• Format
  • Publications (documents)
• Type
  • Text
• Source institution
  • Western Carolina University
• Identifier
  • HL_WesternCarolinian_1963-11-22_Vol29_No09_02

Editorial Page Of The Western Carolinian Senate Is Tired Of Counting Student assemblies have always been a problem at WCC. The vast majority of the student body resents compulsory attendance requirements and the vocal segment of the faculty grouse about the unnecessary interruption of the academic schedule and the loss of three class hours per quarter devoted to assemblies. Both complaints are, to a degree, valid. It is true that required attendance at assemblies, on the college level, too closely resembles "chapel" requirements at many high schools and that the interruption of the class schedule, for meaningless gatherings more often a- voided than not, is to be regretted, especially when the only apparent merit of these assemblies is the fact that they take up an hour of class time. > Still there are some who see the student assembly as more than a mere "break" in the daily round of academics. There are those who see the assembly of the student body as one way in which the diversified elements of the entire college can be united, briefly, in a single purpose. The convocation of any college or university can be a meaningful thing if the purpose for which it is called has some meaning. Otherwise it takes on the same old aspect and serves no real purpose. This has been, to a great extent, the problem at WCC. Last Monday night the Senate decided to take a long look at the problem. The Senate is responsible for the enforcement of the compulsory attendance requirements of the student assemblies. This involves collecting the assembly cards before every assembly and, later, countinng these cards and crediting the bearer with attendance at the "required" assembly. This is, as any Senator will readily explain, no easy task. Finally somebody asked a few pointed questions and the whole business unfolded itself. In past year the absence from a required assembly forfeited the offender's right to class cuts during the following quarter. For the past two years, however, the question of class cuts or absences has been left to the discretion of the individual instructors and the administration pursues no policy on the matter except to state that there is no such thing as a class cut. Where does this leave the Senate? In the absence of any clearly defined requirements regarding absences from required assemblies, the Senate finds itself forced to be responsible for counting and crediting assembly cards for no apparent purpose. If the administration has ceased, for all practical purposes, to make assemblies required then the Senate should do likewise. A closer look at the situation brings other problems into focus. If assemblies are to be required how can the administration or the Senate effectively "punish" those students who violate this requirement? We have seen assemblies where little more than half the student body was present. How can half the student body be effectively reprimanded for not attending required assemblies? Again, is it fair to those students who honestly attend required asemblies, even though it be solely from the fear of losing class cuts, to permit the widespread abuse of the system of collecting and crediting assembly cards. This incongruity is more than apparent when the Senate finds itself counting in excess of 1800 assembly cards when any fool could plainly see that there were less than 1000 students present. It is quite evident that the time has come for a serious evaluation of the student assemblies and of the means by which they should be conducted. We are convinced that certain convocations serve a definite purpose in the college community. The President's Message at the beginning of every academic year is one example. This assembly brings the President of the college before the student body to illustrate the progress of the college as a whole and to set forth the aims and expectations of the entire college community for the coming year. The Christmas and Spring Concert programs are other examples of excellent assemblies. Others have not been so excellent. On the other hand we have heard certain criticism of the practice of a state-supported college sponsoring speakers of a religous nature at required assemblies and more than one class president has stated that required class meetings are a farce and that it was usually only those who had enough interest to attend these class meetings who were worth working with to accomplish anything. Last Monday night the Senate began the slow process of investigating and correcting the problem. During Winter Quarter a Senate committee will study the function and purpose of the student assembly at WCC and at other colleges and universities . It hopes to arrive at some concrete suggestions and to present these recommendations to the administration. With luck a new system of student assemblies can be implemented before the beginning of Spring Quarter and the Senate can stop counting cards. The Senate is, of course, open to all suggestions and will welcome these from any member of the college community. Student Government ^ms^^Kst^sws^mms^kmsmm—sMiasmmismswm Turtle Race And Student Assemblies By Gerald Holder The Western Carolina Student Senate covened on Monday night for a two hour session. This particular meeting covered everything from International Turtle Races to the problem of student attendance at assemblies. Attention all W.C.C. Students! You now have a representative in the International Turtle Race to be held in Washington, D. C, on December 6th. The W. C. C. entry will