Seventy-Fifth Yeor EDn'ED AND MANAGED BY STUDFNTS OF THE UNivERsITY OF MICHIGAN UNDER AUTHOrITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS TO THE EDITOR: Advantages o Plusses and Minuses Where Opinions Are Free, 420 MAYNARD ST., ANN ARBOR, MICH. Truth Will Prevail Nrws Pi-ONE: 764-0552 Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staf writers or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints. FRIDAY, 29 JANUARY 1965 NIGHT EDITOR: DAVID BLOCK Replacing the Grading System: A Study Group Is Needed... EVERYONE CONCERNED with educa- tion here is more or less disgusted with the grading system, and it is a rare educator who hasn't occasionally nurtured dreams of abolishing it. Yet the system grows stronger every year. It rolls on largely because "abolition- ists" seldom go beyond abolition-they want to do away with this tired old sys- tem for evaluating a student's education- al progress, but they suggest nothing to replace it. And for at least two reasons, it seems clear that some sort of evalua- tive device is needed: -The world demands it. The people who will be deciding a student's post- graduation fate insist on a tangible index, and most students, unfortunately, come to college largely for the purpose of acquir- ing such credentials. Educationally irrele- vant and even detrimental as such de- mands may be, they're facts of life. -The student needs it. Misleading as the present criteria are, going through an educational process with no feedback whatever would be hellish and perhaps futile. Most students, most of the time, need to'know what they are supposed to be achieving and how well they are achieving it. -0 RATHER than dream of green pas- tures, the "abolitionists" should set to devising a better system. First, the University must determine just what changes should occur in a stu- dent as he passes through his college years. Is it trying to instill ideals? Teach facts? Methods? Clear thinking? Spark creativity? Turn students into humani- tarians? This step requires a value judg- ment and. a policy decision based on it. Second, with this decision made, there remains an empirical problem: how can the University test for this quality and turn the results into a form which indus- try and graduate schools will find di- gestible? The answer to this question is equally crucial-since one's ideals tend to be shaped by the tests one adminis- ters (a point overlooked in the present grading system). Then, having to decide how it wants to change its students and having found a way to test for it, the University's task would become relatively simple: admit students with the greatest potential for this sort of change, and rate graduates by how much they have changed. NOW, WHILE the University seems to be entering a period of academic intro- spection, is a good occasion to launch a wide-ranging, officially approved, high- level inquiry into these questions. How about a "blue ribbon" committee on the evaluation of students? -KENNETH WINTER Managing Editor To the Editor: I want to write you to endorse most enthusiastically the pro- posal to use plusses and minuses in grading undergraduates. It seems to me that the proposal has several significantkadvant- ages, and no drawbacks except those deriving from inertial re- sistance to any change. Since not all the advantages may be im- mediately apparent to those who have not thought about the problem, let me enumerate them: 1) The grade would m or e faithfully reflect the student's performance in a course. This can be of especial value when one wants to compare the grades of several closely grouped stu- dents in a limited range of courses, e.g. in determining ad- mission to honors standing of borderline cases, where the num- ber of those admitted must be restricted or in making recom- mendations of recipients f o r awards, etc. As one who has oc- casionally been involved in mak- ing decisions of this type, I can testify that the modification of grades by the addition of plusses and minuses would be very help- ful indeed. 2) By making "in-between" grades possible, it would serve to reduce the tension and anxiety which have increasingly afflicted students prior to exams, when the difference of one or two per- centage points in an exam result may mean the difference between one letter grade for the course and another. Less would ride on each exam result. 