Monday, September 22, 1969
Page 2
EditonCll Poge Discovered in Our mailbox^
Legitimate
Donation?
It recently came to our attention that at least
one faculty member was harrassed and one staff
member of this institution had his job threatened
because they refused to contribute to the United
Fund.
It seems that one of the stipulations of being
a faculty or staff member at UN'C-A is support of
the United Fund. One individual refuses to con
tribute because the United Fund helps certain
agencies which reportedly practice racial discrim
ination, but more basically for the simple fact that
a required donation is not a gift, and the United
Fund pledges are supposedly donations.
The United Fund pledge clause is not a part of
the faculty contract, as far as we know and to
threaten a member of the faculty with loss of his
job just because he doesn't wish to be bulldogged
into a donation, is wrong.
The situation is even more interesting when you
realize that the school expects you to contribute
$25 or so to the Fund.
We will not support any condemnation of tho
United Fund but we will support the rights of any
faculty or staff member to refuse to contribute to
the Fund without losing his or her job.
The entire academic community is threatened
when the Administration begins to pass its own
unwritten laws and then sentences the guilty with
loss of employment. Both the faculty and staff
members were sincere objectors to a law they
were new to,- why not some words on this from
the Administration?
F. M.
Dear editor.
Who, what and why is Trii,
contributor (?) to THE
RIDGERUNNER? Perhaps it
stands for "try", if so, Trii
Harder might be better. Or
perhaps the last "I" should be
"p"—trip. If so, the
"Freshmen View Welcome"
article was certainly a
bummer. Noting that the
heading for the article was
"Perspective" I could not help
wondering how far down I
would have to go to achieve
the same perspective-also,
down what?
Welcome Week was
designed to make all new
students feel more at home
on our campus. If our efforts
failed as miserably as the
article indicated. I'm
surprised that we have any
new students remaining here.
It is my personal feeling that
the article was one-sided
reporting and reflected the
illogical negativism which has
been served so well in making
our campus infamously
apathetic! such cynical and
snide attitudes can only serve
to make already difficult
SGA jobs more difficult. I
would like to answer some of
th€> in my opinion, more
ridiculous and critical of the
comments quoted (?) by Trii.
"If I see one more
Welcome sign, I think
I .. .(sic) throw up." a person
of this nature might have felt
more welcome in a Nazi
concentration camp or
Siberia.
"The beer busts were
great, but. . ., "the beer was
good at the Sing Out, but
there was not enough, at the
dance it was terrible and
there was too much." First I
would like to point out that
the beer was exactly the same
at both events. It was bought
from the same company and
was the same brand. Second I
would like to say that the
purpose of the beer busts was
not to get everyone drunk,
but to relax the atmosphere
so that mixing would occur.
Mixing, it might also be
pointed out (in answer to
another critical comment)
does not occur without some
effort on the part of the
individual. One cannot blend
in with the woodwork and
expect people to bound over
and start talking to him or
ask him to dance. Neither the
SGA, the Social Commission,
nor the Welcome Week
committee could have been
expected to see that everyone
had a date. Again this is a
m a tter of individual
initiative-perhaps Ultra-Brite
might help.
"I did not like the beer
busts; I'm not overly fond of
mixing with drunks." A thesis
could be composed around
this remark which I consider
to be bigoted in the extreme.
I was drunk neither at the
beer bust nor at the dance. I
was sober enough to observe,
in fact, that there were
numerous people who drank
moderately and enjoyed
themselves thoroughly.
Learning to drink is, in my
opinion, an important lessOn
to be learned in college. It is,
after all, like it or not, an
integral part of our American
social life. Finally, I would
like to make the point that
the Welcome Week
committee, headed very ably
by one of the most diligent
SGA workers on campus,
Steve Coster, planned a
variety of activities—some of
which might have been
infinitely more enjoyable for
the person who made the
above comment, the
SAY IT AIN'T SO. DON BABY!
