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Grinnell College
Grinnell, lowa

1/23ﬂ6 Vol. 84, No. 15

 

Louuul‘as Halsey scarlet and slack

Joe Genereux. ’74, stands worriedly behind Phil Sasich, ’72. and

Laura Miller,

as they tahnlste Democratic presidential delegate

reports. Both lowa Democrats and Republicans held caucus meetings

1 Monday night. Sasich and Miller volunteered their services to
the Democratic national media center which was set up in the Des
Moines Hilton Hotel. Genercux serves as technical and administrative
director for the state Democratic party.

C

byJanetPope
The selection process for this
year's commencement speaker
been a haphazard,

‘ disorganized effort, Attempts have

been made to contact Woody Allen.
However, Allen will not come to
Grinnell and no other speaker has
been scheduled.

At present, there is no defined
procedure for choosing a some
mencement speaker Early in the
fall, senior Kathy Kramer talked to
President Turner about a speaker
and volunteered to work on
selecting a commencement
speaker. First, Kramer requested

’names of possible speakers from

the senior class. Aiter compiling a
list of thirty or forty 0f the most
popular suggestions, Kramer
asked the seniors to indicate their
_ top choices. Those results in-

?dicatcd that Woody Allen was the

is

first choice.

According to Kramer. at this
point. she informed Turner of the
preference for Allen and asked that
he inform the trustees and the
faculty, Kramer and Turner also
compiled a list of ten other top

. speaker choices as a back-up list in
case Allen refused, ‘

When the trustees were on
campus in early November,
Turner informally mentioned
Allen's selection to several of them
and received negative responses,
Turner then informed the sub»
committee on honorary degrees
about Allen and the trustees’
negative responses. According to
Arnold Adelberg, subcommittee
chairman, the committee in-
correctly interpreted Turner‘s
statement to mean that the
trustees had reiused to permit
Allen to speak at commencement

it was necessary for Turner to
give Allen's name to the honorary
degree subcommittee because,
generally. the college tries to
award a degree to the com-
mencement speaker. According to
Turner, “There could be a speaker
without a degree, but it would be
embarrassing," Adelberg come
merited that granting an honorary
degree to a potential com-
mencement speaker makes the
request to a person more attractive
and indicates that the college
recognizes the importance oi the
speaker

Kramer stated that because she
did not hear trom Turner during

Harris gains hold on Grinnell
while Ford out-polls Reagan

by Doug Schultz

in Monday night’s precinct
caucuses in Grinnell, Oklahoma
Senator Fred Harris received the
strongest Democratic support.
while Republican polls showed
President Gerald Ford ahead of
California Governor Ronald
Reagan in presidential preference.
For both parties. Grinnell’s results
ditlered significantly from the sum
state results, where Jimmy Carter,
former governor of Georgia, came
out on top.

In Grinnell, Harris received 38.7
per cent of the total 62 delegate
votes possible, well over a third
more than Carter's 24.2 per cent,
There were a total 14 delegates
(22.6 per cent) uncommitted to any
candidate. lndiana Senator Birch
Bayh, with six delegate votes (9.7
per cent) and Representative
Morris Udall of Arizona with 3
votes (4.8 per cent) were fourth
and fifth finishers, respectively.

On the state level, however,
Carter was the strongest can-
didate, gaining 27.7 per cent of the
delegates to the 99 county cone
ventions, according to the Des
Moines Tribune. That amount was
slightly more than his second place
Grinnell percentage. Carter's
strong showing was dimmed
however by the fact that 36.9 per
cent of the Democrats remained
uncommitted statewideia per-
centage almost as great as that
received by Harris in Grinnell.
Statewide, Harris drew less sup-
port (10.l per cent) than Bayh, who
received the second highest

onflicts hinder ready

November she assumed that Allen
had been approved. However,
when she met with Turner in
December she found that this was
not the case,

Kramer then informed the
committee what had happened.
The committee decided that they
would make another attempt to get
Alien approved.

In a memo dated December 3,
Senior Judy Rivlin asked the
Executive Council to reconsider
giving Allen a degree. A week later
she gave Allen's profile to the
council. Two days later the subs
committee recommended to the
council that Allen be granted a
degree. Shortly after, the council
approved the recommendation.

