The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 36, No. 46, Ed. 1 Wednesday, March 30, 1949 Page: 2 of 4
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the thresher
New Representatives
Have Responsibilities
The political Forums were fairly successful this year. Most
of the candidates showed up, and all except the junior class rally there
was a fairly representative crowd. Most of the speakers had ap-
parently done a little thinking about what they might say. The Stu-
dent Council candidates as usual had either the most to gain or the
most to lose by their speeches, a$ those positions are not strictly
elected on popularity. Occasionally an issue crops up in the Student
Council that cannot be ignored, even though the candidates were al-
most unanimously successful in doing this this year.
But in a sense the speeches of the Student Council candidates
represented the same weaknesses as the Student Council has shown
year after year. True, the candidates did make an attempt to present
new ideas to the students. But they perhaps failed to realize that to
be a member of the Student Council is to work, and that good ideas
alone are not enough.
Still the campus cries for someone to present a well-organized
plan for any one of the numerous things that need doing. An ex-
tensive Orientation program, a plan for an all-school show that would
include all departments, etc. It is going to take a little thought,
more than just seizing upon a new idea, and some paper work o
make presentation and consideration much easier by all concerned.
The constant plague of any Rice Student Council is the lack
of organization in the presentation of new plans and ideas. The new
Council would do well to profit by the errors of its predecessors, and
begin to plan a little work for themselves outside of Council meetings.
I heir constitutients elected them with the hope, and they owe it to
the Rice Student Association to do something o make Rice's student
government something to be proud of.
-0-
New Council 7o Face
Exhibition Organization
Soon the newly-elected members of next year's Student Council
will hold their first meeting. It comes at a most opportune time.
Should they and the "members of the Student Association feel that
the ideas of an all-school show have any merit, then will be the
time for someone to start plans.
It is almost unnecessary to point out that if the students of
Rice want a show badly enough, and want that show to be rpresen-
talive of the best that Rice students are capable of, it is absolutely
necessary that plans be laid this year. 1 he sort of biennial show
that would reflect credit o>i JRice would involve some summer work.
Points that the Council should keep in mind:
• How is the General Manager going to be named?
• How are the Department Managers going to be named?
• Who is going to be in over-all charge of the show?
• What will be the relations between the Engineering Society
-ind the Show, since the show is going to include all departments
of the school?
WEDNESDAY EDITION
Managing Editor Emmett McGeever
7HE K/CE Q mXESHSK
Editor ... Brady Tyson
Assistant Editor * Robert Mcllhenny
Business Manager Nancy Hood
Assistant Business Manager Tom Smith
Published every Wednesday and every Dorm News Ted Comella
Saturday of the J^ular school year David Miller
except during holiday and examination
'neriods by the students of the Rice Assistant Howard Martin
institute. BditorUl and adding „f Intramura]s j, Gonsoulin
fices are in the Fondren Library on
the campus. Society Eleanor Sticelber
Entered as Becond class mailing mal Assistants Marty Gibson,
ter, October 17, 1916, at the Post B<?V H&wkins
Office, Houston, under the act of
March 3, i87«. Fanfare Betty Faye Grosse
L _*«. Photographer Nelson Miller
Represented by Nation*! Advertising 6 ^
Service. Inc.. 420 Madison Ave.. New Salesman Ernest VoS
Tork City.
Out Educational System —
College President
Finds Fault With
Higher Education
University of Wisconsin News Service
Madison, Wis.—"The American college student is over-
organized and under-educated," charged Harold Taylor, presi-
dent of Sarah Lawrence college, and former professor of philo-
sophy at the University of Wisconsin, Friday morning in a
general session of the University Centennial symposium on
"Student Government in High-
er Education." President Tay-
lor spoke on "The Student as
a Responsible Person."
The symposium, sponsored by the
Wisconsin Student association, the
University Centennial committee,
and the Student Personnel office, is
dealing with the problems of devel-
oping student leadership and the
role of the student in the adminis-
tration of higher education.
Students are under-e d u c a t e d,
President Taylor said, because they
have been treated, for the most part,
as intellectual children even though
they have been doing all of the
things which adults do during the
past 20 years.
The factions which have risen to
form themselves "as a kind of over-
all American committee dedicated
to protecting American college stu-
dents from themselves, and to pre-
venting any change in the way they
think and act, are for the most part,
ignorant of the interests, talents,
capacities, and maturity of the
present American student," Presi-
dent Taylor added.
"The student is presented with
education already systematically or-
ganized into credits, units, grades,
majors, courses, lectures, tests,
grade point averages, and other edu-
cational preventives," he said, "and
this is what I mean when I say
that the American student is over-
organized
"Almost everyone in America, in-
cluding the Communist party and
The American Legion, now wants to
help in organizing college educa-
tion." he said.
President Taylor then went on to
describe the history of student life
in America as one of gradual eman-
cipation from intellectual and social
controls of the educational system,
and from economic difficulties which
have prevented a wide spread of
higher education for all.
He cited the action of the stu-
dents at the University of Wiscon-
sin in drawing attention to the dis-
crimination policies in residences as
an example of the initiative and
maturity in action which had
brought about improvements in edu-
cation throughout the country.
He discussed the fear of com-
munism saying that it is mistaken
to believe that the center of evil in
our age is communism and that if
the doctrine and the "evil men" who
practice it were removed from the
earth everything would become
good.
The doctrines and practices of
communism are not the cause of evil,
they are the effects of it," he added.
A fear that students might be-
come corrupted by communist doc-
trines indicates a faithless attitude
towards the American student, he
said.