3) For the same reason, it would make the professor's job easier by reducing the import- ance of the choice between al- ternatives he makes as the gap between those alternatives is it- self reduced. I hope this entirely salutary proposal will be given the most careful attention. - Prof. Martin C. Needler Department of Political Science Congo To the Editor: IN THE last few days, an inter- esting dialogue has emerged in your columns with respect to the current situation in the Congo. I will not direct my remarks in this letter specifically to any of the preceding ones, but rather will explore some of the implications of the present U.S. Congo policy. Let me state at the outset that I am indtotal disagreement with our sending of military aid to Tshombe. The so-called rescue act cannot be defended, only rational- ized-and there is a difference. We rationalize our atrocities by say- ing that this was done to protect the "legitimate" government. How legitimate is this government? It was not legitimate 18 months ago, when the present "legitimate" government was the one we called "illegitimate." Nor does it control most of the country. A map printed in a recent Life magazine (by no means a sup- porter of the rebels) showed that well over half the country was in Gbenye's hands; only the mining provinces (because of Belgium protection) and several cities were controlled by Tshombe. Indeed, the rationale of "legitimate" ac- tion (killing) to sustain "legiti- mate" governmentsseems to me to be an obvious illegitimate ex- ercise if evaluated on any stan- dards but those of the U.S. gov- ernment. At least, legitimacy is a very slippery concept. For example, how legitimate is our activity in South East Asia when we have never subscribed to the initial treaties which established states after the SIndo-China War; when we have refused to 'recognize or support free elections; and when we have just violated the 1962 Geneva ac- cord which established the neu- trality of Laos? EVEN MORE important, is our gross failure to understand the nature of social, political and economic development in the de- veloping countries. Our entire ob- jective is to obtain stability- short-run stability at all costs- when, in fact, dynamic social change must of necessity involve social instability in order to suc- cessfully and fundamentally re- orient existing institutions. The protection and perpetua- tion of stable institutions is the same as arguing for protection and perpetuation of the present status quo. This status quo is precisely what must be shattered in order to attack poverty and backwardness in any country, in- cluding our own. What I am sug- gesting is that perhaps we should learn to tolerate some instability in the short-run, since this is the only means by which the inertia can be overcome that is perpetuat- ed by stable institutions. in Not Feeling So Good Myself" }4 4 4 I T " VS , - < Vo Q,.._t't^;7. A 7*e:. +,J,,W.4e+u4 rO+'J P+o.s'r I ...Comprehensives Are One Way STUDYING FOR GRADES has become indistinguishable from studying the subject itself. The immediate and most fundamental motivating force behind in- tensive study in almost all courses is an exam. As a result, getting a grade has become confused with what should be the real objective: achieving the skills, attitudes and knowledge that the course is intended to give.: The best method to restore this objec- tive would be to institute comprehensive examinations at the University. These exams-carrying more weight than just course grades-could be given toward the end of the college career, covering a stu- dent's progress in his major field or cog- nates. Perhaps the University could start an exchange program with another school Requirements' FACULTY AND STUDENTS who are concerned about the proper role of a university have come to the aid of dis- tribution requirements. They claim the requirements will insure a study of vari- ous subjects in addition to the field of concentration. Their goal, a complete education, is a good one, but the means are ineffective. Forcing a student to take certain courses violates, that very spirit of a complete education. If a college student cannot recognize the value of knowledge in more than one area of study at this stage of life, he should not be at a university. Compulsory courses will do him no good. The student really interested in learning will-take other courses on his own. -C. VETZNER whereby professors at one institution ad- minister the tests at the other. COMPREHENSIVE examinations sub- stantially orient student thinking away from the immediate assignment or the present course. They shift much of the responsibility for achieving goals and timing studies back onto the student, where it belongs. Comprehensives offer a much more complete representation of how much a student is achieving. A student who oc- casionally cannot do course work for a specific test date but who makes up for it by studying at other times is not dis- criminated against. Finally, much of the friction between a professor's two roles is removed by in- stituting an external grading process like comprehensives. At present a professor not only acts as the "active ingredient" in conveying ideas, skills and informa- tion, but also must act as an evaluator, measuring how much the student learns. This situation often leads to hostility be- tween student and professor which kills the student's interest. AT PRESENT the University probably could not afford the added cost of comprehensives for all students. Perhaps such exams could be paid for by reducing costs in another sector-say, by reducing formal credit-hour require- ments for graduation. Or perhaps the exams could be instituted in selected de- partments where they would be most likely to succeed. Whatever the immedi- ate possibilities, comprehensive examina- tions should be seriously considered. --MICHAEL SATTINGER Associate Managing