As a result Georgia Dentel,
activities counselor, made an
attempt to reach Allen, The person
whom she reached said that Woody
Allen would not be able to come.
Wil‘kﬁn Deminofl. director of the
office of college relations, made
inrtlaer attempts on December 9
and 10. Alter ten phone calls he was
able to reach Allen’s business
manager, This person informed
him that under no circumstances
would Allen speak at Grinnell,

amount oi ‘committed’ delegates
behind Carter, Udall received 5.9
per cent in the state, R. Sergeant
Shriver, 3.4 per cent, and
Washington Senator Henry
Jackson 1.1 per cent.

As local papers have pointed out
however. caucus results actually
amount to a preference poll
because delegates are not bound to
the candidates they support in
caucus. As the political sieve
continues its Shakedown of cans
didates, delegates are free to
switch their support if their callr
didate falters elsewhere.

Republicans, also, met in
caucuses to select delegates.
However, all Republican delegates
will go uncommitted to the county
convention. In a poll conducted by
the Grinnell HeraldrRegister, Ford
receivedal supporters, while
Reagan collected 23. There were
six uncommitted Republican votes
and one supporter of Vice
President Nelson Rockefeller. 0n
the state level, Ford and Reagan
were much closer, with Ford just
16 votes ahead of Reagan; 264 to
243.

For both parties, statewide
turnout for the caucuses was
considerably abDve 1972. Likewise,
in Grinnell, turnout was higher
than in past election years, with
the Democratic turnout par
ticularly high. As one longtime
Democrat in the third ward
remarked upon entering the
meeting, ”My goodness, that’s
more Democrats than I’ve seen in
years,” He said that in the past two

presidential elections no more than
a halfdozen citizens from the Ward
attended the caucuses. Monday
night 19 people showed up or those
19, nearly half were students.
Other wards had similarly high
student attendance, with the first
ward, in which the college is
located, having an overwhelming
majority of students in attendance.
Republican caucusers were mainly
in the thirty to forty age group.

Among Democrats, Harris
seemed to be the strongest student
vote getter, In the third ward, for
instance, all of the Harris sup-
porters were students.

Democrats and Republicans who
attended caucuses in Grinnell
Monday night also began to discuss
issues and pass resolutions that
may eventually iind their way to
the county or state conventions.
Issues considered throughout the
state included legalization of
longer trucks, parimutual betting,
abortion, tax relief and changes in
the tax structure. In Grinnell,
many of the resolutions passed
were proposed by students.

One resolution calling for un~
conditional amnesty for draft
resisters and deserters passed. A
proposal to decriminalize the
possession and distribution of
marijuana failed, but an amend-
ment calling for the legalization of
possession of marijuana passed. A
ban on smoking in all public owned
buildings and places of tran»'
sportation was approved. A
resolution for a moratorium on the
operation of nuclear plants failed.

speaker choice

explaining that Allen gets over 300
requests to speak at colleges every
year and refuses all of them,

Turner stressed that, at the
present time, neither he nor the
administration has anything to do
with choosing a commencement
speaker. He commented that Allen
would have been “fine by me...I
think that he would have been a
real gas."

All the people involved in these
events agreed that it is necessary
to find a better way to choose and
schedule a commencement
speaker. Adelberg commented
that the process should be started
early in the school year.

Kramer mentioned that when
seniors make suggestions most
don't think about whether a
speaker would be good or whether
the person can come. “They just
take a name and don’t think about
whether he’ll give a good speech or
not," she stated,

According to Dorothy Palmer,
alumni executive secretary, SGA
has appointed a commencement
Chairperson in previous years.
Dcminoii explained that, usually.
he informs SGA that they

should appoint either an
entire Senior Week Committee or a
chairperson of such a committee.
However, they did not do that this
year, Will Collins, SGA president,
stated that, as a junior, he knew
nothing about the situation.
Kramer stated that her activities
in trying to choose a speaker were
not connected in any way with
SGA.

Turner suggested that the
speakers elect a committee to
choose and schedule a speaker. He
and the committee would then
compile a list of the most popular
and icasible suggestions. Those
people would then be contacted.

'A meeting was scheduled for last
night to decide what steps would
now be taken to schedule a speaker
for this year's commencement.
Although lew preparations have
been made, Deminoff commented
that he checked on last year's
commencement planning and
found that it also got started at the
beginning of second semester.
Neither he nor Palmer is worried
about the planning of this year's
commencement,

 

