Kansas State University - Royal Purple Yearbook (Manhattan, KS)

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18 k-slale union

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There is one problem educators can ' t explain away personality and charisma don ' t always pay the bills. Besides, it ' s hard to be dignified and have self-respect when you ' re flat on your face after graduation. Businesses are yelling, though. They charge col- leges and universities with graduating ill-prepared stu- dents. ACT scores are telling the real story, while rising grades are giving the educators fallacious arguments for their case. Grades are skyrocketing with little or no concurrent increase in student ability as gauged by standardized tests. Standardized test scores are reaching all-time lows around the country. The indictment is true of at least a handful of educa- tors in virtually every U.S. college. Where did the classes go? Relaxed grading policies keep students from competing. It works, all right stu- dents couldn ' t give a damn about schoolwork. But students aren ' t stupid. If the teachers don ' t give them enough to do, they ' ll find something. Usually, that something begins with Aggie and ends with bars . More brains are lost in urinals than in any other place. I used to think the forces for traditional education had been pushed all the way back to high school. But the seeping education made fun syndrome is biting heavily there, and casualties are becoming numerous. First it was history and English courses in high school. Next thing you know, it ' ll be science. Turn up the beat, an uncomfortable student says. Yes, sir, answers the instructor, whose salary is dipped from a federal grant for experimental high schooT education. But we really must get to the busi- ness of teaching you all how to run a projector that ' s important in the real world, you know. How I long for that junior high school science teacher we thought was a sadist. He would open all the windows in the classroom for a test. As the teen-degree air briskly filled the room he would remark, with a smile, You perform better when the room ' s cooler. It was funny, though it always worked. But you didn ' t waste time on questions you couldn ' t answer. Nevertheless, we learned something from that teacher. He expected, and got, attention from his sev- enth grade classes. We didn ' t dare turn away or close our eyes for fear a piece of white chalk might come zip- ping by our ears. No monkey business in that class. But perhaps the great educational joke goes back even further than junior high. Grade schools are afraid to teach the basics, or rather too timid to make the stu- dent learn what he or she must know. As more than one high school and college teacher has remarked, These kids can ' t even read. If they can ' t read, what can they get out of college classrooms where a premium is put on communication of ideas and thinking? Not very much. And that ' s what has been the catalyst of alternative learning and the mindless class. A graduate without stretch marks isn ' t going to be questioning much of anything particularly the edu- cation that bores him. I want to be able to ask those questions. education 1 7

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K-State ' s Union celebrated its twenti- eth birthday on March 6 and it ' s come a long way from the barracks which housed a makeshift coffee shop of the 40s. Students began paying into the building fund in 1 941 . Five dollars were extracted from their student fees each semester a sum comparable to $22 each semester according to 1 976 val- ues. World War II and the Korean War interrupted the fund raising, however, and it was not until 1 954 that construc- tion began. Two years later K-Staters replaced the stand-by coffee shop with a building that offered a small recrea- tion area, food service operations, an activities center, and an information desk. Two additional periods of construc- tion in 1961 and 1968 provided the Union with a recreation area that dou- bled the size of the original area, expanded the activities center, added the K, S, and U ballrooms, and made the Union the facility it is to K-Staters today. Union lab draws rush crowd by Jerri Phillips It was 8:45 am. I was late and I knew it. So did the rest of my lab table. Nobody comes late for Union labs, and now I ' d have to pay the consequences. In three years I had never spent more than a few minutes in the Union between classes. But this semester, I was stuck j with a half hour here, two hours there, and time off on Fridays to show my good behavior off elsewhere. But now I was late, and facing the group was going to : be ugly. Maybe they ' ll be easy on me, I told myself as I ran across campus. First offenders get off easy. Maybe Mr. Monitor won ' t be there today, I tried to convince myself as I opened the front door of the Union. But all my hopes melted to the floor as I walked through the cafeteria doors and saw his beady eyes looking just at me underneath the bill of a Chester White 1 hog hat. I squared my shoulders, swal- lowed hard, and began my death march i to the table. You ' re late, Phillips! came the booming voice of Mr. Monitor. Nobody ' s late at this table! Nobody! he shouted, slamming a rolled-up 1974 Collegian on the edge of the table. I closed my eyes and shuttered inside. In the few weeks I had been to Union lab, I had learned to hate that Collegian. Whenever one of us forgot why or how he had become table monitor, he would unroll that paper and show the finished crossword puzzle completed in record time of 16.5 minutes. What ' s your excuse? he yelled, slamming the paper down on the table top again. I knew I had to play it cool so I sat down and decided to try my luck. Sorry, I said, rubbing my sweaty palms together. I was signing up for credit-no credit. That ended last week! he screamed, this time drawing noticeable stares from the other lab tables. Not for Union labs, I said. My fellow lab partners, who had been trying to fin- ish today ' s crossword puzzle within Mr. Monitor ' s 20-minute time limit, stopped writing and looked up at me. What a per- son wouldn ' t do for an audience, I thought. Please Mr. Monitor, don ' t kick me out of the Union! I pleaded. Where will I go? What will I do between classes? If you throw me out, I ' ll lose the 10 hours of credit I just signed up for my Union labs. Please, Mr. Monitor! I was on my knees . by now and Mr. Monitor was looking at me with a confused stare. I decided to push my luck a little further. The ladies at the Office of Continuing Education were really nice to me, I said. After I found out I met the four-hour-a- week minimum requirement for Union lab credit, they issued me a discount card for food and drinks bought during labs, assigned me a tutor for crossword puzzle help, and even fixed my transcript. Mr. Monitor pushed his Chester White hog hat back on his head with the news- paper and listened for more. I was ready to deliver the final blow. Besides, Mr. Monitor, now I ' ll be able to graduate a semester early. And they ' re even making it retroactive. For every hour of Union lab spent since 1974, you get one half of a credit. One lady said I could ' ve graduated a semester ago if I would have come in earlier. I ' d just begun another sentence when the table emptied in seconds and a mad dash through the cafeteria doors toward the continuing education office was in progress. In his haste to collect what was rightfully his, Mr. Monitor had left his sacred Chester White crown and vintage Collegian. I picked up the hat and placed it on my head. Slamming the rolled-up newspaper on the table, I could feel the power. It felt good. I then picked up a cur- rent Collegian and spied an unfinished crossword puzzle. By the wall clock it was 9:05. Leaving lab early, without my permis- sion, and not finishing the puzzle, I said to myself. That ' s inexcusable! I slammed the Collegian down hard on the table and smiled. And they thought they had it rough before. k-state union 1 9