University of Missouri at Kansas City - Kangaroo Yearbook (Kansas City, MO)

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FOREWORD WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY? HE QUESTION has been answered emotionally, humorously, nostalgically, bitterly, critically, by Abelard, Mencken, Charlemagne, Emerson, Jones, each in his own memorable way. lt has summoned up sweater-clad couples on a green quadrangle, cool corridors with lettered plaques, not so cool class rooms with chalk marks on the professoris bottomside, dances and hidden bottles, the Waving pennons of a crowd, libraries and whispered voices, these are im- ages evoked by balding alumni as beacons of lost youth. But they are sensuous impressionsg a human congress is more than stone. It seems, in a day when each man must take upon himself the salvation of the race fperhaps it has always been this wayj, that a more weighty question must precede the title: what is education? If we accept the Greek ideal, it is a unity of intellectual and physical growth, in which man's being is no longer dichotomized. It follows that education is the process by which man is stimulated to investigate his pow- ers and by doing so, to increase them. The university, a miniature community contain- ing its own conflicts, the challenge of other intellects, the grateful eagerness of studies, the discipline of a life at once physically confined and spiritually in- finite, is an institution with potential for the task of reconciling the human spirit with natural forces. Few of us have the mental discipline to absorb and use the bodies of knowledge we encounter, but within the structure of a university we are given the oppor- tunity to try to do so. Within a university, bibliphiles, artists, logicians gather to create an intellectual cli- mate in which we encounter forces that produce the lille Athletics are important. The community participates in university functions.

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5. Q- . administration-student coffees had as their purpose the resolving of those problems which tended to check the growth and progress of the University. So it is then that the events' of this year have in every sense anticipated those of coming years, prov- ing that the University does not exist today in the twilight of a futile twenty-seven year struggle, but is herself looking ahead into an increasingly satis- factory future. Our speculations concerning the future of the University are not all mere fanciful flights of the imagination. Plans are now underway and funds are being solicited for the construction of a replace- ment for the out-moded Fine Arts Building, for an up-to-date Pharmacy Building to replace the tempo- rary structureg and for the construction of a mod- ernized Dental Building to be located on the Volker Campus. In the more distant future, we foresee: -the inclusion of the Kansas City Art Institute as an integral part of the University -The establishment of a more thorough inter- collegiate sports program -the institution of a local chapter of Phi Beta Kappa and Mortar Board -a University School of Medicine, to be estab- lished in cooperation with Menorah Hospital -local branches of ROTC and NROTC -an increase in the number of national fra- ternities and sororities on campus -a closer liason between the University and the Midwest Research Institute -a more comprehensive graduate program, with advanced degrees and substantial fel- lowships offered in all departments -more complete and modernized laboratory and library facilities -an increase in the amount of dormitory space. thereby providing an attraction for more out- of-town students -provisions made for noted speakers, techni- cians, authors. and actors to visit the campus -an expansion of the highly-qualified faculty and administration -local philanthropists giving as freely to this University as to neighboring institutions and perhaps most of all, we anticipate the day when -the University will receive as high regard in her own community as that she has already gained in regional and national scholastic circles. These pages, while recording the events of the l959-60 year, also look ahead at the potential achievement and development of the University of Kansas City. Witli the sturdy and unfailing support of her community and her former students, the future of this institution is unlimited. This book is dedicated to that future. U W' 1' I I! . -y !!!!!!!!!!!! ! S 5 n w.-1 win-we ' , -'Qs i T,.-.n.,. .,., calc Q - -x iq . 2 2 ' ' M ' 6 I 'll 1 , .llseuaiamuaa C --f 5 5 .A-. 2 I IQ 1 ' ' 'miami' , f ' - A x pw L. , ! EY ' f r E ! E! I i - PH!! assassin a W ' V , , ' ' I ' --. '. , ,V .. ,,,, . -I- ' i ldilhwl -- .,., ., ... n'i ' ,WM A - mmm.-..-.v..,..,,. .

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Dances, parties and coffees integrate students. 'XII if not wlcmnily in the claw rmun. highest experiences possible, in at once a selective and comprehensive sense. It is ll0l until the university is left behind that we realize what intellectual bonds we with our colleagues: that atmosphere can be recaptured in the variegated world we of., in the iuterinl. as the 'touts-ide. The ories we carry into another world are 1101 lousg they are the catalyst which will share never think mem- frivo- shape the universe into which we reach. The univer- sity is the realm of vision. but meant to be transmuted, through the training of capabili- ties, to a reality extending to infinity. W'l1at we discover here, the truth of man's relation- ship to man, becomes the tangible force of mankind in a Promethean challenge to destiny. We can only surmise the weight to be placed upon us because of our university experiences. but we grow, exchanging strength for strength. in preparation. Since the conception of the l,yt't llltL students have been the agitators, the progressive element: under oppression they have ilttllgltl lar freedonl: with the trials of the enlightened mind they hare resisted tyratnties of every sort and in every age. Ont' great- est danger lies in emntnnnality. Like the orient pearl of the poets. the value ol' a llltiYt'l'hllt' is partly its rarity. ll is sustain:-ml lay the quality ol' the ltnmtletlge which can he attained in no other way lay so many seekers. A center of broad awareness as of letters, no longer an ivory lower uncmntccted with contetnporary problems, the ttnirersity has lnecomc almost a solitary Venture for llllIlt'l'wlLllItllllg in the tnidst of a chaotic civilization. It is the extension of the venture which we undertake.