h a Four SCARLET AND BLACK Fr s onuary , 96!
doings: Motivation or Punishment

} sr. Stole

(Continued from Page 1)

we expect and identity at Gnnnell as
typical. San Francisco State is a com-
muter college, and the average age of
its students is 25 years. Many are marr
ried and have been working and going
to school for over the normal ioiirryear
period. Unlike must of us, they control
and define their daily lives While not Ill
class, biit are as yet unable to determine
in any way the education they know they
need.

San Francisco State differs from where
student unrest has occurred. it is not re-
oognized as a “prestige school” (like
Berkeley or Columbia), and as acting
president Hayakawa admits, “it should-
n't be.” In a speech before the allrwhite
Commonwealth Club in San Francisco
last Friday, Hayakawa stated that, “San
Francisco State was closer to the people
and is the thing that makes possible the
social mobility that makes the American
dream possible.”

It is the dichotomy in understanding
between minority group students and
Hayakawa about what it means to “be
close to the people" that is an issue,
with minority group students asking
tor the responsibility of educating their
own.

While the strike has not yet shut down
classes completely, class attendance
ranges irom 20% to 45% depending upon
the day. For instance, January 14 sta.
tistics from the Campus Communications
Center show that of a total of 115 classes
scheduled, 43 were held — 37% — and
all those were below 50% in attendance.
Career—oriented business students Show
highest attendance rates, while lifeor-
iented drama, art and philosophy Stu-
dents show the lowest according to the
San Francisco Chronicle.

Support from community leaders is
also given to the strike and pictures of
picketers in the San Francisco papers
oiten reveal placards identitying such
groups, but they’re rarely mentioned in
news articles or analysis by reporters.
Support is especially high in minority
group communities such as the Mission
District, a primarily Spanish-speaking
and Black district. Members of these
communities, pirs some parents or stu-
dents and many white students were a~
mong those arrested at State on the 23rd,

The arrest came when students held
an un~campus rally to protest Hayaka—
wa‘s ban forbidding assemblies on the
campus grounds. As Hayakawa stated.
“Speciﬁcally, rallies, parades, be-ins,
hootenaunies, hoedowus, shivarees and
all other public events likely to disturb
the studious in their reading and reflec-
tion are hereby forbidden on the central
campus.” Unauthorized persons are also
forbidden on the Campus and person with
legitimate business (defined by Kaye-
kawa and the police) are “expected to
mnve directly to their appointed places."

Plcketing is limited to the outskirts of
the campus, and as nayakawa puts it,
"we’ve moved them from inside the
classrooms, air the campus, and out to
the streets.” That's where the Strikers,
student and faculty, stand as of now.
and as final exams and a new semester
begins, the future of San anoisco State
and the kind of education it provides will
be determined.

By ROGER KOENKER

Senior comprehensives make good
business sense; the Longhorn ran dry
lthe day Grinnell seniors finished the
Graduate Record Exams. The thirst for
knowledge and oblivion are only a iew
blocks apart here. But the college does
more than fill the pockets of local busi-
ness, and comprehensives are more than
an excuse to drink. What they do ac—
complish anti what they are designed to
accomplish are more problematic. Are
comprehensives a vestigial institution
that will follow the Junior Libeial Arts
Exam to pasture? Do compreliellsives do
more than place another caliper on the
already cluttered skulls oi Grinneli stu-
dents? The answer “no” to these ques-
tions requires a good deal more thought
than our “community" seems willing
to devote to the subject.

There are at least five aims of the
test in the eyes of faculty. They may
be divided into two groups as suggested
by the Haveman Committee reportt

1. Evaluation

(A) The test serves as a minimum
standard of competence in the ma-
jor field.

(B) The test serves as a summary In-
dicator of the level of accomplish
ment of all students within a dis-
cipllne.

(C) The test serves as an index of
departmental effectiveness and
curricular success.

Il. Motivation

(D) The test compels students to re
View and synthesize basic theory
and methodology In each discl-
pllne.

(E) The test coerce: students to do
independent work In their major

ﬁeld and demonstrate the ability
to work with the theory and meth-
ods of the discipline.

By college regulation, senior compre—
hensives must be divided into three
parts, two of which must be written tests.
This tri-partite scheme allows some flex-
ibility 0i aim between sections of the
test. The content, standards and admin-
istration of the test is the closely
guarded domain of the separate depart-
ments. So for example, part I of the
history comprehensives, a written exam-
ination designed to test students' abili-
ly to Work with selected historical docu-
ments, seems to be primarily an attempt
to evaluate methodological expertise
(aim B). The first written exams in
economics, math, psychology, physics,
biology. and others, are designed to in-
sure minimum student competence in the
discipline. These are departments where
the tests are a recognized obstacle to
graduation and poor performance is
punished by retesting. While there are
other elements in the tests, they are
constructed to be most effective at the
margin of failure and may tell little or
nothing about student ability above that
margin.

