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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 14, 1972)
editorial 4 w4 .4 f i y y Board to death Daily Nebraskan editorial policy is the product of an editorial board consisting of Editor-in-chief Jim Gray, Managing Editor Tom Lansworth and News Editor Randy Beam. Individual editorials represent the views of the writer but not necessarily those of all editorial board members. After a promising start, plans for a new student publications board appear to have run into a brick wall of administrative turmoil. The plans, although approved in February, have yet to go into effect. And in the meantime, the situation remains confused and difficult to comprehend. The product of a regents' committee directed to draft guidelines for student publications last fall, the report enacted by the regents suggested that the Council on Student Life (CSL) elect the five student members of the board. The report also recommended appointment of two faculty members and two professional journalists. Since the time of the report's adoption much action has been taken on the five student positions, but as yet no appointments have been made. Because of this, the new board is still nonfunctional. During the summer, the question of who would actually appoint the student members volleyed between the offices of ASUN and Chancellor Zumberge. After some discussion, it was decided that ASUN would submit 10 student names to CSL, which would then select the five student members. Now fall has come and no appointments have been made. At its first fall meeting, CSL again announced it would seek information on who would select the members. The answer is, once again, in the hands of Chancellor Zumberge. According to Neale Copple, chairman of the regents' committee, the board was placed under CSL jurisdiction to remove it from political pressures. "A newspaper isn't supposed to be at the beck and call of political groups," Copple said in the March 10 Daily Nebraskan. It appears that if ASUN were to select the 10 initial nominees, the publications board appointments would be subject to just those political pressures mentioned. This is clearly contrary to the regents' committee's intent. So the question of propriety still remains in the air. Also somewhat up in the air is the current publications board, which is a standing committee of CSL. Due to graduations, lapses in appointment and absences the board is currently nonfunctional. Because of this students have no effective representation on a publications board. And the Daily Nebraskan has no active publisher. Clearly, a decision on the new publications board is long overdue. If no action is taken in the near future, one can only believe there is some ulterior motive for the slowness of the agencies involved. Political fodder Central in discussions of NU's newly-approved 1973-74 budget has been speculation that the University's Board of Regents slashed away important budgeted items merely because it feared the wrath of the Unicameral and Gov. Exon. Last year, it will be remembered, the Unicameral lopped off a large chunk of the budget the regents had accepted, forcing the University to make dangerous cutbacks in important areas and allowing the Legislature to make a lot of political hay. This political fodder, of course, was embarrassing to the regents individually and collectively. So, when this year's budget came around, the board gave serious consideration to paring the budget to the bone themselves rather than encourage more political hubbub at their and the University's expense. And pare they did. The cuts made by the regents are far beyond the bounds of reasonable budget cutting. If the budget is adopted exactly as it now stands, it still will be insufficient to insure a forward-aimed educational program. And no one knows how much more of the budget may be chisled by the Legislature and its budget committee. Approval of the administration's budgetary proposal would have been instrumental to NU's development. The regents obviously have abandoned interests of the University in favor of political gain. And if the regents won't support the University, who will? Jim Gray J fr$S &&rSr ----- - I J ' 'J" '-' ii JL w r- - ' J - . - , v -' ' - P - A s i ' - Si9,' "rr-rxrr ;--..rr.; rij; ,rrrrr 1 - . of . I f v h " - y j""'- -j;.7tw.l - - z , 7' f - -;. "-,,. , J-t" - -' . . sejr 22fi-&y . in i ,m I, i i - Hirnri - -" r.r;"". : A T- rr.. g - J- - - I - - T"T-r- Vi:-: Iytfr. When the magic rubs thin michele coyie I never really know if it's the season of the year, or merely something inside of me. In either case the first weeks of September always leave with a painful impression of how brutal bureaucracy can be. I don't just mean the endless lines, paperwork and red tape. With a few years of practice, one is dulled, to that. I'm far more concerned with the University's subtle, thorough method of fragmenting personalities. With seemingly little effort, learning experiences, when they're experiences at all, are systematically disjointed. As a result, many students seem to "unbecome," more than become, integrated persons. This disintegrating process doesn't just happen, it's carefully cultivated. "Occupational schizophrenia," or what I see as the artificial boundaries placed by the University between a student's learning and social situation, begins early. Naive students, new to academic circles, are, for the most part, genuinely excited about learning. But they're not called academic circles for nothing, for here the merry-go-around begins. It doesn't take long to discover that neatly divided schedules ?nd a veritable horde of classmates may make it easier to remain anonymous. But the problem with anonymity is that once one's submerged into the mass it's difficult to emerge. Many never do. Institutions are by definition impersonal. Even so, there's no reason for placing new students, rather than more experienced ones, in the largest sections with the least amount of student-instructor contact. Nor is there much point in introductory courses that are really vocabulary courses, nor in survey courses so general in scope that they are effectively meaningless. Never having been a subscriber to the gas station theory of learning (a student parks him-herself in class, gets filled up with information supplied by the instructor and takes off) I can't label a passive approach to education as particularly productive. Similarly, a grading system that encourages conformity by discouraging experimentation cancels itself out by the "products it produces'-students adept at taking tests and at multiple guessing, but not at critical thinking. When you get right down to it, a system of education which makes even question asking too much of a hassle not enough time, or the size of the class is too intimidating-then that system ought to be more than critically questioned. If students find very little within a classroom they can use in outside activity, some radical revisions need to be made. Further, if the student attitude in the classroom is consistently one far removed from his-her needs and interests, then the value of this artificial dichotomy should be questioned, too. In spite of everything, the word "university" still has a suggestion of magic-the magic of future jobs, freedom to learn and academic commitment. Of course, the question, "commitment to what?" largely remains unanswered, and here most of that magic rubs thin. If more and more students begin to feel the effects of their deliberately split personalities, perhaps the "mindlessness" of the present system may end. If not, those alienated by the system's glaring inadequacies will continue to drop out. And, those who choose to remain will do so only at the risk of beating the system at its own game. I wonder how many more oepiemDers win mark the renewal of this cycle. page 4 daily nebraskan thursday, September 14, 1972