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The Red and Black. Friday. September 23. 1977
BOB McKELLAR
Editorials
Is football educational?
The Red and Black
A challenging job
This time of year there are
always a lot of confused people
wandering around the campus
and town The University is a
pretty big place and the first few
days a person spends here can
be an awesome experience.
The almost 5000 students who
are new to the University this
year can take comfort in the tact
that they are probably not alone
in their confusions about who is
who and what is what on
campus But the new students
may be surprised to learn that
one of their companions in
confusion is the person who is
second in command of the entire
University.
Dr. Virginia Trotter, newly
appointed vice president for
academic affairs, has officially
been in the position of second in
command for four days now.
Better make that first in
command University President
Fred C Davison's unexpected
hospitalization has left Trotter in
charge of the University before
she's had time to learn Aderhold
from LeConte.
Trotter has come to the
University at what would be a
difficult time even if Davison
were not in the hospital.
She has come to a university
where there is a distinct lack of
communication between the ad
ministration and faculty and
students, and open hostility
between the president and the
faculty of the College of Arts and
Sciences, the University’s largest
college.
She comes to a university with
a library administration that is
being investigated by both the
Department of Health, Education
and Welfare (HEW) and the
University administration be
cause of charges of sex
discrimination, poor manage
ment and questionable treatment
of employes.
She comes to a university with
a veterinary school which is the
subject of an HEW investigation
because of alleged discrimina
tion in its admission practices
and a journalism school which is
engrossed in a lawsuit between
one of its senior faculty
members and its dean.
Certainly her job will be a
challenge.
And to make the job even more
challenging, Trotter knows she
did not have the unanimous
support from the committee
which spent a considerable
amount of time searching for
someone to fill the position she
has assumed.
The dissenters, according to
one committee members, were
concerned about articles Trotter
wrote in her academic speciality,
home economics.
However, most committee
members have said they were
favorably impressed by Trotter’s
credentials as an administrator.
Trotter served as assistant
secretary of education for HEW
in the Ford administration. That
is certainly an attractive qualifi
cation for an administrator at
this University, where it is
rumored that HEW wants to
establish a branch office to save
travel time between here and
Atlanta.
And Trotter’s degree in home
economics may also prove to be
an asset in her new position.
Certainly a degree in home
economics offers as much
preparation for a college admin
istrator as a degree in veterinary
medicine or geography. And with
a degree in home economics she
has probably spent a lot of time
in the kitchen which means she
should be able to handle the heat
which will surely come with the
job.
The Internal Revenue Service has
recently served notice that it plans to
make the millions of dollars earned by
college football teams from television
taxable In attempting to justify this
perfidious attack on
the very fabric of
American society,
the IRS makes the
ridiculous assertion
that big
time college football
is more like a
business than an
educational activity.
I feel it my duty to leap to the defense of
the dedicated and kind hearted men who
have made football into the intensely
educational institution that it is today.
Football is a superbly designed
program aimed at a group of high school
graduates and dropouts from deprived
backgrounds, who have developed severe
social inadequacies manifested through
overt aggressive tendencies. The goal of
football is to mold these outcasts and
misfits into useful members of society or.
in particularly severe cases, to settle for
making them law students
Boh McKellar is a graduate student in
the College of Business Administration
To show the educational intensity of
these efforts, we need only note that the
football piogram starts many weeks
before the less important classes in the
University.
The football team is in the midst of
indoctrination when registration for the
fall term is a month away, and last year
they worked all through the Christmas
recess. This is obviously due to a
dedicated desire for educational excel
lence rather than a base profit motive.
With respect to scholarly ideals, the
football program far outstrips the rest of
the campus Following the “ivory tower”
philosophy, the activities of the team are
secluded from public view except during
games. The budget and expense figures
of the team are kept secret, unlike the
reports for the University which are in
•he public domain The dollar signs in the
games of football are suitably protected
from the eyes of faculty, students or
inquiring pinko reporters
The players are also secluded in the
monastic tradition. They are kept in a
separate dorm, similar to the others but
with all decoration and nonessential frills
removed. Although some cynics will say
that this is due to the players’ tendencies
to throw chairs out windows, set fires and
rip things off the walls, the true aim is to
enhance meditation.
Every opportunity is taken to enhance
the education of the players. To help
develop mathematical skills, very long
counts are used before setting the ball in
play Admittedly this may cause
penalties for delay in rare instances, but
these are not serious enough to worry
about.
Cultural enrichment is also a prime
goal of the program, since the
participants must be prepared to function
in a world of successful people. Since rich
and famous people travel by private jet
airplane, it is important to know how to
behave on one. The team accordingly
charters airliners for its trips, adding
immeasurably to the experience base of
the players.
It is also imperative that successful
people be at ease in fancy restaurants,
hotels and bars. As a necessary first step
toward developing a program in this
area, the team invested large sums last
season in training a cadre of coaches and
alumni as instructors.
