6
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. age 4 Wednesday, October 7, 1981 The Michigan Daily
Honors' - another word for 'pedantry'9
_I turned a light shade of red, but it 40% ARE BoTH students in the class;" Program's motives and direction. Do
B Gary Schmitz didn't really bother me. Long ago, I had W ROJ4 - M..., "doing a term-paper on a topic that they have a legitimate function at the
quit being embarrassed about making So is more original and challenging than University? Or are they merely an ego-
mistakes in class. WE TRE TK04 the typical topics in the course." boosting service?
Nobody told me that this class would Or thought I had ... until I heard.STRIL4 AaoaT A
be different. There were no warnings three distinct guffaws coming from TEM~tAI9ICALIFISCAL PEIOD THE SUGGESTIONS reveal OBVIOUSLY, HONORS work can be
fOm the Surgeon General anywhere in somewhere intheclassroom.Notthe62A6fA S T ARDMARKEDB something of the attitude and posture challenging, and there are students
I an onor studnt i expcted oCtae inhere who want that additional
the Time Schedule. uneasy tittering of a nervous class, but L SAS an Honors student is expected to take in h n.B
The only clue I had was a asterisk a deliberate snickering that you hear HAT AM I a "normal" class. The Honors Program cege.tBut the ticandpanySit.areaun-
text to the letter "H" under the heading only from the haughtily self-assured. egptint hopes that these projects will result "in eetg that accompany it are un
t hoes hatthee onact ilheslt' n eesr.WaisnddisH os
"Section Type." I ignored the H I LAID LOW after that, listening as\ a more personal contact with the in cssrk.hat is neeed o ns
because I've never understood com- one student explained the metaphysical - structor reslting in an intellectual wotht isga a to all sdnt s,
im qualifications.
guterese anyway, but Iknew the asterisk meaning behind the words "to the." . dialogue between student and 'instruc- wiutrgadtoepon r te
was important. (They always are, or Another student, not satisfied with a tor"
toHoosr.det The work should be available in any
they wouldn't be asterisks, right?) In mere one-line quote from Shakespeare, But is the label "Honors student" section, not restricted to "Honors sec-
this case it meant "Section Open To named the play, the act, and the scene, enough to qualify a student to comment tions." It must be possible to have
Non-Honors Students By Permission Of then proceeded to quote the entire (os on other students' papers or lead study "haegigndraiv"crswk
istructor." It sounded harmless passage from memory. It was totally groups? Are only Honors students without Honors pomposity.
4nough, so being a Non-Honors Student unnecessary, but we were all duly im- ready for "more personal contact" and A few might argues
! went in search of Permission Of In- pressed. RItHAi.D "intellectual dialogue" with instruc- only dilute the content of the program.
Structor. Soon the class was buried in a pile Wo w 0 M1( IEK A DA L tors? B ute ty contd othe pogsam.
I WAS A little nervous. I'm a transfer of profundities, and I still didn't knowTrst tAesu ltw othtosudfed,
student from a community college, and the meaning of the piece they had been TE OOSPormsest tdn h tepe n aldt
had never dealt with a university' discussing. I began to suspect that, for onset of their college education." IT IS AN image the program projects forget that the non-Honors students in complete the work satisfactorily would
professor before. But wher I saw him, these pedants, the comic strip Dondi It's a good idea, maybe even a great over and over in its literature. A good this university are not intellectual in- simply not receive Honors credit. No
n fears seemed unfounded. He could take on epic proportions. idea, except for the fact that that isn't example is an informatiort sheet con- feriors. Just being here is proof of that. more, no less.
casually signed my override slip, and I However, I wasn't the only one in the quite what happens, It seems the cerningfonors conversion courses. Furthermore, there are many, many I finally dropped the Honors class I
thought I was on my way to a class who looked out of place. After students in the Honors Program, at It's possible for Honors students to students on this campus who could have had, for a lot of different reasons. For a
Mieaningful exchange of ideas with class I approached one of these lost least the ones I have seen, have forgot- take a non-Honors course and get been in the Honorsrogram but chose while, I was angry at some of the people
fellow students. souls. She admitted to being uncomfor- ten that they are supposed to be lear- Honors credit. To do this the student not to be.