The May portion of the comprehensive
is the most variable portion of the exami-
nation. History comprehensivcs will re
quire answers to two takeehome ques-
lbions over independent reading and re-
search, placing primary emphasis on
study and learning outside the course
structure. in biology, an oral test will
be administered in the spring on indepen-
dent research conduoted by majors (lure
ing the second semester. The direction of
the spring test seems to be toward an

oral examination encouraging lndepem
dent work in the field.

The ambivalance of purpose inherent
in die tests is the primary iactor respon‘s
Sible for their failure to achieve an,
stated objective. The resolution or those
sometimes conflicting objectives is a
necessary prerequisite for making corn.
prehensives a more vital and useful
part of education.

As a possible solution, may 1 suggest
the following general revisions: the rhy’.
[hm of Grinnell education could be Shiit-
ed from two years of general requires
ments followed by two years or disciplit
nary specialization (the present situaA
tion) to one year ol general require)
ments, two years of specialization an
a final year of seminar and independent
work in interdisciplinary areas. Seniov
comprohensrves would be taken at th
end of the junior year or the beginning
of the senior year. For student ovaluao
tinn, this timing would have two advann
tages. Every student would have a bets
ter opportunity to work intensively dur-
ing the senior year in areas that a
peared weak in the examination T;
comprehensives were given before ret'
Commendations were written by faculty
members, presumably better, more im
for-med letter could be written.

Both advantages have certain obvionl
motivational analogues that would makd
the test more eiieotive in the sense thag
it would demand more strongly soii
review and synthetic understandind
of the major field. Rather than trying: .
to use comprehensives as a lever to: .
academic change by encouraging o
requiring independent study, the 172.1
scheme would place the natural emphap
sis on broad-scaled independent worl
during the senior year.

As our exams collect dust and tho
routine of the semester wears on, one
might hope that next year's exams are
more than one night’s good business for

the Longhorn.
__—.—ﬁ

THE SENATE AS SEEN BY . . .

THE ADMINISTRATION

} Senate
(Conllnued from Page 1)

represent. The result of these discussion:
was that: the Senate decided that the va-
cant seats should be filled by a general
election or the student body.

0n the surface it might appear that
the senators suddenly felt an obligation
to the students they represent and thus
decided that the student Indy should vote

 

Yes! ""5 True!

Wu Do have Service on I’ll promixu. To Allow you w. nnjoy

your pretenco we ottm

SPAGHETI’I DINNER

with Salad. Garlic lucid
And Coffee ..

Jun ‘1035

WEDNESDAY NITE FROM I 'TIL 9

PAGLIAI'S f The Pizza People

SENKI' E MmUTES

THE STUDENTS

to elect their own senators. In reality,
this is a fallacy. The senators motives
are far from noble. They have an elitist
theory of government that certainly has
not changed, but only has been over-
ridden by their teeiings of alienation
hum the student body. The elitist sona-
tors still believe that they can and should
elect a senator, one who they feel would
be more responsible and representative
to the student body. They have a strong
fear of who the students might eleot.
Although it may be partially "the prin-
ciple of the thing," the far greater rea-
son for the general election is to generate
student interest. The Senate believes that
the Interest created by an election is
more important than who is actually
eleaed. This is especially reinforced by
(the fact aha/t the two newly elected sena-
bors will only serve until spring vaca-
tion. The rest of the senators believe that
who new members can do little harm in
only a month's time.

The style of the Senate meeting seems
representative of the senators‘ general
beiieis about student government. The
meeting makes an obvious farce of par-
liamentary- procedum. The senators do

THEMSELVES

what they want, when they want to, and
they don't want to have to answer to any-
one about the methods they utilize. They
cleverly work within the rules oi par-
llamentary procedure no give an appear-
ance in the minutes of representative
decisions.

This is not [0 say that the Grinnell
Senate is made up of anarchiss and peo<
p12 who just don't care about the stu<
dent body. it is rather to say, that hero
is a group of students, titled the Senate.
who run Grimell’s student govemment
and who are having somewhat of an
identity crisis as an organization. Tho
senators are placed in the confusing po-
sitinn of representing students who are
obviously apathetic. They are coming to
the conclusion that the responsi i nice,
purposes, and goals of student govern-
ment must be their own personal ones.
And thus student government is being
run by a very small and special segment
of the student body. Unless there is 50m.
type of meaningiul change in the rela-
tionship between the Senate and the stu-
dent, Student government at Grinnell will
continue to be an elitist government un-
der the false guise of representation.

 

