North Carolina Newspapers

Thursday. Hay 9, ise3 Jay Lacklen THE DAILY TAR HEEL (tar "DeM9t Work n - 75 Ycsrt o IMIiartsI Frecdosi Wayne Hurder, Editor Donald Va!ton, Business Manager mmm HP ark W arrant SG Action UNC's Student Government is an unique position of being able to take a position of leadership in the University community and Chapel Hill and Carrboro. The University Administration has decided not to seek an in junction against Orange County Board of Commissioners' decision to allow a trailer park to expand, threatening the purity of the area's water supply. The University cannot seek an injunction against the trailer park because it is an agent of the state and therefore barred from taking such action. The Chapel Hill Board of Aldermen is being petitioned to seek an injunction. In addition, Stu dent Government, through vice president Charlie Mercer, has ex pressed an interest in stopping the trailer park expansion whose sewage may pour into the Universi ty owned lake which supplies the campus, Chapel Hill, and Carrboro with water. . Hopefully the Chapel Hill Board of Aldermen will realize their responsibility to the community and seek the injunction. However, should they ignore the problem, just as the county board of com missioners has, Student Govern ment should 'jump into frayand try to prevent the expansion. ' Clark, Senators 9 Talks Give Clue To Riots What causes the riots and disregard for law that has been prevalent in the nation in the past couple of years? The speech of U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark and the speeches of several U.S. Senators Tuesday give a good clue. The law has to deal with change, "the fundamental fact of our time," Clark told UNC law students. The law has' to deal with the world as it is now, he added. About the same time i n Washington, D.C. several Senators were urging the President to issue an executive order to stop the Poor People's March from entering Washington because of a fear of violence. TTiey were seeking to stop a protest being undertaken by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference as an answer to the violent protest of riots in the city. The march is heading to Washington to let the lawmakers up there know that poor people in the U.S., black, red, and Mexican-American, want a change in their condition. And so . how do the lawmakers face this request for change, this "fundamental fact of our time?" Instead of even considering the The Daily Tar Heel is pub lished by tie UnrraAtypf North Carolina Student Publi cations Board, daily except Mondays, examinations periods and vacations. Offices are on the second iloor of Graham Memorial. Telephone mimbers: editorial, sports, jicws 523-1011; bus iness, circulation, advertising 933-1163. Address: Box 1080, Chapel Ilill, N. C, 27514. Second class postage paid at U.S. Post Office la Chapel Hill, N. C. Subscription rates: - $9 per year; $5 per semester. Terry Gingras, Managing Editor Rebel Good, News Editor Shari Willis, Features Editor Dale Gibson, Sports Editor Jos Sanders, Associate Editors Dick Levy Kermit Buckner, Jr, Advertising Manager Expansion It would be ironic for Student Government to step in and try to help the town community which has so often seemed to be ignoring the students' needs at best, and trying to rob them at worst, but in this case the action would be warranted. The thought of one out-of every three of the 60 septic tanks break ing down (one in three is normal breakdown rate for them) and par ing their sewage into the Universi ty water supply is not pleasant. Health experts have warned that the water purification system is inefficient in removing unsanitary parasites from the water and that there is the possible danger of long term ingestion of chemical detergents in the water. All of which adds up to the fact that something should be done to pre vent the addition of 42 trailers in the 15 acre area. . . . If the town is unwilling to face its responsibility Student Govern ment, as the representative of about 14,000 students who use the water, should ' act. Such an action would do a lot for a student govern ment whose own image has com monly been characterized as one of irresponsibility. In this case, ' .'they would be showing themselves much more responsible than-either the county or city government. type of change that is needed or, how change is to be brought about,' these people refuse to face the re quest for change. One of them, John McClellan, from a state which should be sen ding a large contingent of marchers, Arkansas, speaks of alerting the city of the danger as if a horde of barbarians from Asia were about to invade Rome, when instead some non-violent marchers are going tto the city to present their grievances to the govern ment. The marchers are selecting a mode of expression which is in agreement with the provisions of the U.S. Constitution and are being met by opposition from some of the most powerful persons within the government established by that Constitution. For a poor person seeking change in a way which he thinks . is in accordance with the con stitution and which is non-violent to have his methods rejected by the establishment from which he seeks a change can only be very frustrating. Before he can expect any change this poor person realizes that he must communicate to those in power the need for a change. So what is he to do when con stitutional, non-violent methods of communication are rejected. He must try to communicate his needs in some other manner. Some militants have suggested rioting as that other manner. We don't like it. We prefer the method being used by .the SCLC. But we hope that those persons in Washington : will realize what they are doing when they asked that com munications with the poor be