The first day of class was no problem. table, too. I asked her why there was so ning rather than parading what they've must do "more challenging and In fact, the median GPA at The tually, I was so mad I almost stayed in
The professor just called roll and we much tension in the room; she looked already learned. creative work" than what is expected of . University of Michigan is ap- the class just to prove to those SOBs
left. It was on the second day of class me straight in the eve and dropped the On the surface, this elitist attitude other students. proximately 3.0-exactly the minimum that I could succeed on their turf. But
hat things got interesting. ' word "honors" as if it were an H-bomb. might appear to be a perversion of the Wfere are some of the "creative GPA necessary for entrance into the when I thought about it, that seemed
WHEN CLASS started, I wasted no Honors Program ideals. But if you look projects" suggested by the Honors Honors Program. The only real dif- like the first step to becoming an
ime jumping in to answer the prof's THE UNIVERSITY Bulletin explains at the program itself, it becomes ap- Program for such cases: ference between Honors and non- onors st .
irst question. Unfortunately, I misin- that the Honors Program "believes that parent that it encourages-even expec- " "WRITING comments on the Honors studets seems to lie in their at-
:erpreted him, and my reply was a bit challenging work.., should be ts-Honors students to act intellec- papers of other students in the courses; titudes. Schmitz is an LSA junir.
4oolish. available to superior students from the tually superior. * "leading a study group formed of This leads to a question of the Honors
6
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Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan
Weasel
Vol. XCII, No. 24
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, M! 48109
Editorials represent a majority opinion of tie Daily's Editorial Board
W+AMVERTo TELL
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By Robert Lence
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OH NO.
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FRE S 6:ZME A
SPACE NVA R
The death of an individual
IS FAR TOO early to know what seems to have remained in coitrol and
the effects in Egypt and the Middle has scheduled new elections.
East will be from the assassination of Spokespersons for both Israel and
Anwar Sadat. But many of the in- Egypt have said that they intend to
dications following the murder of one continue with the Camp David peace
of the most astute politicians of the process.
Middle East are not pleasant. But unofficially, things seem a bit
In an age that is often seen as being more ominous. "We're very, very
marked by the increasing emergence worried," one unnamed Israeli source
of the power of mass movements, said yesterday. "It's a very severe
Sadat stood out as an individual. It was realization how shaky the situation in
Sadat the individual who was able to Egypt is, and how shaky the peace is.
throw 15,000 Soviet advisers out of The future of the new Egyptian
Egypt in 1972; it was Sadat the in- government seems to depend at least
dividual who took an enormous gamble in part on the ability of the government
and signed a peace treaty with Israel. to resist pressure from other Arab
And it was also Sadat the individual states and muster mass suppott behind
whose death has thrown the future of its plan to continue Sadat's policies.
that treaty-and the future political It is ironic, in a sense, that a real test
situation in the entire Mideast-into of Sadat the individual-of Sadat the,
question. outspoken champion of peace- will
Officially, at least, everything seems come only after his death with the
to be going as well as can be expected. mass acceptance or rejection of his
The establishedgovernment in Egypt policy.
~
Drug use spreading in Poland
WARSAW, POLAND-Although alienation
from the current Polish regime and system
has prompted millions of young people to join
Solidarty, it also has launched many of
Poland's youth in a different direction: A
wave of disaffection is rising here, carrying
some out of the country entirely - and others
into drug addiction.
A rumored government estimate of hun-
dreds of thousands of Polish drug addicts was
dismissed by a Solidarity leader who said the
figure could be an exaggeration for
propaganda purposes, to make it appear that
choas is spreading because of the influence of
the revolution and the embrace of Western
mores.
BUT EVEN he agreed the drug problem is
serious.
Marek Kotanski, a psychologist who has
been working with addicts here for eight
years, also confirmed the problem has grown
serious. This year alone, he said, 40 addicts
died of overdoses in Warsaw. He estimated
there. may be 300 living addicts for each
reported death.
The rise in drug addiction parallels in-
creases in other indices of social discontent,
including the rate of divorce and youth
suicide, which are occurring in several
Eastern European nations today. Some ex-
perts blame housing shortages, lack of
meaningful jobs and intense pressures on the
traditional family structure for the prbblems.
