North Carolina Newspapers

Page Six THE DAILY TAR HEEL Tuesday. September 15, 1970 Tony Lentz "Freshiiniaiii AI Hi.H o o o Opinions cf Thf Daily Tar Htl an- ex press-fi on its editorial pegi- l! unsigned editorials ar? the opinions of the editor and the sii.fl Letters and columns represent only the opinions of the individual contributors. Wh$ lailg afar iM .Being MgM, B Tom Gooding, hdilor University Of Solving This week the University "WELCOMED" more than 4,000 new students to the Carolina way of life. Through all official means available the members of the administration impressed upon the new students that they were the biggest and best class ever to enroll in the University. During the next several weeks the new students will begin to learn just how phony those statements were. They will learn the University wasn't happy to see them here-not all of them at least. The unexpectedly large number of new students has created a housing problem for the University, and the University doesn't like problems. They will learn that the University tends to take rather expedient and arbitrary acts to alleviate problems. For example, the University encountered a financial problem last spring when large numbers of students decided not to reside in the drab cubicles provided for Shell -Breaking Needed cnancenor j. ianyie aiuerson spoke of the ills of society in his speech to new students Friday night. Among those troubles he listed the population explosion, increasing pollution of the air, water and natural environment, poverty, national rivalries, racial tension and war. However, Sitterson stressed that "It is not the primary function of the University as an institution to correct the ills of society." According to the chancellor, the "function of the University is to educate and send forth into society graduates who are determined to improve society." However, we feel the University is one of the problems contemporary society. in uJIjp 3ailg (Far qvsi 78 Years of Editorial Freedom Tom Gooding, Editor Rod Waldorf Managing Ed. Mike Parnell News Editor Rick Gray Associate Ed. Harry Bryan Associate Ed. Chris Cobbs Sports Editor Glenn Brank Feature Editor Ken Ripley Nat. News Editor Doug Jewell Business Mgr. Frank Stewart Adv. Mgr. University The refusal of the University administration to accept the open house policy of self determination passed by Student Legislature in the spring is just one more example of college administrators taking control of student life away from the students. The administration considers the policy set down by Student Legislature "invalid" and will allow no visitation until its policy is passed by the ligislature. And the administration will stand firm on this demand because it has absolutely nothing to lose. The administration's stand places the whoel problem on the shoulders of Student Legislature. Legislators will have the choice at their first session of either Has Way Problems them. Two complete floors oi Hinton James dormitory were void of inhabitants, and South Campus registered an occupancy rate of approximately 60 per cent. The University has mortgaged; these dormitories and relies on the revenue derived from room rents to make the payments. In order to get students back into the dorms the University refused to provide conditions in dorms. They simply issued an order requiring all sopomore men and all first year transfer students to live in dorms. The massive medical complex was scheduled for another building last spring. A parking lot was needed for the construction equipment so the University gave 12 student families one month's notice before destroying their living quarters in Victory Village. The University has found ways to solve problems involving students in the past. The size of the incoming class is a problem a solution will be found. Thus we do not teel a University that is willing to ignore the ills of society is capable of training people to cure those ills.. The student generation of the 60's broke the apathy of the 50's with an era of activism. The entering class of freshmen is the first of the decade of the 70's they will decide if the trend continues. Those students who decide to isolate themselves from the ills of society, those who do not substantially change their high school life style where football games, fancy clothes and a date on Friday night are the most crucial issues, should have stayed in their home towns and immediately begun running their father's store. DTH Has History Of Improvements Through its 78-year history The Daily Tar Heel has attempted to stay in the forefront of technology. In 1929, when few colleges had newpspers, the DTH began daily publication. Action photography was added to the paper in 1933 along with banner headlines. The paper advocated a system of three grades "Honor," "Pass" and "Fail"-in the spring of '33. The arrest of Bruno Hauptmann for the Lindbergh kidnapping was reported in the pages of The Daily Tar Heel in 1935 through the acquisition of a daily wire service from United Press. In 1936 The Daily Tar Heel began using editorial cartoons on a regular basis and a "Freshman Edition" with three sections totaling 16 pages-the largest DTH ever published at the time. The list continues through the backing down to the administration and passing the administration's Open House Agreement, or standing firm on its right , to govern students and refusing passage. No matter what the outcome will be, students will still suffer. They will either be forced to back down and get half of what they want, or stand up and get nothing for what could be a long, long time. And no matter what the outcome may be, students' freedom has been abridged even more. Pages 89 and 90 of the undergraduate bulleting of 1968 (undergraduate bulletins of 1 969 are almost impossible to find; 