Friday. September 9, I967

SCARLET AND BLACK

Page Three

 

A GUIDE FOR HARRIED FROSH:

HOW TO WIN PROFS
AND INFLUENCE GRADE POINTS

By DON WINNEY

As two—intellectuals. m u s r
freshmen right now are prob«
ably shaking traumatically. Afr
ter all, at an intellectual school
like Grinneil how can they im-
press anyone without embar<
assingly contcssing their medi-
ocre college board scores or ad-
mitting to everyone’s amuse
ment that they’re just not a Na-
tional Merit Scholar?

Well, let’s face it, both ad-
missions are just terribly
gauche at the Harvard of the
Midwest. But there is something
freshmen can do to Win friends,
influence profs, and escalate
gradepoints. Yes, future fellow-

ship followers, it just takes
thirty minutes for n more
powerful intellectual vocabulary
——or, as they say in intel-
lectuaiese, to verbalize the aca-
demic patois.

Now let’s take an example,
a conceptual example or course,
a typlcal sentence from a typi«
cal humanities paper written by
an atypical Grinnell freshman.
(All Grinnell students. accorda
ihg to the catalogue, are atypi-
cal although they may typical-
ly get C’s.) “King Lear,” writes
this terribly in n o c e n t fresh<
man, “is about life." Now im-
mediateiy it is obvious our
prep has made, us they say,
an egregious mistake—maybe
oven to fatunus one or, fortua
uately, maybe just a mistake.
You see, everything outside the
academic world and some
things in it, like IQ's, are
phenomena. The word phenom-
ena is a very useful one to
show that the prolessor has ob-
served something plural with a
thesaurus. To the uneducated
it’s just some iacts. Now, aca-
demically refined, we can
write, “The phenomenon of
King Lear is about life.”

But in our verbal utopia. noth-
ing ever “is." Some things
“militate towar 4" Other things
"militate against.“ But nothing
over “is." So next we must
write. “The phenomenon of
King Lear militates toward

life." But what about that word
life? Life Is an extremely am-
biguous term. filled with seem-
ing simplicity but really as
complex—as well, life It might
be confused with all kinds of
things, like the magazine. So
we need a word with more pro-
cision, a word with more ex-
pression. yes a word with more
impression. “The phenomenon
or King Lear" we write know-
ingly, “militate: toward the
human condition."

Now that’s beautiful. And It
expresses so much But, we
ask with the critical scholar’s
Eye, does it express enough?
Does it express those subtle
nuances ill thought, those sub
terranean layer: of symbolic
meaning? Unfortunately not. So
we must, as they say it
were, “explicitly explicate" the
thought. (A sentence, by the
way, ls always a complete
thought. although a thought may
not be a sentence unless, that
is, it is complete and only then
when it is Verbalized thusly ex-
cept if the sentence itself is
incomplete. See first humanities
lecture.) By explicitly explicat.
ihg, we supply more pertinent
information to the sentence
while using, naturally, the some
impressive precision in the orig-
inal thought (which is also I
complete sentence.)

“The phenomenon of King
lean," we write modestly,
“dramatically maximizing in
Elizabethan conceptualizations
the thesis theorized by William
Shakespeare, militates toward
the human conditiol '

How expressively these syl<
labies undulate; how impres-
sively they sonorously resound.
One look and the prof will
hastily write “very perceptive"
on your paper. B plus you, and
run swooning to the dictionary.
But that's not enough, He has
to be jealous; he has to faint
when he gets there. What’s
missing? Wily that suggestive
touch oi philosophy. or course,
that mystical mention of elusive
ideas.

Now I think the Vll‘ginal
freshman should be warned at
this point about introducing
orgiasiic thoughts into intel-
lectual intercourse, Favorite
philosophic terms will vary with
e u c h intellectual generation.
Several years ago, for example,
everyone. especially Huckleber-
ry Finn, was a latent homu<
sexual. Now King Lear may
very well be a latent homo-
sexual, (Please, I don't want
here in any way to make any
value judgment about the bene—
fits or costs of homosexuality
before running a costabenefit
analysis on the subject,) But it
is well to in him into a larger
cuntext,—lnto a broader frame
at reierence.—to which the pro
lessor can readily identify. (Un-
less, of course, your prof is a
latent homosexual in which case
it is best to be quite discreet).

