Mark Dearmon
-ms p.r
u J
Mike O'Neal must
ay down his armor
: The departure of Mike O'Neal from
the office of treasurer will be a loss for
Student Government in many ways.
Mike has a well-developed
understanding of the power structure of
the University, its administrators and its
student institutions. His long record of
involvement in student affairs, from his
days in Scott Residence College to his
tenure as treasurer for all campus
groups, indicates an active interest in
student self-government. In addition, he
has an alertness and a persuasive
capacity that would be an asset to any
political administration.
Mike has worked hard as treasurer.
He has acquainted himself with the
procedures and records of the Student
Activities Fund office and has gained
the confidence of its director. He has
called a meeting of organizational
treasurers to educate them about
student treasury law. He has worked
incessantly in his Suite C office, staying
until the early hours on countless
occasions. When he has undertaken an
investigation into the financial status of
a particular campus group, he has
plunged into his work, sparing neither
time nor effort.
It is this total immersion, in fact, that
seems to be responsible for much of the
concern and confusion centering on
Mike's handling of his job. His total
concentration on financial statements,
Campus Governing Council statute
books and alleged improprieties has
obscured his vision as an administrator.
Although it is easy to claim that
Mike's rigidity is a sign of his
objectivity, it is far more accurate to
describe his inflexibility as the tragic
flaw in his executive character. Mike has
used the full weight of the law before
that weight was necessary.
If HEW had decided to use the full
weight of the laws on desegregation
against the University of North
Carolina system as soon as HEW
determined the system noncompliant,
federal funds would have been frozen
months ago, killing numerous research
and educational programs across the
(the
Cole C. Campbell
Editor
SatUt
83rd Year of Editorial Freedom
John Miller
" What are the main impediments
to restructuring the University?
"The administration, the faculty, ;
and the students. "
Robert Jay Lift on
At least some part of the role
encompassed in my longwinded title is
that of aiding student awareness on
university academic procedures. I'm
sure that most administrators would
agree that the lack of academic
cognizance within the general student
body is one of our bigger problems. We
need to grasp a more fundamental
understanding of UNC academia; to
acquaint ourselves with what the
University can offer us, and what we can
offer in return. We cannot properly
expect academic reform until we
understand academic decision making
processes to the point that we. can
actively contribute to them.
An increased academic awareness
could be coupled with an increased
opportunity in student academic input.
It is hoped that the administration
would seize an opportunity to use an
informed student opinion. In the
Academic Affairs Committee's dealings
Academics:
.
Friday, September 26, 1975
state. The critical negotiations now
taking place would be counsels of war
instead of conferences of cooperation.
If the American Bar Association
decided to invoke its ultimate sanction
against North Carolina Central's law
school for failing to meet all
accreditation criteria, 200 law students
would now be pursuing a worthless
education. The current special efforts to
imprive NCCU's law program might
have been scrapped as the state
conceded defeat and moved to
economize rather than to enrich.
Flexibility is essential to good
government. Combativeness breeds
only hostility and distrust. Cooperation
should be the hallmark of government.
Punitive options should be the last
avenues pursued when some individual
or group fails to adhere to all proper
regulations. By his rigidity and
combativeness, Mike has moved the
focus of Student Government away
from cooperative progress toward
divisive stagnation.
Mike, once the colossus of Suite C,
cannot claim to be the Elliot Richardson
of the Bates administration. Claims of
illegal action by Bates in releasing BSM
funds are inaccurate, since the freeze of
funds expired following the second
CGC meeting of this semester. Claims
that "Mike is right and Bill is wrong" are
simplistic and ignore many other
aspects of the current dispute between
the president and his treasurer.
The treasurer is appointed by the
president and can be directed by the
president to take certain actions. Bates
has every right to remove such a
subordinate member of the executive
branch. Bates has decided that Student
Government has been crippled by public
and private acts of the treasurer. To
salvage the rest of his program for
student progress, Bates has decided to
replace O'Neal.
