Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / March 21, 1967, edition 1 / Page 2
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Tuesday. March 21, 1967 Page 2 MikeMcGee THE DAILY TAR HEEL 4 mm -B athj .(!ar Opinions of The Daily Tar Heel are expressed in its editorials. AH un signed editorials are written by the edur. I.-tt-rs and columns reflect only the personal Views of their contributors. SCOTT GOODFELLOW. EDITOR Yes, We're All Activists Carolina hs long been proud for having one of the most active student bodies of any school in the South. We often complain that we have far too much pressure plac ed upon us from people outside the University. We frequently feel that many of those in the State truly feel that we are all anti-war demonstrators with sandals. But this, we know, is not true. What is true is that the Caro lina student is interested in what is going on abound his campus and outside of his campus. Over at Duke, students do not have the pressures of a conservative popu lace, but they somehow manage to lead a far duller campus life. Today Student Government elections are being held. The thing to do will be to vote. No, there will not be cries of poll mobbing or wild demonstrations at the vot ing boxes. But a high percentage of the student body will vote. Perhaps it is the lack of fan- Personally Speaking fare over this election which makes us feel that the voters' choice will be decisive, that there are real reasons why a person is planning to vote for one candidate and not another. These are not high school elec tions. Some of the people whom students elect today will carry the image of the University to the state over television, radio and newspapers during the coming year. And the state will listen. Some of the people whom you will decide upon today are fully capable of making many changes in student living and learning con cepts within the coming year. The DTH has already endorsed Bob Travis and Jed Dietz because we felt they fit most securely into this category. It is up to you to make your choice, not only in the top two po sitions, but in all of them. The re sults may mean an awful lot. No, It's Not Politics This editorial is written in the personal "I" rather than the edi torial "We." I have come under, a great deal of personal criticism in the past few days for endorsing candidates in today's election. It is probably difficult not to see political mo tives in the endorsement. Such, however, is not the case. Four weeks , ago I decided that ajstudent newspaper. is not worth th "paper it is" printed on if it doesn't enter into every import ant issue which the campus faces. My choice in the election was me ticulously kept to myself until this weekend, whereupon I told those involved. None of the abhorred "political deals" was involved. The demands of directing the actions of the Daily Tar Heel have kept most -students from meeting me in this campaign, so it is dif ficult for most to know my sincer ity. Political dealings in the after math of my entrance into the en dorsement of candidates, though few, are irrelevant to my concern that I made the right decision. The decision remains, and I think it is a good one. My word that your DTH has not been used in this campaign is the greatest as surance I can offer. Go G.A.! Do Nothing! If the General Assembly daw dles for another two weeks, North Carolina will go on daylight sav ings time at the end of April. Thus, ironically, by total inac tion, the State will take a great : step forward. No longer will it be possible to fly from Washington to Atlanta with lunch in Ealeigh and get the overpowering feeling while you're here that everything is behind time. No longer will one be able to fly to Richmond and arrive twenty min utes before he left. Working men coming home in the evenings will find that their sunlight hours' will seem much longer, and daylight will give them more time for leisured The main opposition for the time change comes from drive-in movie owners, who claim that their business will be totally ruined, and from those who claim school children will go to school in the dark in October. While we sincere ly doubt the latter case to the ex tent that emotion has pushed it, the former may be partially true. However we've never noticed a m particular lack of drive-ins in the major parts of the country where daylight savings time has been in vogue for years. Farmers have fortunately lifted most of their opposition. The, cows certainly do not care if their feed ing time is actually 6 by the clock Wonderful Color World The Wonderful World of Color! The DTH is delighted to wel come color to our pages, especial ly in the form of a picture of the basketball team. Unfortunately the mechanics of printing color forces us to run only four pages when printing a picture of four colors. But we think it is well worth it. instead of 7 as it was the day before, as long as the sun is in the same place. It has always amazed us that so many people have become so dis traught in talking about such a simple change every major city in the country has been on day light savings t i m e for several years. - Therefore it is with little hesita tion on the matter that we urge Legislature to do nothing. 