The turn out for the recent class officer elections
was a farce. The blame must fall directly on the
SGA and primarily on the president, Don AAeyers.
Meyers' entire campaign last year was based on
elimination of apathy. This was his first significant
and probably most crucial test. He flunked out on
the test. The basic promise Meyers made last
spring in campaigning for the SGA presidential
position was absolutely not carried out.
Of the 150 full time senior class members, only
51 voted. Of the 210 juniors, only 66 cast ballots;
of the 460 freshmen, 241 showed up at the polls.
Why?
There was simply no publicity on the elections
by the SGA or any of its related agencies. One
poster was up publicizing the event, and it was
by an independent organization — Alpha Sigma
Sigma.. People were turned away from the polls
because they did not have their student identifi
cation, but where was the information telling them
they had to have this data?
For our first two issues, this newspaper begged
the SGA to release a story on class elections. But,
each time, we got that old run-around from Mey
ers, "there is not significant data for a story." Ob
viously, there was. As a result of neglecting that
great god of publicity, 32 percent of the full time
students voted.
Obviously Meyers and the SGA has worked
hard, but it can not stop with dances, welcome
week and good movies. The elections are more
important.
In order to publicize the open forum on the
calendar, Meyers and company flooded the cam
pus with detailed posters. So what happened to
class elections?
The class officers along withe the three SGA
officials compose the executive council. The con
stitution under which we presently operate Im
plies that this council is the executive administra
tive branch of student government. The SGA pres
ident presides over the executive council. The
council can over-rule anything the president does.
The president is the leader, but the council is the
force and power. The president represents the
students, but the executive council has over-all
control.
The importance of the class officers can not be
stressed strongly enough. They are certainly more
important than the forum on the calendar. How
ever, notice WHICH was ignored and WHICH was
publicized.
What happened? L. R.
Scavenger Hunt for example.
Anyone who reviews the list
of Welcome Week activities
honestly and objectively will
realize that a sincere effort
was made to provide a
well-rounded schedule of
events which would appeal to
a variety of social appetites; a
movie, a tea, a beer bust, two
different types of dances, and
the Scavenger Hunt.
More could be said about
the "perspective" of the
mysterious Trii (I, too, would
use a pseudonym); but let
this suffice: those of us
working on the social
commission as well as the
other commissions are
working very hard to see that
the students at UNC-A have
as good a time as rewarding a
college experience as he
might have anywhere.
Because of limited funds, this
job is all the more difficult. It
would help, however, if
rather than reading a list of
sneering criticisms in the
paper, some of these people
might offer their help and
suggestions for improving our
services. Negativism and
cynicism without
constructive criticism or
alternative suggestions is a
senseless and ridiculous waste
of time and effort.
Jim Farnsworth
Jim—for the most part,
your letter contains
legitimate criticisms, which is
the very reason we honor all
letters to the editor.
However, you were off base
in one respect. It was my
fault that you were lead
astray.
To set the record straight,
Trii merely compiled the
comments of the article. I
dispatched about four
reporters to tap freshmen
opinions on Welcome Week.
Trii received a by-ling because
she had to write up the
comments which the others
gathered. She was carrying
out her assignment in the
same respect that Coster
carried out his, or that you
carry out yours.
Finally if blame must be
centered on any one person,
and since I have the final
voice on any thing that
apperas in this paper, that
person should be me.
the Editor
Dear Editor,
On reading the comments
from the freshmen on
"Welcome Week", I would
like to express my opinion.
I, too, am a Freshman and
I believe the upper-classmen
went to a lot of trouble to
make us feel Welcome.
When ever I saw a sign, I
thought about the girls or
boys that worked behind
them. It made me feel good
because I had not expected
the upper-classmen to pay
much attention to the
Freshmen. The whole week
was a lot of fun and I met a
lot of other students because
of the activities. The article
seemed one-sided to me
because I have heard many
nice comments on "Welcome
Week".
(Name witheeld by request)
(sM MAILBOX on pg. 4)