Editor i E 1 t i t LET US recognize and admit what we and the South African racist mercenaries are doing. The Belgium and South African mer cenaries have readily admitted that they are risking their lives in order to protect thR white mpn in Africa. As several South Af ri- can's have said, if the black man is successful in the Congo, then what will happen to our country (perhaps some freedom), to An- goa, to Mozambique, and to Rho- desia? How low our actions are when we provide the men and the means to aid what is unquestion- ably the lowest form of human now populating the earth-the white racist. It is not difficult, under these circumstances. to understand the outrage of other African nations. Had any other response occurred, my respect would have declined for these people who have suffered enormously from the very in- stitutions we now protect and seek to sustain. Oddly enough, we are taught, to revere those figures in American history who acted as their con- science dictated in instigating the revolution. But let us not forget that the issues over which that Revolution were fought pale in significance when compared to the issues over which revolutions are now being fought (or will be fought) in Africa today. -Howard M. Wachtel, Grad Marx Brothers To the Editor: I HAVE been reading your mov- ie reviews since September and almost immediately realized that the pictures most severely criti- cized were invariably the excel- lent ones. The review of the Marx Brothers "A Night at the Opera" by Lee Bromberg, however, is the payoff for bad reviewing. The essence of the Marx Bro- thers' comedy style from its be- ginnings in vaudeville to its last picture, "A Night in Casablanca" is complete and unadulterated in- sanity. The charm of all the Marx Brothers movies comes from the antics of these lunatic bro- thers, not from "deep character development," whose absence from the film is so sorely lamented by Mr. Bromberg. The other characters are pri- marily foils for the Marx Broth- ers' wacky comedy, and any de- velopment would only detract from the action. How could a snob such as Margaret Dumont ("the wealthy widow") be devel- oped when her sole purpose in this picture as in numerous other Marx Brothers' pictures is to be de-snobbed by Groucho? THIS FILM incidentally, as Pi sure Mr. Bromberg well knows, was the first Marx Brothers' film to have any plot at all. The Max Brothers achieved fame on Broad- way with their antics and their first five films for Paramount were just antics, period. It was in 1935 when they teamed up with Eugene Thalberg as their di- rector in "A Night at the Opera," that any sort of plot was given to their pictures. It was still sec- ondary, however, to Groucho's insults and Harpo's mugging. As for the lack of camera subtleties, I might point out this film was made thirty years ago when camera techniques were much more crude than they are Curious To the Editor: TO QUOTE the Jan. 23 Daily AP dispatch from Saigon where anti-government and anti- Taylor rioting continues, "Some banners curiously paralleled the Viet Cong propaganda line. One, though looking innocent, was identical to a slogan of the Com- munist Guerillas, 'W e desire Democracy, Freedom and Peace for the Vietnamese People.'" Somehow, one would expect that heritage-proud Americans would consider this an honorable slogan., inspired by our own ideals, perhaps. One would cer- tainly not expect our country- men to be on the side of martial law, dissolution of the National Council and suppression of liber- ties, but expectations notwith- standing, such seems to be the case. Everything about the situation in Viet Nam seems to be curious. We say we are there on the in- vitation of a friendly government but our "friend" Diem is long since dead and he was about as popular with the Vietnamese as George III was with our an- cestors. WE INSIST that we are there in an advisory capacity, but we complain that the revolving gov- ernments pay little heed to our advisors, not even twenty-five thousand of them. We keep up the pretense of the natives doing the actual fighting but it stretches the imagination to creditethe illiter- ate montagnards with a victor- ious raid by ten U.S. helicopters as reported in the N.Y. Times, Jan. 25. We are killing and being killed in Viet Nam but no war has been declared by our Congress as di- rected by our Constitution. We draft our young men to help the Vietnamese to defend their "freedom" but they don't seem to think it is worth de- fending, 30 percent deserting the army within six weeks. S * WE ARE having a hard time finding tax funds for our schools and colleges but we are spending some two million dollars a day (four billion to date) trying to teach sullen peasants the fine art of modern warfare. We were signers of the 1962 Geneva Accords but, as evidenced by recent air raids over Laos, we have been cheating - on the premise that everybody does it. (The contagion now seems to have spread to the Air Force Academy cadets!) We are righteous paid-up mem- bers of the United Nations but by our military involvement in Viet Nam, we are in violation of the charter. Yes, it is a very curious situa- tion, indeed. --Beatrice Henshaw, '33 4 The Role of the Student IT WAS ANNOUNCED yesterday that the working body of the faculty is going to create a "study team" of students, fac- ulty members and administrators to probe the student's role in University affairs. Great. But the creators and members-to-be of this committee must undergo the eternal warning due creators and members of any such committee: their work must be carried out in an ultra-practical context. That the student's role in University affairs needs some sort of "probing" is beyond debate. But the key question here is not whether the issue can be probed or whether reasonable answers to the question of the student's role can be found. .