74 Years of Editorial Freedom Scott Goodfellow, Editor Tom Clark, Business Manager Sandy TreadwelU Manag. Ed. John Askew Ad. Mgr. Peter Harris Associate Ed. Don Campbell News Editor Donna Reifsnider .... Feature Ed. Jeff MacNellv SDorts Editor Owen Davis Asst. Spts. Ed. Jock Lauterer Photo Editor David Garvin Night Editor Mike McGowan .... Photographer Wavne Hurder Copv Editor Ernest. Robl, Steve Knowlton, Carol Wonsavage, Diane Ellis, Karen Freeman, Hunter George, Drummond Bell, Owen Davis, Joey Leigh, Dennis Sanders, Joe Saunders, Penny Raynor, lim Fields, Donna Reifsnider joe Coitrane, Julie Parker1 V CARTOONISTS Bruce Strauch, Jeff MacNelly. The Daily Tar Heel is the official news publication of the University of North Carolina and is published by students daily except Mondays, ex amination periods and vacations. ' Second class- postage paid at the Post Office in Chapel Hill, N. C. Subscription rates: $4.50 per semes ter; $8 per year. Printed by the Chapel Hill Publishing Co., Inc., 501 W. Franklin St., Chapel Hill, N. C. Token Responsibility For a long time we here at Carolina have characterized that "other school" over in Durham as a conservative bastion of normalcy. Alas, it is so but something almost happened there that could have had some important effects on student - administration rela tions not only at Duke, but at many universities. The event which almost blew the whole thing up was the resignation of Joe Schwab as President of the Men's Student Government Association. The precipitating factor for Schwab's resignation was that the administration "re fused to adopt an MSG A reso lution regarding the partici pation of living groups in establishing their own social regulations." The commons rooms (social rooms in the dorms) at Duke are open to female visitors at certain very arbitrary hours at present. The dorm rooms are open at even more arbitrary hours. The MSGA wants each dor mitory to be able to decide for itself when it wants the commons rooms and living areas to be opened to women. What the administration does at present, so the argument goes, is to remove all deci sions from the hands of stu dents which might require any intelligence or maturity to handle. Such a course of ac tion is an unreasoned insult, Schwab says, and the inflex ibility of arbitrary social and academic restrictions inhibits the growth of the university and all those associated with it. - Steve Johnson, writing an editorial in Duke Chronicle, agrees. "Something must be done to make a more equi table place for students in the decision-making process of the university. '.The sooner the university can pull itself out of the past, give its students enough pri vacy and autonomy that they, can live without constant fru stration, the sooner we can all get back to our real aim 'Don't mind us.' of intellectual discovery." The university administration must be made more responsive to student opinions on matters that are essentially student concerns, he concludes. Joe Schwab resigned be cause the administration has not been dealing with the stu dent government and leaders in good faith. "Student leaders have con sistently been forced to take on the role of humble peti tioners rather than that of self-respecting and concerned participants in the decision making process," said a letter to the administration signed by sixty students, "The ad ministration has consistently stated that we do have a mean ingful part to play in deter mining university policy. Ex perience has shown us that this is not in fact so. , . "We therefore believe that rule by fiat of the deans is illegitimate and need not be accepted by the student body." Strong words. And they were vl S. Cl. I. iM IIIJUWUW -IB m "Km 1 1 A TfOL v r lit-.- JUT; lb Davie Is Very Much Alive Davie residence college is not "Sinking" (DTH, March 14) nor will it ever as long as it can provide its residents with the benefits inherent in the development of a resi dence college. The article in the DTH, in quoting an individual who has been "antiresidence college" since its inception, was gross ly misrepresentative of the feeling of Davie residents to ward mamtaining a residence college. The article was er roneous regarding several matters. There are no plans to conduct a referendum to de cide whether Davie Residence College should be maintained. This was offered only as a suggestion to- 'determine sen timent regarding the residence college. Such a referendum would be totally worthless since any yes-or-no vote would necessarily be unenlightened in regard to the prospects and potentialities of Davie Col lege. An informal survey in the college indicated considerable and enthusiastic support for the maintenance of Davie Col lege despite the prblems that Davie has that other resi dence colleges do not have. It is the smallest residence col lege on campus with an esti mated 400 residents and it has, in its first years of exis tence, been plagued with problems resulting from fac tors such as: lack of co-operation with the administration in regard to social facilities and apathy originating from the large percentage of sen iors and fraternity members wRo live in Davie and are characteristically inactive in matters of residence hall ac tivity. " These obstacles can be, and in fact are being surmounted by the efforts of a few indi viduals who see present and potential worth in Davie Col-, lege and are initiating vital re forms to fulfill its potential in becoming an