Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / Aug. 12, 1971, edition 1 / Page 4
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4 The Tar Heel Thursday, August 12, 1971 , 1 1 . V" 5 ) I - com erence ealousy mus Student avoid uil DDE? )Q O D0DDQ There is one problem which may cause this weekend's Student Action Conference to be a failure: jealousy. There will be more than 300 students from high schools and colleges around the state attending the conference. Each of these 300 persons will have his or her own ideas about what should be done to solve the problems plaguing students. This is a grand opportunity to hear and evaluate different ideas and it is our hope the conferees will regard each idea presented as being worthy of discussion. What we fear is simply that some of the participants will think their idea is better than that of another participant, and there is always the possibility the conference will split up into various factions. . Students have similar but different problems. The problems, and thus the hopeful solutions, will be different here at UNC than at Pembroke State, different at East Carolina as compared to Western Carolina. All of the participants in this conference should have an opportunity to present their views; all those attending are worthy of our attention. And the conferees should be very careful to avoid dividing into factions of east vs. west or big school vs. small school. We have seen that happen too often to student-initiated ventures. We don't want North Carolina to miss a chance to become one of the really progressive states in this nation. The idea of a student conference is excellent; there is much that needs to be done. If the conferees are willing to put their constituents, the students, above their personal interests, then the conference will be a success. "United we stand; divided we fall." It really doesn't sound that corny. An editor ends his term - It is traditional for editors of The Tar Heel to end their term with farewell editorials. I shall make mine as brief as possible. There were three objectives when I became editor of the summer paper: first, to provide people who otherwise wouldn't have had the chance with some newspaper experience: second, to experiment with different make-up techniques in order to improve The Daily Tar Heel: third, to provide the summer students with a good newspaper. , "i think the first objective has been achieved. The people who have worked with the paper this summer have gained invaluable experience-experience which can only help them serve The Daily Tar Heel better. The second objective has also been achieved. We experimented with several different make-up techniques, a number of which failed, but many which will help make The Daily Tar Heel a better paper. Whether or not we achieved the third objective, serving the students, is for the readers to 'decide. I hope we Have provided a good newspaper for the students. We have tried our best, and, though Gerry Cohen we made some mistakes as everyone will, we think we have published a good newspaper. I would like to thank my staff for doing an excellent job this summer. The editor almost always gets the credit, but it's the staff which is truly the backbone of a newspaper. It has been a rewarding experience for me personally to edit this newspaper. I hope it will help make my last year with The Daily ar Heel a more rewarding one also. Enough said. MikeParnell Conference wont end Sunday This weekend, Chapel Hill will play host to a conference billed by its organizers as "the most important student meeting in this state for many , years." For almost 400 North Carolina college and high school students, Friday through Sunday will be the time to make plans for non-partisan action this school year. The passage of the 26th amendment, giving students the right to vote, was the impetus for the conference. The conference will touch many areas, however. Over the years, the state and national governments have taken advantage of students and universities, using them as convenient whipping boys for political advantage. Students are totally unrepresented in Hillsboro, Raleigh and Washington. Voting is no panacea, and registering to vote does not mean lower tuition tbmorrow. It does mean that if students can act collectively, we can begin to have our needs met. The politicians are doing the best to keep students from exercising their new power. In many countries, election officials are refusing to let students register, arguing that they must register where their parents live. This kind of ruling would probably prevent most students from registering, since they would then have to go through the cumbersome absentee ballot provisions this state employs (two applications and a notarized ballot). Furthermore, absentee balloting is not even allowed in primaries, and perhaps a majority of North Carolina's 130,000 college students will be taking finals on May 2, 1972, the day of the presidential primary. Only if students can vote in their college towns can they exercise their most basic right of citizenship. To the argument that students have no concern about their town government, I answer that after four years in Chapel Hill, I know almost nothing about my hometown government, 600 miles away. One of the side effects of voter registration will be an improvement in criminal justice in this state, where blacks, students and other poor whites have gotten the short end of the stick. Since juries are drawn from voter lists, registering blacks and students to vote will guarantee a jury with a community cross section. Trials in Hillsborough, for instance, would average a 1 2-person jury with 4 Students on it. There are about 14,000 students in the county, and only 22,000 other registered voters here. This assumes that students register. The Student Action Conference this weekend will try to come up with a plan for a statewide voter registration drive for the 130,000 college students and 65,000 high school seniors eligible to vote in next spring's primaries (through a quirk in the law, anyone. 7Vi years old can vote in the primaries). That loophole can add 30,000 voters to the rolls. If the conference can help get students register, it will be worth everyone's time to attend. Out of this conference can come a sense of being together, and a potential for students on county commissions and local boards, and at Raleigh in the General Assembly. The past session, the N.C. General Assembly failed to meet many of its problems, and postponed action on Consolidated University reorganization until an October 26 special session. Students should make their presence known in Raleigh come October. The outrageous 30 percent tuition hike foisted on out-of-state students with only a month's notice must be repealed. That bill, passed in Raleigh in July, will help guarantee that only rich out-of-state students can come to the University, and it will help wreck graduate programs at the University. Students should be consulted on reorganization, for we will live under it. Already, student groups are preparing to come to the conference to lobby for and against reorganization. We should all listen. The absentee ballot bill for primaries, . sponsored by State Sen. Skipper Bowles and beaten 24-16 in June by the State Senate, should be introduced again and passed. When students return home from Chapel Hill on Sunday night, they should .call their hometown paper or radio station and tell the reporters what happened, and what is planned in their hometown. The Conference is titled "... a beginning," and it should be just that. Don't let it end Sunday afternoon. Mike Parnell Editor Terry Cheek Managing Editor Janet Bernstein Advertising Editor Lana Starnes News Editor Robert Wilson Business Manager
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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Aug. 12, 1971, edition 1
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