BUT IN POLAND, another factor may be
prominent, said Edmund Jan Osmanszyk, a
respected elder member of Parliament.
"There is an instinctive fear, I think, of a new
catastrophe," he explained.
Observers point out that the drug problem
here is significantly different from the drug
craze that swept many Western societies in
the '60s and '70s, creating an alternative
culture. In Poland there is little or no distin-
ction between grass, LSA and heroin.
Psychedelics are rare or unobtainable.
What is plentiful is the native red poppy. It
has long been a favored garden plant. It
grows wild among wheat, and its seeds are
common ingredients in traditional pastries.
KOTANSKI claims that Polish youths have
learned to process the fresh poppy plant into a
brew containing morphine (called
By Rasa Gustaitis,
to as much as 20, three times a day. "At that
rate, after 10 years, the addict is barely
alive," he said.
BECAUSE THE problem was not
recognized until just recently, there is yet, no
law to deal with it, and very little help.
Kotanski first set up an independent
hospital unit for the addicts, then thiee years
ago founded a separate treatment center,
MONAR, in an old farm 75 kilometers from
Warsaw, under the Ministry of Health. Fifty
young people, aged 16 to 30, live there,
working on the farm, attending group therapy
meetings, taking part in running the place,
helping others, and getting ready to return to
the world. A second MONAR center recently}
was set up in Gdansk and more will follow.
The severity and visibility of the drug
problem naturally overshadows less con-
spicuous, but perhaps equally disturbing,
trends. Many young Poles share the
frustrations and fears that lead to drug addic-
tion but have coped with them in other
ways-often leaving Poland.
MORE THAN 250,000 Poles have left on
temporary visas so far this year, and an
unknown but large number will not return. A
philology graduate working as a secretary for
Solidarity bemoaned that of 15 or so close
friends, about half had left to live abroad
recently.
Thousands of young students go to Western
Europe, especially France and Germany,
each summer to acquire Western currency.
In cities like Berlin they find themselves able
to pay for a coffee and pastry that would
amount to a day's wages back home, and
when they return they cannot help but make
comparisons.
Jerry Olkowski (not his real name), for in-
stance, is a 22-year-old student at a
polytechnical institute, working toward a
degree in engineering. He eventually will get
a starting salary of about 2,400 zloti a month.
"You know how much that is?" he asked. "It
is about $8."
OLKOWSKI HAS contemplated joining
friends who have gone to France and live in a
student cooperative that has set up a fur-
niture refinishing business. He could make
perhaps $10 a day there, plus room and board.
Or he could join his brother in the United
States, who makes even more working as a
waiter in a coffeehouse.
But for now, Olkowski prefers pursuing his
degree, even though he knows that many
Polish engineers have to do lower-level work
because there are so few jobs with the crisis
in the economy.
He even has trepidations about his
education, however. In his pre-vocational
school, he said at least eight classmates wan-
ted to learn electronics and -the instructors
barely knew what a transistor was.
SO OLKOWSKI, like so many young people
here, remains ambivalent about many things.
He has not joined Solidarity, though some 20
to 25 percent of the university students have.
He stews; he considers; he smokes a lot.
Some observers believe such frustrations,
which too often result in drug addiction,
reflect a spiritual hunger that neither con-
sumer societies nor Marxist socialism can
satisfy. .
WHILE MANY have found satisfaction in
the Catholic Church (said a young man in
Warsaw: "It has the taste *of the un-
derground."), others have taken to less
familiar spiritual disciplines, including Zen
and Tibetan Buddhism, T'ai chi, aikido and #
even Krishna Consciousness.
Clearly, these are not the young people who
are making headlines marching behind Lech
Walesa. For the most part, these are just
people who want the freedom and the oppor-
tunity to pursue their personal goals, either
material or spiritual. But for many today,
that pursuit leads either to drugs or to exile.
"Who can blame the young people?" asked
Osmanczyk, the parliamentarian who is
trying to change the law so Poles can leave
the country for up to five years. "We must
,help them so they can go and still keep the
contact. It is the only hope."
Gustaitis is an editor for Pacific News
Service.
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