important and vital member in the family of residence colleges. We feel that an existence of only one year is not an adequate length of time upon which to base a decision of whether a residence college is successful or unsuc cessful. If this were the case many other residence colleges might have folded after their first years had it not been for their larger populations and greater financial resources which allowed them to recover from early failures to develop ovemhelmingly successful pro grams. While other reidence colleg es have "quantity", Davie has the qualities of: tradition (be ing the oldest residence area and containing many Carolina landmarks); location in regard to the main campus and the business district; and excell ent living -conditions which make the area first choice in regard to residence preference. These inherent assets are be ing joined with tangible pro posals and prospects that are now being initiated: the con version of the basement of-Battle-Vance-Pettigrew into a first class social room which will follow the example of a German Rathskeller, the in-, elusion of smith Residence hall into Davie College (which will lend more people, -financial and physical sup port, and, best of all, girls), the creation of social rooms ia all Davie Residence Halls, and the new policy of assign ing more sophomores to live in the area than ever before and thereby lending the construc tive enthusiasm characteris tic of underclassmen. These .homld Go about ready to act on them, too. There is a phenomenon at Duke known as the "open open", where by applying ahead of .time the dorm may be entirely opened to female visitors for a certain speci fied length of time, usually several hours. What the students 'wrant is to be able to vote among them selves to open the dorms for visitation whenever they want to do so. Of course, there are the usual restrictions about leaving the room doors open, etc. When the request for this right was submitted to the dean, the answer came back quickly: no. The administra tion said that they would make the rules in this place. Immediately plans were made for a demonstration to protest the arbitrary restric tions. Faculty wives (a lot of the faculty sides at least nominally with the students) and other females were going to sit in the men's dormitories in defiance of the regulations. Students would break the rules they thought unfair. It is said that Time Maga zine, United Press, and Ram arts Magazine were all set to move in and cover the event and the situation. Then the demonstration was called off. Time was told not to bother. It was decided that a demonstration would alie nate too many people, Schwab said. Also the administration had announced that any stu dent violating the visitation rules would be suspended from the University. It ended there. They say James Hudson, Jr. wait a while and see what happens. We will. What relevance does this story have for Carolina? A lot. The student government and students all over campus have been talking for years about liberalization of the rules structure and more student self-determination. But it's been all talk and no ac tion. Coeds still have to be in at midnite on week days (at Duke it's 2 A.M.) and the dorms are still sacrosanct from the presence of women all of whom, would presumably do something bad if they could just get inside a men's dorm. No one questions the abso lute rule of the administration. We humbly petition and are summarily rejected. iCe are conditioned to believe that we are irresponsible boys and girls. ' A sense of responsibility is basic to intellectual discovery. People who don't go to col lege are normally thrown out on their own, and make many of their own rules, soon after high school. Why should we the supposed future leaders be denied the same basic rights? We're just postponing the releasing from absolute paren tal authority for four more years. Four vital years, when many of our lasting attitudes and beliefs are being formed. Does it have to remain this way? Here is a function which the Residence Colleges here could possibly perform. Perhaps they would seem more real if they had some responsibilities. Greatest Social Gift Is Free Expression proposals, pending only the final approval of the admin istration (except the policy re garding sophomores, which has already been approved) pro mises to make Davie the most attractive and unique residence college on campus. There is no doubt that with a growing campus the resi dence college system will be come increasingly important and vital to the welfare and growth of the Carolina student through the realization of its basic principles of keener iden tification on the part of t h e student" with his residence area and through the idea that individual houses can accom plish more collectively than individually (especially in mat ters of social and academic functions and administration policy). Davie Residence col lege, wants to be and will be -an influencing factor in realiz ing the potential of the resi dence college system. Ed Bristol, Chief Justice, Davie College Ken Starting, Legislator, MD V Brace Jolly, Legislator, MD V Martin Lancaster, Davie College Headmaster Vance Fnrr, President, EVP Norman Wood, President, Old East Joanne Porter, Smith The proposed social room dis cussed in the above article is now a reality. The proposal