4 U- THE NATIONAL COLLEGE NEWSPAPFR NlawQ Fan+....U. IAIrMuo a 0 wCws remures 0 MAKUM 191JU NW Campus cult Classical vs. By Jennifer Jenkins The Stanford Daily Stanford U., CA Claiming that the Western Culture program core reading list has become an albatross around Stanford's neck,' Philosophy Professor John Perry said the proposal by the Committee on Undergraduate Studies (CUS) to drop the core list and establish a new re- quirement-"Cultures, Ideas and Values"-will bring "fresh blood" to a program plagued by rigidity. Perry, a member of the Western Cul- ture Task Force, said the list implies that works by women and minorities are of no consequence. "Some very in- telligent students here honestly believe that if a work on the core list is replaced by a work by a woman or a minority, then it is being replaced by a work of inferior quality. It is making a state- ment I don't want to make," Perry said. English Professor William Chace de- fended a counterproposal that would re- tain the core list while allowing revision of the works included in the list. Many members of the English department support this alternative proposal. Looking at the course as filled with "DWEMs," or dead, white, European males, is not effective, Chace said. "Marx was not chosen because Marx was white." Perry concurred, saying that critical examination of primary texts was the main thrust of the original program, "but there are many roots of ure clash: minority UNDER ATTACK: THE CORE LisT Stanford undergraduates must take a three-course Western Culture sequ- ence. Half of the required reading is the core list; the other half is the instruc- tor's choice. The core list is: Ancient: Genesis (Hebrew Bible), The Repub- lic (Plato), selections from The Iliad or The Odysseyor both, one Greek tragedy, selections from New Testament, including a gospel Medieval/Renaissance: Confessions (Au- gustine), Inferno (Dante), Utopia (More), The Prince (Machiavelli), Christian Liberty (Luther), Starry Messenger and The Assayer (Galileo) Modern: Candide (Voltaire), The Communist Manifesto (Marx and Engels), Outline of Psychoanalysis and Civilization and Its Dis- contents (Freud), Darwin contemporary American society, and we simply did not face up to that fact in the program's formation." Chace said the present program con- tains enough flexibility: Lecturers are free to include works they might see as important, but the "spinal stability" of the core list must be maintained to pre- serve the program's coherence. The current structure of the program gives students a common intellectual experience, Chace said. "I also value a common experience," Perry said, "but there isn't that common intellectual experience now, it's an illu- sion." At the Faculty Senate's January 21 meeting, more than 100 students gathered in support of the CUS prop- osal. Black Student Union Chairman Bill King said that if the CUS plan is not implemented, "students will feel che- ated, because they will know that there is other research and scholarship de- scribing a broader West and a broader world. But Stanford will not tell them." The meeting coincided with U.S. Secretary of Education William Ben- nett's comments to the National Asso- ciation of Independent Colleges and Universities, where he referred to Stan- ford's proposed changes as "self- imposed curricular debasement." Student opinion appears evenly split on whether or not the Faculty Senate should approve the proposed reforms at their slated February 18 meeting, according to the results of an Associated Students of Stanford U. straw poll. Of students polled, 52 percent ex- pressed support for the CUS' proposal. However, when asked how they felt ab- out the current program's core reading list, 65 percent said they favor it. Straw poll coordinator Patty Marhy said one reason the results appear to he contradictory is that "people favored the (CUS) proposal in that they favored changes, but they thought it a bit ex- treme and wanted to keep the core list." Dean of Humanities and Sciences Norman Wessells warned that without a common thread linking the different programs, there could be an "erosion of confidence" in the requirement, and possibly "its total demise." Wessells said: "That would be a dis- astrous step, one that would be de- trimental to our educational program, to our freshman admissions, to our posi- tion of national leadership in curricular development and to our relationship with many individuals on whom we de- pend forthe support of our students and our faculty alike." . guess if could Tracy Staton asked students how they felt affect me ... I about the Texas A & M U. Honors Program know people who providing a list of honors students for em- have a 3.5 or ployers interested in high grade point aver- better who don't ages. have a lick of 't think it's a sense in their gaodthnkiea ee heads.Jut good idea even because yoo though I'm not an honors student. It know something nnsmr out of a book rgivesmore doesn't mean you prestige to hat have any thgrwhoGPA. f common sense or the high GPA. It any knowledge of gives something how to apply it.' more to the - DONALDemployer.' - DONALD ,4 WARSCHAK," - SUSAN GARCIA, NON-HONORS -,NON-HONORS 0 'It might cause corporations to overlook someone who took two years to mature in college.' - DAN WINSTON, HONORS STUDENT I AT&T OPINION POLL According to a report on page 1 of this issue, most students can't understand their foreign teaching assistants who have limited English language skills. SHOULD FOREIGN TEACHING ASSISTANTS BE REQUIRED TO PASS ENGLISH ORAL PROFICIENCY TESTS? We want to know what you think. To Register Your Opinion CALL 1-800-662-5511 Campus soap operas sizle with sex, drugs 0 By Ron Bell Daily Bruin U. of California, Los Angeles Students at colleges across the coun- try stole, raped, robbed and sold drugs with the blessings of school administra- tors and sometimes for academic credit. U. of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Fraternity President John Constanza built a thriving business hawking cocaine to the brothers. John Crandall, an English professor, seduced a football player. A senior at Stanford U. chortled while his friend was thrown off a cliff. "Look at Maryland and the Lenny Bias case. They had a drug testing program and it didn't prevent that tragedy from happening." The mayhem was part of student- produced soap operas, filmed on uni- versity campuses and broadcast by col- lege or public television stations. Student productions like plays and short films have been staples of campus life for years, but soaps are more recent additions to the collegiate repertoire. "The audience just grooves on it," said Richard Docket, theater professor and adviser to Chapman College's (CA) Summerstock. On some campuses, directors put in 40-hour weeks preparing for the soaps. "Everything is run just like a profes- sional soap opera except that we're stu- dents and we're learning," said Lindy Laitin, sophomore publicity director for UCLA's University. Summerstock adheres to industry soap format in everything from plot complications to commercial breaks. Advertisements are filmed in one graded course; scripts are written in a second; episodes are staged in a third. Docket describes his show as "sort of Fame at the college level." "Faculty and staff play the adults so students learn to work with older actors and actresses," Docket said. "The chair of our department even played a pimp." The all-student University cast re- ceives critiques from industry profes- sionals like H. Wess Kenney, executive producer of General Hospital. Universi- ty reaches a young affluent audience most marketing directors would envy. It airs on public television, plays in resi- dence halls and circulates through the National College Network. Ivan Cury, University's faculty advis- er, is proud of the show's record but admits to being troubled by the glare of the media and the almost fanatic devo- tion the students give the show. "People are losing their sense of pers- pective," he said. "Today the cast and crew are being interviewed by People magazine and the Today show. There's a tendency to forget it's just a class at a university." The Stanford U. soap is produced by the campus television station so cast members receive no academic credit and limited publicity.