"Our educational plan must be
one in which each student is given
the chance to be independent, in
which each is given the responsi-
bility he deserves in forming his
own conclusions. It must therefore
be a design in which there exists a
diversity of controversial opininon,"
he said. "Otherwise, students will
never grow to the social maturity
they need in order to deal with po-
litical questions of their age."
Speaking against the present ed-
ucational methods, President Taylor
suggested that the regular system
of lectures, examinations, standard
curricula, grades, and the present
mechanics of education must be
radically modified."
"In their place," he said, "would
be put occasional lectures when con-
sidered necessary by students and
teachers, printed or mimeographed
material in place of the regular lec-
tures, discussion groups and inform-
al seminars led by students, re-
search projects by students and
teachers working together, compre-
hensive examinations which demand
the use of knowledge to answer big
questions, and a decentralized sys-
tem of classes.
"The effort here is to make the
existing extra-curriculum into the
curriculum itself, so that each class
becomes a kind of student organi-
zation with its own energies, drives,
and aims." he said.
"I speak continually of the needs
of the individual student because I
believe that unless we think of the
individual, and consider carefully the
ways in which we make him an in-
dependent and responsible person,
who thinks and acts for himself, we
cannot prepare him to meet the sit-
uation of contemporary life," Pres-
ident Taylor concluded.
Cameron Is More Than A Prof —
(Continued from Page 1)
they offered it to me," he says, "and
I'm afraid to ask!"
"No, the fact that I have two
children definitely has nothing to do
with it!" He has a 15 year old
daughter and a 12 year old son.
Cameron was made full dean in
the summer of '48. In 1946 and '47
as assistant dean for student ac-
tivities, he put into effect a number
of new rules which some of the stu-
dents neither liked nor understood.
And as is the case in such circum-
stances, he received a nickname.
What Next
Early in October, after he had
been made full dean, he was listing
stringent rules to one of his classes
Mechanical Engineering, their as-
signments, the frequency of quizzes,
lab reports. The stiffness of these
rules led to some mumbled com-
ments, "Look what the assistant god
is doing now!"
"I've been promoted," quipped
Cameron.
In another of his classes he men-
tioned a theorum with a complicat-
ed name like Bernouli's Theorum.
"Say, Mr. Cameron," said a student,
"How do you spell that'?" Cameron
thought a bit, then with a serious
look on his face straight at the ques-
tioner spelled out "t-h-a-t!"
By such remarks as these, the
Rice students know that Cameron is
human. When they come into his of-
fice with some complaint, he will
listen to their side carefully with
no sacerdotalism in his manner. He
may not always agree with them,
but listens.
Dean Cameron successfully main-
tains the enviable position of being
liked0 by the students, yet command-
ing their respect. To those who know
him, familiarity has not bred con-
tempt.
The Editoi Says —
"What's W rong FT ith
Rice?" Attitude Can
Point Out Faults
Today's college students seem to
have a predilection for self-criti-
cism, perhaps more than is neces-
sary. But, besides that "mocking
look" referred to in a recent article
in Life Magazine, there is certainly
an element of doubt and insecurity,
present on most campuses in this
country today. Almost invariably
some of this doubt is turned to-
scrutiny of our educational system,
our particular school, and our class
mates.
Any reader of this year's Thresher
and RI will have noticed the lurking
desire on the part of the student edi-
tors to break loose with a "What's
Wrong with Rice?" editorial that
would exactly call the turn, and
point the way to some solution to a
problem that remains mysteriously
elusive. We all feel it—something is
a little wrong; we all know it would
be foolhardy to rush in with solu-
tions without clearly recognizing
the problem first. We all want to
make Rice something we can be
even more proud of, keep improving
it all the time. The only trouble is
we don't know exactly where to be-
gin.
A recent graduate of Rice lately
wrote me a letter from his present
abode—the Harvard Law School. In
the same vein mentioned above he
tried to classify the differences be-
tween Rice students and Harvard
students. But first he began by
agreeing with the Thresher in a
recent controversy with our illus-
trious fellow student publication, the
RI.
"I unequivocally agree with your
reply to RI's suggestion that Rice
profs bear any blame from whatever
Rice students lack. I guess a psy-
chologist would call the RI attitude
"projection," or "frustration intol-
erance." The RI editors re-read the
lines from Shakespeare's Caesar.
"The fault lies not in our stars
(profs) but in ourselves that we are
underlings." Since I have been here
at Harvard I have not lost the least
bit of respect for the Rice faculty. I
think the courses taught . . . stand
up against most of those taught at
the best Ivy League colleges (judg-
irg as I must from what the good
students here seem to know and
from the Harvard profs that I ve
heard in Forum programs) . . .
"If the students slept through
classes, didrt't read their assign-
ments, got all written work in late,
why should the prof be blamed ?
"Contrasted with my continued
respect for the Rice faculty is my
joint loss of respect (in many ways)
for the Rice student body. Except
for a few exceptions, they make a
sordid lot by comparison with the
group I've found up here. Perhaps I
can classify their faults:
0 "1) Warped sense values—
no serious thought. No desire to
keep up with the news (Here
everybody reads the N. Y. Times
and Herald-Trib.) No body at Rice
would think of discussing a school
subject out of class. Instead their
worries are SOLELY of football
(which is OK in its place).
•' # "2) Utter failure to realize
the benefits offered them at Rice
—contrasted sharply with the din-
ner-time praise of profts, etc., I
find here.
e "3 Apathy and how— ..."
Well he said it, and I • for one
agree with him at least 100%. But
the discouraging fact is that few
will disagree with us, few didn't
know it anyway, and few will even
try to improve the situation.
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The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 36, No. 46, Ed. 1 Wednesday, March 30, 1949, newspaper, March 30, 1949; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth230801/m1/2/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.