was enthusiastically approved and endorsed by Dean of Men William G. Long as "probably the most unique and attractive social facilities on campus". The approval of the Davie Col lege social room in B.V.P. came too late however to in clude in the foregoing article. Ed Bristol Freedom is a rather over worked word today, yet it strikes me that so few people really think about the mean ing of the word or whether there is agreater freedom than the one the word connotes " popularly. Popularly, freedomis a va gue sort of ability to deter mine one's own destiny, and in the United States freedom is equated with democracy. But to my mind, there is a limited sort of freedom. Free dom to me is lack of any kind of restraining force. But total freedom is impossible, for there are i always re straining forces such as re sponsibility, consideration for others, mores, social and eco nomic pressures, etc., and no person can be totally free. Taking these forces into con sideration, I come to the conclusion that the ultimate freedom, the freedom that concerns the individual the most, is the freedom of self expression, either through the artistic media or through pas sionate self-involvement in ex ternal affairs. The freedom of the artist is a greater freedom than the freedom of the masses, and the freedom of Christ is the greatest freedom of alL Freedom in the United States is equated with demo cracy, yet any student of history knows that some of the formulators of our ideas of freedom regarded demo cracy as the tyranny of the mob, and so I regard it. We are slaves to the desires of the majority. If one does not agree with the majority, one is wrong. To regard the ma jority as necessarily right seems highly illogical to me. This method denies individual expression . as valid. One can not be free in a society which looks down upon eccentricity. Amiercans like to boast of economic and social freedom, emphasizing social mobility. But one can not be free if one is bound to the produc tive system. We spend our lives grasping for gold. We are trapped by the produc tion - 'consumption - ideals of our society. The man sought up in the competitive "rat race" has no freedom. The man forced to the conformity of a business suit has no freedom. Our present system is extremely enthnocentric, fearful, and repressive of tru ly free dissent. And do not think that following the lat est fad of checkered pants or double-breasted blazers can be counted as individual ex pression. Fads are as much the products of Madison Ave nue as they are of fertile im aginations, and there is noth ing less individual - orient ed than Madison Avenue. Un til the , individual is released to pursue sincere expression of feelings and thoughts, he is a slave to his society So the problem before us is to free the individual from un necessary restraining forces. In this case, these forces are attitudes toward life and 'its goals, attitudes toward what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. As I have mentioned, we are product ion - consumption oriented. This must be changed if we are to be free. And at last it is possible to change this orientation which has been with us for so long. With the coming of a technological age, it is within man's grasp to free himself. Not only are machines doing our physical labor for us, but they are al so doing our ordinary brain work for us, as witnessed by the computers. This leaves man free to utilize his uni que gift, creative imagination. To what end shall we use our newly - found freedom? Instead of channeling our free dom into the meaningless chaos of a Daytona Beach, let us strive to express our selves either artisticaly or compassionately. We should devote ourselves to encourag ing each individual to use man's newly - found freedom in personal and meaningful expression, for only in per sonal expression is the indi vidual free, and only through personal expression can the individual find himself and thus bring meaning to his life. A lie of stagnant pro duction for production's sake .is meaningless. We must re align our goals. We must shift from production - con sumption to expression. We must work toward producing artists and people of com passion as well as automo biles. This change in the con ventional role of man will ef icctivcJy fight growing con formity and win bring free dom. Vincent van Gogh, one of the freest of men and great est of expressionists, leaves us some relevant thoughts: "Is it a loss to drop some notions, impressed on us in childhocd, that maintaining a certain rank, or certain con ventions is the most import ant things? I myself do not even think about whether I lose by it nor not I know only by experience that those conventions and ideas do not hold true, and often are hope lessly, fatally, wrens. I come to the conclusion that I do net know anything, but at the same time that this Ufe Is such a mystery that the sys tem of 'conYentionalitv is certainly too narrow. So that has lost its credit with me. . la short one must of course Rive Society its due, but at the same time feel ab sohiiely free, , &rvj fcat my own conscience is the compass which shows me the way. . M 4
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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March 21, 1967, edition 1
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