~4"M . - THE PRIMARY QUESTION is how meaningful the answers arrived at will be to the average student-in-the- street. Faculty committees can study the issue all they desire, but so long as the only result of the study is a three-volume work entitled "The Role of the Student in University Affairs," they will have done nothing but waste their time and our hopes. Now, while the committee is still in its formative stages, those connected with it should realize that they are taking on more than the obligation of defining the student's role. They are also taking on part of the obligation of bringing that role into reality. The student members of the committee must realize that they have an obliga- tion to their fellow students not to just ROBERT CESSNA (left) and Don Cullen were half of the satiri- cal quartet that starred in last night's Nine O'Clock Theatre pro- duction of "Beyond the Fringe." Joel Fabiani and James Valen- tine rounded out the cast of the P.T.P.'s second offering. A merican 'Fringe' Cast Dis plays British Satire T HE PROFESSIONAL Theatre Program last night managed with obvious success to give Ann Arbor some solid entertainment. Four bright young chaps, one British-born, the others British in the casting, chortled through the many skits of the Nine O'Clock Theatre's production of "Beyond the Fringe"; it's a very fashionable, very profitable vehicle, fresh from the big city, and the young men in question handily convinced the very fashionable, full-house crowd that the admission price had been well spent. Robert Cessna, Donald Cullen, Joel Fabiani and James Valentine are the young men whose cups are brimming over with the milk of human gall. They romp and sidle from scene to scene, pricking the bladders of theysmug, and roasting joyfully the heroes and the would-be heroes of the day. EVERY GESTURE, every line, has a well-honed point, and most of them find their mark. The Aftermyth of War gently dismembers the sentimentality with which twenty years has cloaked the memory of those troubled days; The Scientist and The Duke give us C. P. Snow and Prince Phillip happily exposing parts of the Establishment, while the Bollard commercial shatters for all time the rugged appeal of the Marlboro Man. The crafty juxtaposition of The Philosophers beside The Great Train Robbery manages whimsically to confront the patent absurdities of both philosophy's semantic squabblings and its quarrels with a priori knowledge. The parody of ill-done Shake- speare is close to the best thing in the show, and its finest moments roll sonorously forth in the empty, senseless cliches of a modern churchman sermonizing his flock. The New York critics, who found all this trick business "side- 'SEANCE': Successful Medium found with Kim Stanley At the Campus Theatre "SEANCE ON A Wet Afternoon" is a tightly constructed, carefully plotted and brilliantly executed "psychological thriller." As a film it is beautiful. The story concerns a medium (Kim Stanley), her husband (Rich- ard Attenborough) and their "perfect plan" to abduct a little girl. The film carefully documents their actions and emotions as they put the scheme into effect. Through a thorough acquaintance with their characters and a gradual understanding of their motivations the film reveals a haunting inner truth about the nature of human love and human needs. The film was written-and meticulously directed--by Brian Forbes (The L-Shaped Room) with a subtlety and tastefulness that provides an even and graceful development of tension and plot. No moment is wasted, nor is a detail added or excluded that might detract from the overall unity and success of the film. Thus Forbes is able to manipu- late his characters and his audience to a final catharsis and to create a memorable and almost flawless motion picture. NOT ONLY IS the direction of the highest quality, but the acting is brilliant. Kim Stanley's performance as Myra is more than convinc- ing. She is able to add significance to each sentence she utters, each movement she makes and each mysterious pleading smile she gives, Richard Attenborough, as the husband Billy, is equally fine. There is reserve and a hint of nobility in his meek submission to his wife's wishes. Attenborough's performance during the kidnapping scenes is magnificent. He manages to convey both the terror and fear of his involvement, a suppressed revulsion at his act, and a hint of the for- 4t