be named "Little Caesar." The registration fee and cost of the turtle a- mount to $6.00, which will go to the National Foundation of Muscular Dystrophy. The race will give our institution some national advertisement and the entry fee will go to this very worthwhile charity in our name. The Student Senate will also sponsor a campus and community-wide book drive. Books of all types are accept - table and welcome. They will be forwarded to the Asian Foundation for Books and will then be sent to Asia to boost and assist the libraries in that area. This program has paid off well in the past and it Is certainly a positive good. Further arrangements are still to be made along with a date for the collection of the books. All cooperation from the students will be appreciated. Many of you may be called upon to assist in the collection of these books. Anyone interested in helping should contact Student Body President, Conway Jolly. The hottest issue to come before the Senate turned out to be Student Assemblies. The issue arose when a box full of student Assembly Cards was presented to the Senate to be counted and checked. The Senate counted a similar box of cards two weeks ago and it took several hours. The point in question was not so much an objection to counting the cards but that it was useless to do so. Useless because it is a common practice and occurance for one student to put eight or ten assembly cards in the collection boxes. The cards turned in for other people by a friend makes counting these ballots a farce so far as getting an accurate attendance is concerned. Several methods of taking an accurate attendance record of the assemblies were discussed but none were adopted. The question arose as to whether or not assemblies should be compulsory. Many different opinions were brought forth but again no action was taken by the Senate. One prevailing opinion was that if the assemblies were to be compulsory there should be only one per year. After a lengthy discussion it was moved that a Senate Committee be appointed to study and investigate the problems surrounding Student Assemblies. The committee is composed of the four class presidents and four other members of the Senate. QET VOIR APPEALS TVPED WW BEFORE WE. fc^H 0£GII\TS NtXT <*jU«RTE.f! fcRVlNGr TOtJU-S '/i OFF? H AIR TRIP5 l#OPfl£ -DROP «N AND SURF^SE ™e FOUKS! CULlOUiHEt /\£RODKoKfc LIBERAL TERMS (ff/vfAU 6AAIM 0>iV - Fl*Al. F*** TAKEN - PltoFESSoR THRCAIWC* WfcANWHIUL , t?AC* »N THE. BARGAIN B*StW\£NT .... National Scene American Youth: Potential Power Un-Unified By Neal Evans The United States is one of the few countries in the world where the youth do not have an effective voice and are not feared as an active force. In Japan the students could keep President Eisenhower from their land; in 1956 the young people of Hungary could undertake a revolution. These are major examples, but in country after country the opinion of the students is greatly respected. What is the problem here in this country? There are myriads of student organizations on the state and national level. Almost every one of the four million college students belongs to at least one. The largest of these is the National Student Association which meets very summer to pass ineffective resolutions calling for the abolishing of the House Committee on Un- American Activities, etc. And from there they range to the various central organizations of the religious groups, the professional clubs, and the student government associations. The North State Student Government Association might be typical of these generally useless organizations. The WCC Senate spent over one hundred dollars to send a delegation to a NSSGA meeting this week where approximately fifty students argued parliamentary procedure. There are a number of reasons why the American youth cannot unite as an effective force: inter-sectional rivalry, individual rivalry, and lack of a rallying point. Inter-sectional rivalry is due to the great division in background of the students from one side of the continent to the other. The National Federation of Newman Clubs, the largest student religious organization in the country, is constantly bickering between the big states and the small states. The North Carolina Federation of College Young Democrats worries whether the Piedmont schools have more power than the Western or Eastern schools. This is a petty grievance that will be difficult to overcome. The individual rivalry stems from extroverted high school students prematurely forced into positions of leadership. They have never learned to follow. As a prominent WCC student leader pointed out in reference to the NSSGA, "There are too many leaders, and not one damned follower." When the campus leaders represent their schools on higher levels, they fail to realize that in a peer group of leaders everyone cannot lead. In this country there has never been a strong unifying issue to bring the youth together. We have an acceptable form of govenrment, our academic freedom is not unduly oppressed, and the food in our cafeterias, turns out to be pretty good. But the student does not take a strong position on any of our major or minor issues that are of importance to the country. The American youth would do well to take the example of his Negro element. The Negro student has been a major force in the current move for civil rights. They have overcome these weak points. Inter-sectional rivalries have been forgotten, the individual leaders have forgotten their own ambitions and participated in sit-ins and freedom marches, and a rallying point has been found. As the American student accepts his "separated breth- ern," may he also accept