Today the intellectual likes to

Iind existentialists, Existential-
ists are here, there, and every.
where, somewhat like the Bea-
tles, but not quite so turned on.
1n tact, most have turned nit
somewhere into a graveyard
where they wait hopefully to
be resurrected by a scholar
after—as it is. was, and were—
u desperately agonizing reap-
praisal. But don't worry. Som-
diligent scholar has already
done it, so just check the card
catalogue Then, decide what
kind of existentialist (King
Lear, for example, was written
before the term was invented).

Now ﬁnally, we are ready
tor that last lilting phrase intel~
lectuals love so much to use,
a phrase guaranteed to make
the prof scribble a quivering
A: in the final analysis. “In
the final analysis," we write
with perhaps a tinge of wena
earned humility, “the phenom-
enon oi King Lear. dramatical-
ly maximizing in Elizabethan
conceptualizations the thesis the-
orized by William Shakespeare,
militate: toward the human
condition in the historical con-
text of paleo—existerltialism."
There. Now wasn't that simple?

 

SWEDE’S GRINNELL LAUNDRY

GRINNELL'S ONLY HOME-OWNED

Serving Both North and South

Campus Agencies

Specializing in Shirts and Wash-Points

236-6072

AN MAL BEHAVIOUR

By No“ Fischer

When the winds of liberalism came to campus last semester,
“no hours for women students" was blown. The reason? Simple
—— it may get a little cold.

imagine, if you will, a North Campus boy and a South Cams
pus girl. The time is nearing midnight on a Saturday night. Both
have tinished their sundry assignments and, let us say, they'll
just lko to go somewhero and talk.

And they can. can't they? Aitor all, the progressive Grinnell
administration and student body passed “no hours for women
students."

They can go where they want and stay out as late as they
Want, They are free individuals capable or conducting themselve.
as beiits Grinnellians. Pretty little picture?

Not quite.

Imagine it in January, It is a minus two degrees outside.
The library closed last year nightly at about 11:15 pm, Thil
year it will close at 11:15 pm

The Forum closed last year at 12:30 am. on Saturday
nights. This year it will close at 12:30 am. on Saturday nights,

Hall lounges are ott limits at 12:30 a.rn. at the very latest,
and student rooms are only legal during the little periods on Sun-
day afternoons.

Downtown bars are expensive, The Shell diner — the only
place in town that stays open all night — Is far ironi campus.
The Monroe Hotel is a little indiscreet,

i’ll tell you what: They can sit outside in the Iowa winter
until they freeze into the cold. entirely moral statuettes all good
administrators yearn lor.

Ask the administration what good “no hours ior women"
does it you don’t have any place to go. They'll tell you they’re
working on it. Oh. yes, they'll tell you. Here are some samples:

Henry Alden, head oi Burling Library: “1 have been assured
that [here will be no change in library hours this year.”

Mrs. R. A. Hawk, manager of the Forum: “1 don’t expect
any change . , t We don’t expect to be open any later this year,
and 1 haven’t had any indication from anybody that any place
will be open any later.”

Dean Winters: “I don't know, and I make no comment a!
this time. This is something that will have to be considered by
the 196168 Student Affairs Committee. . .”

The clean added that the Student Affair! Committee hasn't
scheduled a meeting. “I don't know when the first meeting will
be."

But Dean Thompson probably best elucidated the “no hour:
for women students” situation a: it stands — and i do mean
“stands":

"No one should accuse us of bad faith, because this it
something that should have been thought about harder before.

"And it you want action, you'll have to push the members or
the (Student Affairs) committee.

“We are a school that looks at the things we do from every
possible angle . . . Sometimes we look so hard we don’t take
enough action,

“if you want to tell them something, tell lhem to tell tlm
committee members to come to a meeting. Don't let just a few
come - not enough to do anything. Get them all there and tell
them what you want. Don‘t let them just pass the proposal
around for inspection a week later in a (campus mall) en-
velope, .

So, tor a starter, l’m telling you just what the deans told
me, Right rrom the horses' mouths, you might say.

Now, kiddies, get angry and tell them — Mr. Burma, Mr.
Bowers, Mr, Magee, Mr. Wall, Dean Low, Dean Thompson, Dean
Winters and Dean Stauss — that you want someplace to go late
at night,

If you don’t, ”no hours for women students" isn't worth a
tlnker’s damn, your freedom is worth nothing, and your mind!
must have been blown away by the Winds of liberal small talk.

 

FORUM
COFFEE HOUSE

OPENS FRIDAY 8 PM.

KIRSCHNER SINGS

10 PM.

Koffee

 

