daily nebraskan
H ASUN reform: Personal clash?
d.n.
innocent
On Sunday at 2 p.m. the Student Court will
hold an open hearing that could have serious
implications for the future of the ASUN Senate.
The question is the suit brought by two
Council on Student life (CSL) members whose
appointments were rescinded by ASUN Resolu
tion 42. ACITV
Those members were rescinded in an ASUN
Senate action that sought to make CSL more
representative of Senate interests through reforms
in CSL
In the interim, CSL was ordered by Vice
Chancellor for Student Affairs Ken Bader to meet
with the original CSL appointees, not with the
ASUN senators who were named to replace them
in the wake of Resolution 42.
ASUN has since defeated a resolution that in
effect would have returned the original CSL
Brace yourselves for this:
Coolidge knew about s-e-x
By Arthur Hoppe
My ace newsman friend, Milton Haberdash, is working
on a new book. It's called, The Secret Sex life of Cal
Coolidge.
"Why Cal Coolidge?" I asked him.
Milt shrugged. "Who else is left?" he said. 'They've al
ready exposed Nixon as a crook, Johnson as a lying,
power-mad nut and Kennedy as a phoney war hero with a
bad back due, presumably, to over-exercise."
"There's Eisenhower," I suggested.
V
vine st
irregulars
"Kay Summer sby," he said, arching his eyebrows.
'Take Truman," 1 said.
'Too late," he said. 'There's already 20 guys writing
books debunking the Truman myth that 20 other guys
just created. And don't say Roosevelt. Have you read
Eleanor and Franklin? They should have called it,
'Eleanor and Franklin and Lucy and Missie. "
"You certainly haven't got. anything on Hoover."
"What more could you pin on a man who's already got
a Great Depression to his credit? Nope, Cal Coolidge is the
last American President who remains unexposed?"
"Well, maybe so," 1 said. "But what makes you so sure
he had a secret sex life?"
"Because he never once, in the entire time he was in
the White House," said Milt triumphantly, "talked about
it!"
"You'll need more than that."
"Oh, lVe got half the proof already. Every day after
lunch he went into his room. And you know what was in
this room? A bed. A guy in a room with a bed. There's
half a scandal right there."
"He took a daily nap," I said.
"He took a daily nap," said Milt. "He also calimed he
slept eight to ten hours a night. Can a normal man do
both? Then he'd disappear from the White House for
three months at a time."
"He went fishing. I've seen photographs to prove it."
"You saw photographs of him wearing hip boots and
holding a long rod in his hand," said Milt, nodding. "Now
doesn't that strike you as a little bit kinky?"
"Look here, Milt" I said angrily, "it's muckrakers like
you, dredging up every sordid detail of our past presi
dents' lives, that are making the country cynical and
apathetic."
"Can I help it," said Milt, "if Coolidge had something
in common with every single one of these other
Presidents?"
"What's that?" 1 asked suspiciously.
"He was human," said Milt.
(Copyright Chronicle Publishing Co. 1976)
Fainthearted dissension;
make ripples, not waves
By Michael Hilligoss
I answered the door to find Yossarian In the company
of another graduate student whose name, 1 learned,
was "Leonik." Yossarian was in good spirits and he
considered this meeting something of a special event. It
was the first time I had actually met face-to-face with
a member of the VSI High Command and Yossarian furn
ished a bottle with which to commemorate my acceptance
into Leonik's confidence.
, Leonik, as you will undoubtedly discover from our
ensuing conversation, is the VSI'i ideologist. Yossarian
nursed his drink in the living room while Leonik and 1
sat over coffee at my small kitchen table.
"I understand, Hilligoss, that Yossarian trusts you
explicitly," said Leonik as he lowered the blinds and drew
the curtains together. "I must trust you also never to
reveal my real Identity to your readers. To do so would
undoubtedly jeopardize my graduate career."
Radical ideas filled head
: I assured him that I would hold his identity in con
fidence while thinking to myslef that his case of paranoia
teemed overly developed. I learned later, however, that
his bewhiskered head was filled with radical, if not
revolutionary, ideas.
