Newspapers / Elon University Student Newspaper / Feb. 15, 1969, edition 1 / Page 1
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E. C. NEWS vol. 1 ELON COLLEGL LIBERATED PRESS Saturtlay, February 15, 1969 No. 12 Student As Nigger I gladly accept the invitation to reply to the recent spate of ( articles, “Student as Nigger,” as published in Veritas. I do so 1 partly tecause 1 think the words of Gerard Farber are too often] vulgar and illogical to stand unopposed. (Among other things Ii found them esthetically repellent). The tone of his remarks is ] antagonistic and inflammatory. In all three articles his approach! is pontifical in the extreme. He appears to have all the answers,] not just to the one area of faculty-student relations, but to all of| the problems facing education in the United States today. In my opinion, it is dangerous to allow such remarks to go unchallenged, as silence may be taken for assent. As Eric Hoffer recently warned on a national television network, when the insolence of an Eldridge Cleaver is applauded by the very audience whom he has insulted, we are confronted with the kind of explosive situation which made possible the nightmare of Adolf Hitler. One of the les sons of history is that dictatorship is always preceded by anarchy, [take it that Farber is an advocate of anarchy. Certainly he would abolish.-at least in educational institutions and I suspect in any institution in which he found himself.-all authority and degree upon which institutions are organized. "Take but degree away, untune that string/And, hark, what discord follows,” Shakespeare wrote over 350 years ago. It is Farber's simplistic assumption that any society can and should be based on total egalitarianism that really bothers me. His picayune objection to separate toilet facilities for faculty and 'students--may I inject parenthetically that it has been my own [experience that faculty toilets are invariably more hygenlc?--is simply the logical culmination of the egalitarian hangup which has for so long beset the federal bureaucrats, who recently decreed it unlawful to specify sex in most help-wanted advertisements. Far- ber’s brand of egalitarianism, by obliterating all authority and degree would also obliterate all individuality, would indeed spawn ;the faceless blob, who is already being spawned in frighteningly large numbers by increasing computerization. In the last of his articles Farl)er mumbles something about students “dancing on the IBM cards." Farber's apparent call for a kind of Giant Spiritual Copulation (GSC) involving all the students and faculty would lead to precisely an IBM anonymity, though I doubt that Farber is aware of this. Let’s face it, he has a simplistic mind. Indeed, it is hard to cut through all his spurious nonsense to know for certain just what he wants to see transpire in our educational establishments. Like most of his breed of campus radicals, he proposes no con crete positive programs to take the place of the existing state of affairs, which admittedly is far from perfect. Those things wluch really come through in Farber’s articles are his wild-eyed [perations, his vague preachments on the repressions of students and the tyranny and ineptitude of the faculty. (He regards it as in tolerable that students should address the faculty holders of the doctorate as doctor or even as sir). All of this in miserable prose without one iota of humor! This is intellectual arrogance of the first water. It is also untrue. Dr. S.I. Hayakawa has spoken elo- iquently of the pitfalls of the two-valued orientation. I know of no [place where we can see them more clearly than in these articles. Of course there exist members of college faculties who lord it over their students. Let us hope they are in the minority. But to i indicate that all faculty members are this way is no more logical ithan it would be for me to say that all students are cheaters or that all people with redhair have violent tempers. In the absence of positive programs Farber can only conclude by counselling all concerned students to stay on in college ‘Md raise hell.” By raising hell he means organizing and demanding| their freedom now, insisting “on participating in their own educa-i tion,” He says that the students “could make academic freedom bilateral.” Whatever that means. Education always involves a pye and take, or it ceases to be education. If students do not partici pate, then they are obviously not being educated in the P It is hard to make sense out of this man’s words. But one is certain, and that is that Farber is fomenting resistance to tne educational process as it now exists. I think we can all agree a much is wrong with that process as it now exists, but I have re frained from criticizing it because I think it is now ^ the weight of excessive criticism and I do not wish to a o »eigbt at this time. In addition, I do not pose as a critic oi our educational system. .. , I should like to conclude