their lesson. Limelight By Bill Shawn Smith Sights And Insights By Don Yarbrough "Write an idea type column," said they, "we've got the international scene taken care of, the arts, the campi, etc." So I proceeded. I went ahead on the assumption that Western Carolinian readers would enjoy ramblin' through my sort of "streams of consciousness" (or unconsciousness; take it in what sense thou wilt). But that is one of the most difficult things to do: to stay away from local subject matter. One is laways tempted to stick a dagger in somebody or to fall into the CONFIDENTIAL category; you know what I mean. But this week finds me with no choice. I'm about to cut, so watch out; it might be you. That's just the point —I don't know which direction I should draw my bead. It all begins with laundry and ends with laundry. (Or without it, as the case might be.) We as students living on campus must pay eight skins for with which to have our gear milled down at the steam plant. And, I might add the service is nice. It's Kenya, the British East African Colony scheduled for independence in December, was named after its glacier-topped Mount Kenya, the National Geographic says. "Kenya" comes from the Bantu word "Kilinyaa" which means the "white mountain." Maybe your bait I is faulty... What is this?! A list of figures'? : IT'S A BUDGET.., YOU'LL NOTICE IT'6 BALANCED. What on earth do you expect to land with a balanced ' budget?! r^ close to pick up the stuff, and it's good to know you can have it picked up at the dorm, whenever you can remember to put it out. The laundry I'm talking about. Well, some of us don't want to pay the eight smackers 'cause we prefer to take matters in our own hands, but we've got to anyway. Well, I'll go along with that; that custom has been around longer than I have, and that ain't short. What happens to the dough that don't get used up? Or will that all come out in the wash? I mean like what happens to the money they say we can't transfer. (Now don't ask me who they is 'cause I doesn't know; it's just an easy linguistical escape.) I keep searching through my pockets and hose (for men) at the end of each quarter for a sur- pries package of lettuce, but all I ever find is missing buttons. But back to the point. The point is I don't get the point. If she has five bucks left over, why can't he use it? O.K. I'll concede here too. Even acquiesce. What about when you bought the sixty- four bit deal yourself, but an off-campi chap didn't, and you threw in a few articles of his, and they don't wash his or yours? There's no transfer of funds involved there—fungus transfer, maybe. Same thing as being married and tossin' a pair of the old lady's whatchamacallits only to learn that it is im- -possible to sanitize her attractive piece of apparel 'cause her name is on the label, not yours, and she didn't pay her laundry fee. I have nothing to add save the fact that I wish they'd do something down there because I'm having to shower with my socks on, etc. I'd better stop anyway before I get my hand caught in the ringer. It matters not how often learned film critics proclaim that Hollywood flims are overshadowed by foreign imports, I still say that they are crazy! My proof of this was reaffirmed when I traveled over to the Sylva cinema to view Irma La Douce for the second time. This film shows without a doubt that American film makers, in this case Billy Wilder, are stiff competition for the so-called 'art' movie mongols of Eurasia. What Wilder has done and continues to do is create not only films of tremendous skill and artistry but also films that cannot be surpassed in sheer entertainment value. He has proved his mastery over and over again with such jewels as Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, One Two Three and now Irma. The debut of Irma came in 1956 when it was produced as a musical in Paris. The creators of the play hoped to achieve much of the same effect that Kurt Weill and Ber- thold Brecht had gotton in their Threepenny Opera by mixing sordid and socially revealing detail with a childlike innocence. From Paris, Irma traveled to London and then on to the New York theatre where it was an instant success. It is no wonder that Wilder chose to transform Irma into a film; he is an old hand at taking social satire and cloaking it in biting humor. For the filmed Irma, Wilder has pushed the original vocal music to the background and put in its place the talents of Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine. Lemmon is terrific as the ex-cop turned protector of Irma (Shirley MacLaine). I would venture to say that his skill as a comedian cannot be surpassed in Hollywood, and he will become the greatest American funnyman since Charlie Chaplin. To watch him do bits of mime as in the jail-breaking scene and to hear him mutter to Irma as she attempts seduction, "You will be gentle, won't you?" is to watch a true artist at his craft. Miss MacLaine can put a tear in the heart of any audience with a tender bat of the eyelash, or she can create unbounded laughter in a simple wiggle of the hips. The trio of Wilder-Lem- mon-MacLaine are hard to top as was witnessed in the Apartment and is proven in Irma La Douce. Together they show the world that Hollywood can't be all bad. It's Wilder's picture all the way; he wrote, produced and directed it. It'll be difficult to get much wilder than Irma La Douce, and what a sweet Irma it is! THE WESTERN CAROLINIAN is published every week during the academic year with the exception of mid-term and final exam weeks by the students of Western Carolina College. Represented for National Advertising by National Advertising Service, Inc., 18 East 50th