuberance ad nauseum of Young Martin, well handled by Bill Jameson. Also noticeable among the minor roles is the stature Dana Mills adds to the rather sketchy character, Hernando De Soto. His moment of quiet resolve in the second act when talking to Young Martin especially stands out. THE TWO LEAD characters in the play naturally carry most the responsibility in making Royal Hunt an effective drama. What is needed are two men with different kinds of personal power. Atahuallpa must have the strength that comes from simple belief in one's own greatness a blind faith and a sense of divine mission (something even the Spanish priests are too worldly wise to think entirely true). Pizarro's power comes from the personal suffering he endures in trying to achieve some grain of faith, in anything whatever. One is a believing man and the other is a thinking man. 1 imagine the more difficult for an actor to play would be the first. It is none to easy to play a noble savage, for whom the playwright has provided gems like smelling the Bible to try and discover that this "word" the priests keep talking about is like, without coming off as ludicrous. Bill Szymanski comes off nobly. His movement on stage during the bull-whip dance and his ten derness during the piela-like scene when he com forts the agonized Pizarro are especially memorable. My feeling though is that Bill should trust his own voice more than ha does and quit substituting a shout for a considered emotional delivery. Besides the obvious moral of the parable in Royal Hunt of the Sun, that the gifts of imperialism are greed, hunger and the cross (substitute Democracy or what you will) there exists the struggle of a man, Francisco Pizarro, to loosen the stranglehold of his own cynicism and attain some kind of grip on existence. In the course of the play, he finds something in himself, (to use the fashionable term: love,) which he hardly believes existed there. He luxuriates in it and re juvenates himself through his attachment to Atahuallpa until his head Is finally turned and he places his own new faith on an impossibility: that Atahuallpa "will swallow Death and spit it out of him". WHEN THE SON of tht sun fails to rise from the dead, Pizarro goes totally mad. Jim Baffico brings out the soul of Pizarro. His range is incredi ble, from carnival barking recruiter and cynically Aloof lieutenant in the earlier scenes to the violent, then religiously crlm, then insane "god-hunter" of the last act Not since Scapln has Baffico been given the chance to cavort about the stage so much, and he doesn't seem to have lost the touch for gymnastics since then. Dallas Williams puts this, graceful mark you, quarter-ton actor to great use in a dueling scene worth the price of admission by Itself. In all, I recommend the production highly. Tickets can be bought at Howell Theatre business office for performances this Wednesday through Saturday. no Qs, (fflh Take heart, revolutionaries everywhere, the establishment is falling apart. Evidence has be?a filtering into our headquarters from all over the world indicating that those in power have becom so scrambled that the end Is near. It Is not clesr what "the end" will be, but suffice it to say thil it is coming. If you don't believe me, look at the eviden ce: Jack Frost, Action Line editor of the Lincoln Journal, put in a call to the Defense Department last week. He let the phone ring for twenty minutei. No answer. David Eisenhower and Julie Nixon, Americs'l premiere young couple, have announced their sum mer vacation plans. They're going to spend a coupls of weeks following the Detroit Tigers around ths country. Oh, wow. To prove that he's not a total mlscreast. David is going to have a job this summer. Ht'i going to work for Nebraska Sen. Roman Hrusks, When asked what he'd be doing, Dave hit th nail on the head: "Probably empty tif wastebaskets." Rep. Glenn Cunningham, in a typically brilliant statement, defended the proposed ABM system: "I wouldn't want it on my consciencs if we were to have a nuclear war and we couldn't knock down communist missiles." You tell Glenn. A school board president in Louisiana, assur ing his constituents that those damned federal pinkos weren't going to slip arv sex educstlM in on them, revealed that the Na'tional Education Association was sponsoring "perversion parties" In California. Sorry, he didn't say whers i California. Attorney General John Mitchell declared wsr on "minority tyrants" who are creating chM the unlversltes. Apparently the majority tvrana are too much for the Justice department to tackle. -In the interest of accuracy, Chancellor M Hobson departed from his text in a recent speeoh. The text called Nebraska a "great" University, but Hobson substituted "good." We could suggest few other adjectives, but . . . So brothers, it's all there in black and whkr ; ,f?at rindlnK system which has bees keepin US ail in sharkls t. Kr,ii.. t- . I I would like to say something brUlisntU coherent now to pull the whole year together, M what can you say about a country whose President watches the Kentucky Derby while we're 8tlH burn ing babies in Vietnam? City Council race Tuesday is voting day for students and faculty wno are Lincoln rotiHoni. Because of his concern for people and ti iforts in behalf of all Lincolnites, Harry "F Petersen should get one jf every elector's thr votes.