This grueling training took place in
New Orleans and was very intensive
However, it is a measure of the
dedication of these educators that not one
complained of the rigors demanded of
them. I ask the IRS: would mere
businessmen act in such an unselfish
manner?
We must also not ignore the valuable
lessons taught the student body through
the effort of the football program. It is a
tribute to the educational system that
thousands of Georgia voices can rise as
one to say "How ’bout them dawgs!”
This poetic phrase announces to the
world how high the level of education and
mastery of the English language has
risen in these parts. And who cannot be
thrilled as the Georgia Redneck Band
gives its stirring rendition of the
Normandy Invasion demonstrating the
South's musical heritage?
I implore the IRS to consider the
consequences if college football is
required to pay taxes on its million
Player and coaches salaries might be
cut. the team might have to ride buses,
and the color TV and red carpet in the
exercise room might grow shabby from
!ack of maintenance
Surely the undeniable educational
results produced by football far offset
any slight resemblance to a business
activity. Let not the lamp of learning and
scholarly attainment be snuffed out in a
maw of greedy government.
letieist^lelleis
BUDDY WALLER
"Come to rally
at Kent State’
TO THE EDITOR:
In May of 1970 thousands of students
across this country rose up and shut
down hundreds of colleges across the
U S. to protest Richard Nixon’s invasion
of Cambodia. In response to this outrage
students were gunned down by police at
Kent State, Jackson State. Orangeburg
and Southern University The war had
come home.
Since May 4, 1970. people have been
trying to obtain justice through the courts
for the murders of four people and the
wounding of nine by the National Guard
on the Kent State campus.
This struggle to bring about the truth
about the murders took on a new twist in
November of 1976 when the Board of
Trustees announced their plans to erect a
new gym on the site of the 1970 protest
and murders The trustees perceived that
after seven years the students on our
campus would have forgotten the
Vietnam War. would have been too young
to remember or care about Kent State,
and more generally would be too
concerned with “making it" than getting
involved in protesting something they
knew was morally wrong
However, the trustees received a rude
awakening Three hundred students,
outraged at the actions of the trustees,
took over Rockwell Hall on May 4 of this
year to show their opposition to the
callous treatment the trustees have
shown the people's concern about May 4.
Since then, throughout the summer,
through hundreds of arrests, through
hours of police harassment, in spite of
outrageous jail sentences and lost jobs,
thousands of people have supported,
sustained and moved forward the
struggle to move the gym
Our strength in blocking construction
until now has been in the fact that large
numbers of people have participated with
us and our strength in the future will lie
in the mass actions of our supporters
We are not at a crucial point in our
struggle We have run out of courts and
restraining orders Construction looms
immenent This is the reason we are
making a major call for all people of
conscience who are concerned with the
coverup of history at Kent State to come
to »he rally «• Kent State Commons
on Sept 24. noon.
At Columbia University, students.
halted the construction of a gymnasium
by seizing the site and occupying it until
their demands were met. There is now a
park where a gym foundation once was
begun at Columbia Ther coalition firmly
believes that the mass actions of people
can stop the construction of this gym
before the foundation is even begun. We'
feel it is crucial that people show the
trustees at Kent how they feel about the
desecration of the Kent State shooting
site We believe that a large number of
supporters can back the trustees into
moving the gym IT CAN BE MOVED.
We can learn from the lessons of the
sixties the people united will never be
defeated!
THE MAY FOURTH COALITION
KENT STATE
"Free tuition
practical plan’
TO THE KDITOR:
I wonder if anyone beside me is
interested in tuition free education
through the college level? If I could get
enough people interested in the subject. I
would be willing to defend the position
that such a plan is not only practical, but
in the best interest of all concerned
If. and this is the big if. I could get this
idea in circulation. I would be willing to
show the following:
(1) Thai tuition free education was one
of the major causes that enabled the
United States to become the richest and
most powerful nation in human history.
(2i That tuition free education through
the college level is not only desirable but
that it would be self-supporting and the
most profitable business that the United
States could involve itself in.
(3) That tuition free education through
the college level is a reasonable and
natural extension of the democratic,
process under the equality of opportunity
clause.
JOSEPH PA8INOSKY
Special student
West Virginia t'niversiiv
Time for the president to leave ■
This time, Fred C. Davison has truly
outdone himself. Oh, he has committed
some utterly stupefying outrages in the
past, to be sure. Now, however, there can
be no question that, by one means or
another, he must be ejected from his Dost
as University presi
dent with the grea
test possible speed
The Aug. 4 resig
nation of College of
Arts and Sciences
Dean John Slephens
was but the latest
development in a
sickening drama
that has been unfolding since the end of
May The loss to the University of the
services of Dean Stephens, a man of
character, integrity, wisdom and fore
sight who has won virtually universal
admiration from this academic commu
nity, is incalculable.
True, he will remain as a professor in
the English department, and for that, the
University can be grateful Still, if ever
there were a time when this institution
needed a man of his credentials, it is
now.