Street, New York 22, New York. Offices are located on the second floor of Joyner Building. A member of the Intercollegiate Press Association and the Carolina Press Association. SUBSCRIPTION RATE — $2.00 PER SCHOOL YEAR James D. Callahan _ Editor John B. Thomas Business Manager Pat Maddox News Editor Bill Shawn Smith Feature Editor Steve White _ Sports Editor Robbyn Morrow Layout Editor Jerry Chambers Copy Editor Gerald Holder, Bill Shawn Smith, Neal Evans, John Thomas, Robbyn Morrow, Don Yarbrough .... Columnists Jean Harlow, Randall Peters, Brenda Taylor, Betty Sprung News Reporters Charles Stephens, Nick Taylor, Leon Singleton, Linda Domin Feature Reporters Ernie Payne, Bob Land, Connie Hutchison Sports Writers Jack Stevenson Photographer Hines Hunt, Frederick Wright Circulation Managers Brenda King, Joan Waldrop, Daphne Hoffman Typists Henry G. Morgan Sponsor On Campus By ROBBYN MORROW We have almost achieved the ultimate . . . Fall Quarter is almost gone. Only three more days, and we've got it licked—for whatever that's worth. If you're passing everything, it's worth a lot. If you're not, the passing of a quarter doesn't make very much difference—just another three months shot. But before they're shot, we've got a crucial three days to go. During those three days the student intake of coffee will triple, faculty nerves will come near the breaking point, and everybody will be down to their last $2 which is reserved to pay for a ride home. This means that cigarette-bumming will be at an all-time high, and nobody will play the juke box. People who are normally nice, sane and pleasant to be a- round turn overnight into hollow - checked neurotics with black circles under their haunted eyes, ready to attack friends for the slightest offense. Normally compatible roommates suddenly hate each O'ther—and dirty laundry piles deeper and deeper in happy anticipation of the emminence of Mother's tender loving care. The electric bills for the dorms climb by leaps and bounds as their inmates indulge in that time-honored pasttime of all red-blooded American college students: no, not drinking—cramming. The strangest part of all this is that the Student Union does a booming business, the library has a vague resemblance to a Smoker, and ev- verybody is getting in one last date before they have to go home for Thanksgiving. No- Doz is at a premium, and there is more noise in the dorm than there has been since finals of last Spring Quarter. Mass hysteria sweeps the whole campus, and we emerge from the confusion, mental and physical wrecks, and when we get home our parents look at their fatigued and untidy children, sadly, saying, "For this we pay money ..." This sweating out finals is only half the fun, however. There is the Thanksgiving period—aptly named, we feel, because we can offer up sincere thanks that it's all over —during which you wonder, in between the joys which being home has to offer, whether or not you really did fail that last final. One reassures his parents, "I dont think I did anything great, you understand, but I did o. k. This is to prepare them for whatever happens, and in case you made Alpha, so much the better. They may admire your modesty enough to send you some extra money. The real fun comes when we return to campus, fresh money clutched in our hot little hands, with clean clothes, fresh from family love and Mothers cooking—and then we go to get our grades. Sometimes that's good—it's usually not, however, because grades have the funniest habit of changing every time you turn your back. Then there you are, your happy smile gone, your new confidence destroyed, generally unhappy. And all because of one small piece of paper which didn't read like you wanted it to. There are always the ones, of course, who made some kind of honor roll. You can spot this type, because they're the ones who offer to show you their grades. If anybody should do this, the best way to shut them up is to refuse to look, and immediately launch into a description of what you did while you were home, because they won't be able to match you there. Anybody who made an honor roll wasn't physically or mentally able to do anything but rest while at home. Though we do not relish this process of sweating out grades, we must still endure. Many of our number resort to alcohol to make the waiting bearable. As a matter of fact, they start trying to bear up as soon as they reach Waynesville. Well, it's bad for all of us—but, on the serious side, drunkenness isn t the answer—neither is suicide, and both are possible suits of the trip home. We lost five students last year in automobile accidents. Remember that you haven't had much sleep for the last few days, and DRIVE CAREFULLY- I Surely you want, If nothing else, to be able to come back and get your grades.

The Western Carolinian is Western Carolina University’s student-run newspaper. The paper was published as the Cullowhee Yodel from 1924 to 1931 before changing its name to The Western Carolinian in 1933.

• Creator
  • Western Carolina College
• Format
  • Publications (documents)
• Type
  • Text
• Date
  • Date original: 1963-11-22;
  • Date digitized: 2017-10-03
• Extent
  • Dimension: 21.5" x 16"
  • Pages: 4 pages
• Subject - Topic
  • College student newspapers and periodicals
  • Cullowhee (N.C.) -- Newspapers
  • Universities and colleges -- North Carolina -- Cullowhee -- Newspapers
• Location
  • Jackson County (N.C.)
  • Cullowhee (N.C.)
• Source institution
  • Western Carolina University
• Source Collection
  • WCU Students Newspapers Collection
• Identifier
  • HL_WesternCarolinian_1963-11-22_Vol29_No09
• Repository
  • Western Carolina University Hunter Library