Mike should lay down his armor and
depart. To resist will only continue an
ugly confrontation and further sully the
less than shining reputation of student
self-governance. There can be no
winners in a prolonged fight.
Jim Grimsley
Managing Editor
Greg Porter
Associate Editor
Ralph J. Irace
Executive Editor
Jim Roberts
News Editor
Robin Clark
Features Editor
Susan
Shackelford
Sports Editor
Barnie Day
Projects Editor
Joyce Fitzpatrick
Graphic Arts
with administrators, we have found that
they are generally quite receptive to
student proposals and ideas. In many
cases, student input is actively sought.
Of course, the strength of the student
voice varies through departments. The
political science department, for
example, has an excellent vehicle for
student academic input (the
undergraduate Political Science
Association). The association should be
recognized as a model of what
intelligent, serious, and reasonable
student input can accomplish.
With the administration's
acquiescence, this model for student
input should be expanded to every
department on campus. These
organizations would serve not as a
student outlet for radical rhetoric, but
rather as a potentially useful input into
academic reform; as a result of
interested and informed student effort.
For this reason, the Student
Representation Group will coordinate
efforts to establish what will be called
the Student Departmental Input
Organization. By expanding already
existing student committees and
developing new ones, we hope to
Three cheers!
The giants have been slain. The
stifling bureaucracy has been
conquered. The student press has been
freed from any further needless
interference. Or have they?
Over the past few weeks since the
"resolution" of the DTH "financial
crisis," there have been continuous
efforts to hinder the functioning of the
DTH business office. These efforts have
taken the form of a two ring circus with
Media Board Chairman Dick Pope,
who claims to be a graduate business
student, in one ring and Mrs. Frances
Sparrow, SAFO Director and student
body bookeeper, in the other. There are
also several SG jesters who juggle in the
background.
Soon after the remainder of the DTH
appropriation for this semester' was
released, Pope issued a letter to
Reynolds Bailey, DTH business
manager, requiring him to refund all
credit balances from previous
advertising accounts no later than
October 15, 1975. This was done
Grade 'inflation' could be a positive sign
To the editor:
A university is a wonderfully bizarre
place; it contains the only professional
group I know that is distressed to learn
that it may be achieving too much of its
purpose. When I hear of "grade
inflation," I wonder if the director of the
hospital calls his staff together to
express his concern that the death rate is
going down and too many patients are
being cured. How many architects boast
that 35 of their houses proved
uninhabitable and only 2 deserved
prizes?
Nearly everyone concerned about
''grade inflation" is trained in the
interpretation of evidence and knows
that one should not jump from raw data
to conclusion with no examinations of
the reasons for the data. It is statistically
true that grade averages have gone up
but that statistic does not prove the
grades have been inflated. Only serious
research into the quality of teaching,
then and now, the quality of the
students, then and now, and the quality
establish a vehicle for permanent
student academic representation. The
groups would offer the opportunity for
interested students to get involved in
academic decision making regardless of
the department they frequent.
Coinciding with the establishment of
the S.D.I.O. would be the establishment
of the Academic Forum. The Academic
Forum would be a meeting of S.D.I.O
leaders from each department. The
meeting would also include interested
students, faculty and administrators.
The forum would entail a free flow of
ideas. Topics of particular academic
interest would be discussed (with
perhaps the help of guest speakers);
lobbying strategies would be compared
and evaluated; student opinion would
be gauged. The Forum would
coordinate the S.D.I.O. It would serve
the dual purpose of disseminating
academic information to students and
obtaining student feelings on particular
programs.
The academic naivete often seen on
this campus would recede with the
implementation of the proposal 1 have
outlined.. The flow of academic
information would become a cyclical
K B H
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without any discussion or approval by
the Media Board and is an extremely
stupid business decision. It also allows
for possible embezzlement of funds,
although with Bailey as business
manager, that is the least of our worries.