Blame for Dean Stephens' resignation
rests squarely on the shoulders of
President Davison
Buddy Waller is a University alumnus,
class of 1976. He is now the editorial page
editor of the Lenoir (N.C.) News-Topic
Almost from the very day he was
appointed to succeed Dr O.C Aderhold
as chief executive of the University,
Davison has brought a virtually
unceasing stream of bad publicity upon
the University. Some observers were
rather shocked that Davison, whose
academic speciality was heartworms in
dogs, would have been appointed
president at all.
Upon closer examination, though, the
reason for this promotion became plain:
Davison was a chum of University
System Chancellor George Simpson's and
was willing to do the chancellor's
bidding
That bit of history aside, it is really
terrible that as fine an institution as the
University would have to be embroiled in
the innumerable controversies and
subjected to the unfavorable news
coverage tnat have been the legacies of
Davison’s 10 year presidency
The policies and many of the
personalities of his administration have
so angered such a large number of
students, faculty members and alumni
that it has not been possible to focus as
much attention as is necesserv on wavs
of improving the University as a center
of higher education.
Anyway, the immediate cause of the
most recent (and continuing) campus
uproar, which led to Dean Stephens’
resignation, was the issuance of a poll of
the faculty members of the College of
Arts and Sciences in late May.
The survey, similar to one taken a year
earlier, gave Davison abysmally low
ratings as to his performance as head of
the University. In fact, he was held in
even lower esteem this year than the
humiliating level of last year by an
overwhelmingly majority of the Arts and
Sciences instructors
Characteristically (for this is the
manner in which he behaves toward all
his critics), Davison reacted with blind
rage. He promptly issued a 176-page
memorandum full of pious self-justifica
tion and glorifications to the entire
University faculty.
Accusing the Arts and Sciences faculty
and administration of not paying
attention to his wondrous works, Davisor.
said he had the ideal solution to the lack
of communication he perceived: he would
reorganize the college into smaller units
with which he could more effectively
deal.
The transparency of this “divide and
conquer" scheme was nothing less than
flabbergasting Apparently, what Davi
son lacks in guile, he makes up for in
vindictiveness
Nowhere in his call for vivisecting the
college (which is, of course, the very
heart of the University) did Davison even
pretend that such action would in any
way improve the quality of instruction
offered to students currently (or in the
future) enrolled in liberal arts courses
As a matter of fact, his proposal flies in
the face of the clearly-expressed wishes
of the majority of the Arts and Sciences
faculty members that their college not be
subdivided.
In suggesting that the college be
“reorganized,'' Davison also flies in the
face that the committee established in
August 1976 to study the governance of
Arts and Sciences
As Committee Chairman C. Henry
Edwards stated in a letter dated May 30,
1977, to Davison. "The Committee's
deliberations were dominated by a single
question—what must The Frankhn
College of Arts and Sciences do in order
to provide the best possible education for
its students’’”
This panel decided (and the poll of the
college's faculty validated this judgment I
that the best interests of quality
educalion would be served by keeping the
cnlleee in'*<t
All indications are. however, that
Davison cares not a fig for academic
excellence; he is concerned only with
egotistical excellence.
Dean Stephens, during his brief tenure
as head of the University’s biggest
academic division, served as an eloquent
spokesman on the need for expanding
and improving the quality of education
offered to undergraduates
This emphasis conflicts with Davison's
pursuit of the will-o-the-wisp of a national
reputation (or the University as a center
for graduate studies and scholarly
research. For that reason, and because
he served as a convenient scapegoat on
whom Davison could vent his spleen over
the Arts, and Sciences poll, Dean
Stephens was made to pay a terrible
price Again, his presence in a leadership
role will be sorely missed.
The only hope that those who hold a 1
genuine affection for the University have *
that Davison will be thwarted n his
attempts to wreak vengeance on the
Franklin College rests with the Board of j
Regents. It is inconceivable that the ‘
regents, who, if nothing else, cherish the
University for what it is and for its
potential for greatness, will allow ,
Davison to put his plots into effect •
Actually, there may be a silver lining
tn this whole sorry episode. It may be
that Davison's conduct in this matter will
prove to be the “straw that broke the
camel s back," and he, like his erstwhile
provost, S W Pelletier, will be tossed
out on his backside. If he is, in fact,
relieved of his present responsibilities,
then the truth of the adage “It's an ill
wind that blows no good" will have again
proved itself.
fit THE RED AND BLACK
Patricia Templeton, Editor
Steve Bills, Ed Stamper,
Executive editor Business manager
Jerry Mason and Matt Prichard, copy editors; Bryant Steele, campus editor;
Tom Barton, city editor; Gregg Steinle, state editor; William Haines,
entertainment editor, Swann Seiler, feature editor, Pete Foley, sports editor.
George Sicay, photo editor. Hope Dlugozima. assistant campus editor; Yvonne
Williams, assistant state editor; Ed Grisamore, assistant city editor; D.J.
Pascale. assistant feature editor; Larry Locke, assistant sports editor; Janet
Bolt, wire editor
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