; "Leonik," I began, "What is the current mood of
graduate students at UNL?"
"There are no blazing issues within the ranks of UNL
graduate students, only the smolderings of discontent
and cynicism," he said, fingering his coffee cup. ."We
grumble and complain among ourselves but we do not
effectively carry our case to the administration, the
Nebraska "legislature or the people of Nebraska.
"But far worse," he said, "We have lost hold of our
moral fiber. We often lay to ourselves that it is best not
to make waves or cause a fuss, but in doing so we lose
any claim we might have had to intellectual integrity.
We have become cynical and distrustful of academia yet
many of us want to become teachers.
Are things better ebewheref
"We say to ourselves that things can't be so bad in
other schools and that eventually we will leave UNL
behind. But is this the case? Shouldn't we ask ourselves
where the administrators who come to UNL playing
musical ladders are going and where they came from?
What makes us think that we will leave poor administra
tion and academic politics behind when we leave UNL to
become instructors in another university or college?
"We say these things," Leonik continued, "because
they excuse us from our responsibilities right here in
Lincoln. We should realize that, for those of us in
graduate school, Lincoln is not the end of the world.
It is only the beginning. It is time to wake up and stand
uo for those things we know to be right. But which one
of us is ready to commit the crimes of Galileo? Theie are
too few, Hilligoss, that is the sad thing and that is what
characterizes the mood of graduate students at UNL."
Heart not in it
We sat in silence, finishing our coffee. I thanked
Leonik for his visit and we joined Yossarian in the living
room. .
"Time for another drink," Yossarian suggested. Leonik
nodded ascent but his heart wasn't in it. I thought again
about Leonik's display of paranoia. Was he really sfrald
of the administration or was he more concerned with
keeping what few graduate student friends he had in his
own department; those "friends" who had already started
to "play the game."
student members to their seats.
They defeated that resolution to prevent the
court case from being thrown out because it was
no longer at issue.
The question they and others wish to see
resolved by the student cpurt sets a precedent
for future ASUN Senate action.
Does the ASUN Senate have the authority to
rescind appointees a3 a means of effecting change
in another student government organization?
More importantly, one might ask, should they
have that authority?
It is clear that some ASUN senators believed
the CSL members were not representing the best
interests of the Senate.
for instance, there was some feeling that the
student members were not adequately playing
the student role on CSL, a group of students,
faculty members and administrators.
Another bone of contention was that perhaps
in some CSL actions, the input of ASUN senators
was never considered bccause,they had not seen
a proposal before CSL passed it.
That recognizes an inherent conflict between
the ASUN Senate and CSL as governing organiza
tions. Who really represents the students and
should act for them?
That in essence also is the question which the
Student Court will indirectly answer.
ASUN senators would like to think of them
selves as student representatives. The extremely
low turnout in recent elections and the lack of
real substantial issues has lessened the impact
of the senators' argument on that point.
More importantly can, for example, a group of
ASUN senators charge that a CSL appointee is
not pushing their interests, which they would
maintain are also the students' interests?
In reality, though, who are they to say they
represent the students' interests any better than
the CSL member who may have taken a different
view than theirs?
When students are appointed to serve on
various campus governing bodies, they should
be allowed to serve the students interest in the
way they see fit. Some amount of personal dis
cretion is implicit in any one-person appoint
ment which deigns to represent others. 9'
Student appointees are exactly that -students
appointed by the appointing mechanism on this
campus-which is the ASUN Senate.
They are not necessarily to be the ASUN
Senate's mouthpiece.
If senators have different sentiments about an
issue than the appointees do, then those who
disagree should make their feelings known to the
group involved.
Furthermore, trying to change the rules and
procedures of a governing body at conflict
with the ASUN Senate should not be attempted
through the wholesale removal of the students
serving on the committee or council or board
involved.
By dragging the student appointees into the
picture, the suspicion of personal conflicts seems
to outweigh any reform, whatever its merits.
Personal conflict only is perceived even if it
doesn't exist.
Students deserve thoughtful representation by
anyone labeled a student representative.
Students also should expect students'
representatives to act independently, not as
other student representatives would wish.
Vince Boucher
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