The credit balances should be
maintained until either the advertisers
use them for later ads or request ia
writing that they be returned. Despite
the fact that this decision was made
solely by Pope, Sparrow will probably
enforce it.
Last week, Pope was quoted in the
DTH as saying that he thought that all
Media Board organizations funds
should be frozen because there were no
by-laws for the Media Board. Pope is,
by virtue of his office, supposed to help
regulate the campus Media, not cripple
them.
This week, when the SAFO started to
post last Saturday's football issue of the
DTH, Sparrow discovered that a higher
than standard rate for ads had been
charged for ads on the roster page. This
has been done for the past three years
PBWT1C FRONfT- RUNNERS
of the work now done as measured
against an appropriate standard would
do that. Unless that is done accusations
of "grade inflation" are no more than
uninformed impressions.
If the admissions officers do their job,
if the students do their job and the
teachers do theirs, we should give no
grade lower than a "C" and we should,
happily, give a great many "A's." In sad
fact, the admission officers make
mistakes, students are often lazy and
irresponsible, and we who teach
sometimes do a bad job. It is
unfortunate that it is always the student
who bears all the blame when it very
often is the fault of someone else. But at
least let us be cheerful as long as we can
when we are offered evidence that can
just as well be interpreted as a
consequence of all of us doing our jobs
better.
I would suggest that students not be
too bothered by the proposal to change
the definition of grades for a more
meaningless suggestion would be hard
system between administrators, student
representatives and students. The
students would obtain the information
needed to make rational academic
decisions, and their opinion would be
represented in every department. The
administration would be assured of the
student input needed to make policies
amenable to all parties.
The success of this proposal largely
depends on faculty support. It is hoped
that administrators would recognize the
mutual benefits of this idea, and help
bring the project to fruition. It is hoped
that interested students will utilize this
opportunity to get involved in a project
that is in everyone's best interests.
If you would like to help establish a
S.D.I.O. branch in your department,
watch for future announcements of
organizational meetings. If you would
like to help the SRG coordinate these
efforts, call me at 967-6772 and join us.
John Miller, chairperson of the. Student
Representation Group of the Academic
Affairs Committee, is a junior international
studies major from Winston-Salem.
V ixv i v i
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i
undermines media
because this is the most widely used page
of the paper. Last spring, the full Media
Board delegated certain powers to the
DTH business manager, including the
power to set advertising rates above a
minimum set by the Board. Sparrow
and Pope refuse to recognize this stating
that it is not a part of the D TH Standard
Operating Procedures. As a result,
Sparrow has refused to have her office
post last Saturday's paper, thus delaying
the collection of these accounts. Earlier,
one of the major criticisms of the DTH
business staff was that they weren't
collecting the ad revenue. Ironic, isn't it?
But things like this didn't just start
happening recently. In February, 1975,
the DTH ran short of cash on hand
according to the records of SAFO.
There was almost $4,500 owed by the
Student Stores because of the mistake
just cited. Because of the cash shortage,
the DTH business manager could not
requisition the coming week's papers.
Bailey and I talked about possible
remedies to the problem and decided to
ask for a loan from CGC but Bailey
to imagine. It assumes something every
sensible teacher and student knows is
not true that there is an existing thing
called a grade whose definition can be
altered by fiat. A grade is a shorthand
sign for an act of judgment made by a
teacher and, however respectful we all
may try to be of the standards set by the
community of our peers, at the end it is
the individual teacher who defines the
material to be covered, the level of
achievement that corresponds to the'
several grades and the modes by which
achievement will be tested and judged.
This is true of all instruments of
judgment, whether the most objective
(an essay written by a human being and
judged by a human being) or the most
subjective (a multiple choice test judged
by a machine or a human being acting
like a machine). Changing the definition
will not change that situation a bit.