these remarks by saying tha o _ national institutions have served us well through the years, of them long before the founding of this republic. They ar •ave and we should cherish them even as we try to _ In my opinion, the administrations of our colleges^ tave the moral, if not the legal, obligation to tte gerious student^ enrolled therein to pursue their., g Srams in an environment of order. When a small minori V treme radicals is allowed to halt the educational process, tnos nni:iocioi^n^ Escap Instituted There is at Elon a new pro gram for the students to partici- pate in. It is not run by the col- lege or by the S.G.A. It is run by the students themselves. It is called ESCAP (Elon’s Student Community Action Program). Along with advisor Dr. Ben Williams, the students travel to Glen Raven to help a group of children with their schoolwork. After only two weeks of existence, the group has already enlarged to include almost twenty Elon stu- dents. The group goes every Monday and Tuesday from the hours of five to six. The pro gram has received much praise from participants of Elon. In the future, it is hoped that the activities of ESCAP will ex pand to include not only tutoring these kids but also planning rec reational programs with them. Much closer plans include the possibility of bringing these kids to the college to show them more about us. The program is, at the moment, still looking for more students to join. It will gladly receive any new students who want to come. If anyone is interested, he can get in touch with the coordina tor, Bill Swartz, at either ext. 348 or leave a note in box 3571. “We hope that more students will participate in the program," Mr. Swartz stated. “I think they will really enjoy it.” Senator Proxmire To Speak On Campus Forum Presents Scholarly Lectures On Thursday Feb. 13, the Lib eral Arts Forum presented two scholarly lectures. The first, at 3 p.m., was delivered by Dr. Os borne Bennett Hardison, Jr., pro fessor of English at Chapel Hill. Mr. Hardison who recently re ceived appointment to Director of the Folger Shakespeare Li- brary in Washington D.C., ad- dressed the sizeable body on the topic of “Through College Cata- logue with Gun and Camera.” This was the second in the series of six lectures to be presented by Mr. Hardison which will ul- timately be published in book form under the auspices of the Liberal Arts Forum. The second lecture was deliv ered at 6:30 p.m. by Dr. Alfred G. Engstrom, Alumni Distinguish. ed Professor of Romance Lang uages, also at Chapel Hill. His address wasentitled“ARelx)urs, Huy mans and The Decadent Way”. This is the fifth in his series of six, also to be published in book form upon the conclusion of the six during the Liberal Arts For um Symposium Week. ^ BRAVO ^ I BOX TOPS! I Friday, Feb. 21, 1969, U.S. Senator William Proxmire will speak in Whitley Auditorium at 8 p.m. Senator Proxmire is a Democrat representing Wiscon sin. Senator Proxmire is one of the busiest and most energetic men in the U.S. Senate, and possesses one of its quickest and best-in. formed minds. The coming speaker is Chair man of the Join Economic Com. mittee of Congress, a ranking member of the Senate Banking and Currency Committee and serves as Chairman of its Finan cial Institutions Subcommittee. He is a member of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee and of the Joint Committee on Defense Production. Sen. Prox mire serves as Chairman of the Great Lakes Conference ofSena- tors. He is a member of both the Senate Democratic Steering Com mittee andof the Democratic Sen atorial Campaign Committee, which puts him in a very select handful of Democrats in the Sen ate who serve on more than one of the three leadership commit tees. The Senator has been in poll- tics since 1950, when he was elec ted to the Wisconsin State As. sembly. In 1957, he won an upset, landslide victory for the seat left vacant by Sen. Joseph McCarthy. He was re-elected in 1958 and again in 1964. Senator Proxmire earned his undergraduate degree from Yale and holds degrees from both the Harvard Graduate School of Bus- Iness Administration and the Harvard Graduate School of Pub lic Administration. He taught gov. ernment at Harvard and worked for J.P. Morgan and Company on Wall Street. He is the author of a book published in 1964, Can Small Business Survive? I A Welcome This week Dean Moore began his work acting “for the President in matters involving academic and student affairs” for an interim period while Dr. Danieley devotes his full energies to the E-4 pro- CTam a project which appears to hav« had considerable success. The editors would like to express best wishes to Dean Moore in his new position and hope that out of this change a new rapport can develop between the administration and students. ^ The Editors
Elon University Student Newspaper
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Feb. 15, 1969, edition 1
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