shut off. We hope they will realize that they are doing as much to en courage rioting as any street cor ner militant. ; The Scolastic Aptitude Test and the Graduate Record Exam may one day lose their prominence as college and graduate school selection tools. They have already begun to lose their prestige. The improvement of the system, or "There . on l. (Q I 0 courst aewa-C roigh-f- -Wkr3 -,n 4hJr . oion Chanel ;', wx-fe x U4 6o i'4 f?V-- aA walfe -erf orc I ywJy TVl4 does IfV PKf I Vn X Out ctcy cenf Uiny -ty ;J ;3 jrv ? ne Dorm K Coeds Adult? To The Editor: Again and again the forces of farce fere at work. Examples of same follow: , A. In an (unnamed) women's dorm, the clocks are 5 minutes fast, and time is calculated on'fthat'ftasas;-;;.' -if; k i the same dorm, the light are left on for a half ihour after dosing, which (as well known to all) means the dorm is still open. Without a watch, and seeing that, that's ta half-hour plus late, which means double minutes (whatever that mean). C. Free flick ON CAMPUS, starting at 9 lets out at 11:58, therefore creating instant late minutes for all who attended this campus function. Attempted ex planations of this fact met by . blank stares on the part of the dorm officer gleefully tolling off the minutes as the little precious Carolina virgins troop in, Joe Sanders Larger Airport Needed Pernicious government. Not only has the Airport Authority inconvenienced the public more every year, but now some "board" is playing a kind of airport Russian roulette with air travellers, which includes most of UNC's out-of-state students. The Airport Authority is making ex- from tne Durham Morning Herald the discovery of a new one, will occur in a year, or a decade, whenever the educational community decides that it needs a new system. Apparently most schools, including Carolina, are willing to let others lead the way, to let others do the work, to settle for second best nles, Sewer Ruling Stink hustling to avoid losing more minutes. How long, oh Lord, how long? Which points us directlv at the crux of the matter, which may be summarized in three points. 1. To all. double-standard deans, ad ministrators, hustling but roarrya-virgin frat men, and scared virgins, young and old, everywhere apprised of a major fact of life: IT CAN BE DONE IN THE AFTERNOON TOO! So much for the rationale behind the hours system. " 2. To all WOMEN on this campus: this absurd situation will last only so long as you let the pre-pubescents among you and those above you make the rule that govern your lives. At a college age, which all of you are at by definition, you have enough sense to come in out . of the rain. By now, having matured - physically, you know what it's all about. panion of Raleigh-Durham Airport dif ficult by holding back on funds, according to Henry Boyd, the airport's manager. RaleighDurham, which can barely Ac comodate jet traffic to begin with, it i having trouble extending to a "Master Plan" that will give it two runways to accomodate its increasing air traffic. The present runway is breaking up under pressure from jet traffic. Because Raieigh-Durham is a one runway airport, all service must be cut off sometime in June for runway repairs. It will be cut off for about two weeks, meaning that about 12,090 passengers wifl use another airport. Eastern, which has expanded its jet service into Raleigh-Durham recently, doesn't know when the airport will be closed down, so it is booking reservations normally and will make adjustments when the dates are announced. For the 12,000 passengers who would have used Raleigh-Durham, either Greensboro's airport or one of Pied-, mont's airports in the eastern part of the state will have to do. So during those two weeks,, air travellers can either battle for reserva tions in Greensboro or go to Geenville and take She 21-6top cowpasture route to Washington. When the only major airport serving Eastern North Carolina has to dose down two weeks to repair a runway, all the claims of North Carolina's at tracting growth industries sounds silly. Jet travel is the only way businessmen can afford to get around, today, if they want to run their business with any kind of efficiency. So when Raleigh-Durham closes down sometime in June, 12,000 passengers will have to battle it out somewhere else. Unless, of course, it closes down during fee first week of June: then departing students from three large universities will join the 12,000. . until the true leaders of American educa tion come up with an answer. Defenders of the present methods of student selection might feel that their system is satisfactory, that skeptics of the status quo are idealistic complainers with no better method to offer, that mane - Tor ourselves! If you want to sleep with a boy, go , ahead. If you don't want to sleep with a particular boy, or with any, boys at all, or even with girls, don't. The choice is yours to make, and is only yours. To abdicate it to anyone else is degrading. 