I see a number of excellent students. I
see very few outstanding students. At
the moment there is no way of
discriminating between them and
juggling definitions won't help. Until
someone proves to me that there has
been a substantial shift in the general
understanding of what these signs refer
to, the adoption of this proposal will not
have the slightest effect on my grading. 1
will not penalize the excellent student
for the sake of an artificial definition.
Professor Leutze's proposal to
enlarge the grading scale would
accomplish everything that needs
accomplishing within the limits of what
is humanly and professionally possible.
I give "A's" to the students I judge
deserve them and I give no grade I am
not willing to defend according to
appropriate professional standards. But
I know there are differences at each
grade level. A fair number of students
deserve a "10." Very few deserve "12."
This is a proposal 1 very much favor.
John W. Dixon, Jr.
Professor of Religion and Art
O'Neal courage and integrity
To the editor.
What is courage? What is integrity:
These are abstract terms that cannot be
strictly defined by words, but rather by
actions. The recent actions of Student
Government Treasurer Mike O'Neal are
fitting examples of those virtues.
Mike O'Neal has been libeled,
slandered, threatened and now
discovered a posting error in SAFO to
the tune of approximately $2,000, which
meant there was enough to requisition
the papers for the next week. On
Tuesday, when I went to CGC, other
members asked me if the DTH was
really broke and if I was going to request
additional funding. There were
supposedly only three people who knew
of the plans to request a loan, Reynolds
Bailey, Mrs. Sparrow and myself. Bailey
and I had decided to wait until later to
decide about the loan, but Sparrow
apparently thought we were going
ahead with our plans so began to spread
the word. Somehow, the loan became an
appropriation in its route through the
grapevine. At the following CGC
meeting, 1 introduced a bill setting up an
emergency loan fund for the DTH in
case a cash shortage developed in the
future, which would almost certainly
happen due to the requisition system
and the increasing number of accounts
receivable.
In April, Sparrow told Reynolds that
she didn't think he had enough money to
finish the year and suggested a loan. She
said she would take care of it for him.
She did. She put $10,000 in the DTH
account. The bill that established the
loan stated that the loan should be
requested by the DTH business
manager and must be signed by the
Chairman of the Media Board, the
Chairman of the Finance Committee
and the Treasurer of the Student Body.
The $ 10,000 loan was given without any
of the required signatures. Yet Bailey
has been blamed for all the problems
resulting from the loan.
It is quite unfortunate when one or
two people are able to stifle the progress
of an organization. It is up to the Media
Board to take steps to prevent such
actions against media organizations in
the future.
Under the present system, or any
system, mistakes will be made. It is only
when all sides work together that a
satisfactory solution to the problems
can be attained. When
underhandedness and backstabbingare
the standard procedure, progress will
halt.
Mark Dearmon is a senior
RTVMPjournalism major from
Kannapolis.
apparently discarded. What for? Only
because in the face of the most vicious
and vile pressure he has refused to bend
from what he considers to be right. We
are damned tired of hearing Mike
O'Neal's name ground into the mud. We
admire his stand for decency and fair
play. We want him to know he does not
stand alone.
Russ Roberson
306 Teague
Dan Pike
107 Teague
Fifty-yard line supremacy
To the editor.
On the Saturday of the Maryland
football game I saw three cars parked on
the midfield line of Fetzer soccer field.
Obviously the cars belonged to football
fans. 1 wonder how football fans would
like it if I parked my car on the fifty-yard
line of Kenan Stadium. I doubt if the
administration would like that very
much. In fact, my car would probably be
towed to Raleigh with a large fine
tacked on to the windshield. What
happened to the three football fans that
parked on Fetzer soccer field?
Absolutely nothing. A soccer field is as
easily damaged as a football field, and
deserves the same consideration.
Dwight Davis
J.V. soccer player
"Wouldn't it be nice?" tripe
To the editor:
The DTH would be nicer if it didn't
print Kevin Barris' "Wouldn't it be
nicer tripe.
Ben Cornelius
2409 Granville'South
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