1970 bulletins haven't come out yet) point out that "The University, Has It And Being a freshman is all right, unless: You live on South Campus. -You can't afford to call Greensboro three nights a week. You don't have enough money to drink a lot. -You don't like to stand in line. You get nervous around girls. You don't get nervous around girls. You don't know anyone who will loan you a car once in a while. You're the kind of guy who always misses the last bus back to the dorm, especially after a pitcher or two of beer. You've never done much drinking before. You hate drab colors, particularly in the place you live. You like girls. You dislike obnoxious roommates. You don't like classes with more than 50 students in them. You want a personal relationship with your professors. You have to take fundamentals in Physical Ed. You don't like the taste of beer. You don't know anyone over 21 who will buy liquor for you. You don't have a stereo. Your parents like short hair. You like to study in a quiet place. You get homesick. You have a girl back home. You don't like ugly girls. You don't like ugly boys. Your big brother went to UNC and became an alcoholic. You big sister went to UNC and got pregnant. Your big sister went to UNC and stayed a certified virgin. Your big brother graduated Phi Beat Kappa with a 4.0 average. You don't like getting beaten up by druken football players with masculinity hang-ups. You like poetry, really like poetry. You write poetry. You like meaningful conversations. You don't like to raise hell. You do like to raise hell. You have to take a part-time job. You have a sincere desire to join a fraternity and a sincere but empty wallet to match. You have to go to the Infirmary, for anything. You can't afford to eat downtown. You don't like to walk. You don't have a survival knapsack, complete with toothbrush, first aid kit and a three-day supply of food and water to hold you over on campus if you miss the bus. You don't have a buddy to loan you $5 when the folks send the check late. You can't have folks to send you a check, only letters about how nice it is at home. Your girl back home sends you snapshots of herself in a bathing suit taken on a trip to the beach with your former best friend. Your girl back home sends you a Dear John letter two days after you decided to write and let her down easy. Your girl back home sends you a following three decades. This year The Daily Tar Heel will be working in a student owned print shop. The number of columns has been reduced from eight to six. The six-column format allows for a 10 per cent reduction in the amount of time required to read a story and a 13 per cent reduction in the amount of time to produce a paper. The headline type has been changed from the standard Bodoni to a newly designed Caledonia type. The editorial page, following a style set by the Christian Science Monitor, has been moved to the back page in order to improve its readibility. These changes were made by the editorial staff in an effort to improve the paper for the entire student body and to maintain the DTH's reputation of being in the vanguard of journalistic style and quality. Harry through its advocacy of the Honor System and through the authority it has delegated to student government, seeks to develop the essentials of self-control within its students. And it goes on: Freedom is a necessary element in the education of the man. This freedom must be accorded to the professor and to the student. At Carolina, every attempt is made to see that this situation exists. Only through the careful use of freedom can thr truth really break through." These are very nice things to say. But they would be beautiful to practice. When a freshman first enters the University, he is told that he has this Dear John letter two days after you decided to marry her. Your girl back home sends you a letter that starts out, "Guess what the doctor told me yesterday." Your boy friend back home comes to visit with a car'oad of his friends from the local pool hall, and they want you to find dates for all of them. Your boy friend back home comes to visit and announces right away that he wants a guided tour of the arboretum he's heard so much about. Harry It used to be quiet and obscure. You could go inside, sit down in a back booth and disappear from the world for hours. The dark brown booths were like that. They helped you hide from the great sprawling University across the street. No more. It is impossible to hide in Harry's anymore. At least not with the orange, purple, red, green or yellow booths Ralph put in. Sometime during the summer Ralph, who owns Harry's, decided to paint the place. Brighten it up a bit. He must have gotten tired of having people walk down Franklin Street and go right past the place because it was obscure. It's obscure no longer. You couldn't miss it if you wanted to. Not with all of those colors blaring at you. The new paint may well attract more customers, but the place won't be the same. The obscurity isn't there anymore, and that's what Harry's was all about. You never knew who . was sitting on either side of you, and it didn't matter. When you walked into Harry's it was like a hermit walking into his cave to escape an exploring Boy Scout troop. The whole world disappeared when you sat down in the booth. There was nothing except the people in the booth and the coffee and the food. Franklin Street ceased to be a blight on the face of the world. You couldn't HI- I'M Peter. ?oinicx. MY HAR is STYUSHy LOHG. THUfcSPAY EVEtN6-S Ul LAK6UIP DlS- &&UF. THAT'S CAU-Ep you Htt woks fKPHME MEAT Sf&lhJr. PRAT- I CAM BY MY BuLe PtlfcfMO FOOT TALL -5EASCT4. I'M HUtJttiriKi .yj PARAPH. Bryan jift jjuj ji f 9,m IllU'W I" n'Mff I ' tfl II - f- wr u. v. - i FEA-TUPrr- f"OP- -we I f 1 ?72: ' Pa?) w m i l 6 ' University Takes freedom, and he believes it. He is forced to live in a dormitory, but he is told that there is a reason for it, a reason that is probably a good one-he is, in most cases, not yet ready to be on his own. For years he was allowed to leave the dorm in his sophomore year. Presumably this would tend to mean that as far as the administration is concerned he is ready for his "freedom." However, last year the administration decided that beginning next year sophomores, too, will be forced to live in University housing because the housing is so bad that too few people want to live in dormitories for the University to make a profit. You like to neck with girls in a secluded place. You like to read comic books. You work up enough nerve to ask a coed for a date. She says she's a sophomore and starts laushine as soon as she gets around the corner. You think sex is dirty. -You think sex is fun. You think sex. -You want to get an education. You don't like research papers. Rick Gray s Has Disappeared see it, even if you tried, and the people on the street couldn't stare back in at you. That was what Harry's had going for it. The sandwiches were only adequate and the prices high, but that's normal for Chapel Hill. Whatever charm or attraction the place held was in being able to walk in and just get the hell away from everything. No one could call you. Classes ceased to exist. And time had no importance. The waiters were and, no doubt, still are surly, and they don't really do all that good a job of filling your order quickly and courteously. But then speed didn't matter and courtesy was something that was expected in the outside world. Early morning was always the best time for Harry's. The breakfasts were as good as any in town, and once you ordered a meal the coffee kept coming for hours, or at least until another waiter came to work. If you weren't careful, the whole day could disappear before you ever got around to going to that 10 o'clock class. The morning newspaper always held more news when you read it in Harry's. Something about the brown booths with the high backs and the soft, disgusting salmon pink walls made what happened the day before more interesting because it seemed to be further away. It didn't matter that right next door was the Post Office, with businessmen and students walking in and out, picking up their mail and hurrying to work or class. The eat-and-run group across the street at Hector's was grabbing a quick Gfmm M&GO HAStzm trnml H CAN qUOTE CAILTONI CAN opeFATZ -mer MicROFLM. MACMiMt! AN.P H WPAT FAT ary MANS(( TUR I'M PALPH - RADcAL. UMC SOCIOLOGY pT. r -OATH CAPIT7WISM But pociTter Me cskvcH you Foe- I'm carou coea AHp I'LL r-LL you METHffHG' tU25 BoYS For- Cox -to sAy. y I ViF t J 111 it l.r Jjr I T JnZS I r J It Away Junior transfers, too, are forced to live in dorms. The administration limits student freedom when its forces students to live in dormitories for financial reasons. It limits that freedom further when it sets up closing hours for women. " It limits that freedom still further when it ignores a campuswide referendum in which students voted to eliminate double jeopardy (trying students in student courts for legal offenses already tried in civil courts). And it goes entirely too far when it denies Student Government (i.e. the Student Legislature) the right to determine the students' visitation policy. -You don't like professors who speak in a monotone. -You don't like essay quizzes. You don't have enough nerve to ask questions in class because the upper-classmen in the back row always laugh. -You take a P.E. course and ask the instructor, in all sincerity, if a crime against nature is something like setting a forest fire. You are a freshman. hot dog for breakfast just to get them through the first couple of classes. But if you managed to hide far enough back, all that didn't matter. You couldn't see it. The people in a hurry didn't come in Harry's, and all those who were in the restaurant were just like you. They had a 10 o'clock class too but they weren't going. It was always too hot or too cold outside to leave and walk across campus, even if the class was right across the street in Alumni or Howell or Hill. Even Graham Memorial right across the street was as far away as Hinton James if you'd only had one cup of coffee. And even if you had to be conscious of time, Harry's was a good place to be. The brown and the slowness of the place made it a better study room than anything the University ever built into a dorm or a library. If you studied there, no one bothered you. They knew what it was like to have a quiz at noon and no time to absorb the information. The waiter would keep the cup full of coffee and leave you alone, even the surliness was gone if you had something else to concentrate on. . But it will all be different now. With all those colors, there's no way the world can be forced to stay outside. The color brings the world inside with it. And when the rest of the world comes inside Harry's, it will push out that element of isolation that made the place what it was. GEGfNS ULlO. Mr HAUL 15 :5TtVfc STRAHf.) I'M Ho THREAT To sooiry INHERIT W FrvM IN IT Atteald Mm. OH,VS. THfc IS OfJ6 HofUE. CHAKAdT4R. A HOST 51MPSOM, the. Scholar. "VC I t-Tl INI VJ The administration has taken its stand. It has said there will be no visitation until its policy is accepted by Student Legislature. Whether Student Legislature takes its stand or not will be a difficult decision each legislator will have to decide for himself. The same bulletin says that "In a rather unique fashion, the University of North Carolina provides a free student government " This statement is true. Out "free student government" is unique. It is unique in that it is the only "free student government" that is not "free." s f.7