3. And to everybody: lay ..off the double standard and join the Twentieth Century. It's a better time to live in than you think. . Yours in peace and freedom, James P. Kahan Pollution Here? To The Editor: Yesterday, the Orange County com missioners voted to allow the installation of 0 septic tanks in an expanded trailer park situated on a hill just above University Lake, the water reservoir of Chapel Hill and UNC. The com missioners accepted the soothing evalua tion of a local health official, who pro fessed to see no dear danger and who, coincidental also happens to own a tract of developable land adjacent to the land in question. The commissioners chose to ignore the warnings of Mr. Staton, a state sanitary official, and of Profesor Daniel Okun, of UNC's sanitary engineering department. These warnings pointed out the high incidence of septic tank failure (which in this case will cause deposition of sewage into the lake), the inefficiency of water purification systems in remov ing such parasites) as that reponsible for hepatitis, and the possible danger of long-term ingestion of the detergent chemicals present even in treated and "purified" effluent. The commissioners also ignored a plea from Chancellor Sitterson th&t the matter be given a careful professional investigation before reaching any decision. i i The tie-breaking vote was cast by Chapel Hill businessman Harvey Bennett. Today's Durham Herald quotes him as expressing concern; this concern ap parently did not deter him from voting in favor of the additional pollution. Are local business interests so im portant that our health must be put in jeopardy? I certainly care what put into my drinking water. Do you? Lawrence Slifkin 313 Bnrlage Circle Hie Daily Tar Heel accepts all letters for publication provided they are typed, double-paccd and signed. Letters should te no longer than 303 words in length. We reserve the right to edit for libelous statements. criticism of existing tests are -43-documented and are not authoritative enough to suggest reform. The reader may judge for himself from the foUo-srir.g sources. From College Board Review, Fa2 1957, no. 63, (later reprinted in the Science Magazine), comes perhaps the most exhaustive study of the problem of educational as well as industrial aad scientific testing. The article is wriUea by David A. Goslin, staff sociologist at the Russel Sage Foundation in York. Goslin reports that in the past decade alone, criticisms of existing testirg methods claim 47 books and articles. His purpose is to summarize and analyze the major existing criticisms. He cites three types of individuals who might be unfairly evaluated by existing testing methods. First in his examples are the deep thinkers." The ambiguous wording of many of the standardized questions leave mere than one answer which may be right. This type of question is purposely used to differentiate between the vast numbers of students who take the tests. Deep or creative thinkers might pick up an answer which is just as right but4 less conventional that the correct response. Second on the list axe the culturally disadvantaged and members of distinctive cultural groups. Children from homes where another language is spoken, or where English is poorly used by parents (slums), will naturally be defi cient in the language. Finally, a lack of experience in taking tests such as the SAT or the GEE may affect results. Special skills are needed to know when and where not to guess, when to answer only the easy questions, etc. The results of testing methods, now used, Goslin points out, have left much to be desired. . .test scores correlate only moderately with long-range academic performance and not at all with postacademic performance, serious questions are raised about the usefulness of such scores and the amount of reliance that ought to be placed on them." Although he goes on to say that this statement is a risky one to use with so homogeneous a group as college graduates, he sees the need for other peronal characteristics to be tested which are ". . .not measurable by in telligence tests." This refers to such qualities as motivation, creativity, social skills and several other factors. A variety of other complaints were lodged but were still in die research phase. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Biographical Graduate Admissions Study is being conducted by MIT because it has completely dropped the requirement of the GRE. Why? "Due to the restriction in the range of talent selected for graduate schools or for other reasons, the Gaduate Record Ex amination is of extremely limited usefulness in prediction of academic suc cess in Graduate school. In addition, the Graduate Record Examination, undergraduate grades and other selection methods now being used have not demonstrated any appreciable validity in predicting the occupational success . of the student after leaving graduate school to enter a prefession." Is MIT alone in its . dissatisfaction? Not at all. Research is being carried on in such universities as Harvard, Ohio and Utah. In our own backyard, Duke University is nearing tie completion of as admissions study of its own. Ihe story of its beginning was carried in the News And Observer on Sunday, November 27f 19C6, and The Greersboro Daily News, of November 28, im The paragraph reads: 'Two Duke University psychologists have begun a study which could have major impact on college admissions procedures in the United States." It is "evident that there does exist a problem in current testing techniques. It is also evident that a small minority of colleges and universities are out look ing for a better way to choose their undergraduate and graduate students. Why so few? Cliff W. Wing, Jr. gives the answer to this question and some good advice in the October 26, 1965 College Bord article entitled "Student Selection, Educational Treatment, and the Training of Talent" He says: . .to many people the thought of ex perimenting with the education of our youth is nothing short of horrifying. It may shock such people to learn whrt I believe to be the case: We have, in a loose sense, been experimenting for years with our children's duca tion but badly. What we need now to do is to perform experimental research wisely and welL" It is time for educators to stop ac cepting what's being used as what's best. There is a better method of student selection but it may never be found if the educational community doesn't search for it. Some of the most in stitutions have begun to look, but it will take a concerted effort by all to achieve success.