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EDITORIAL
1 — «
Readers Urges
More Involvement
In this, our last editorial of the year, we want to
address ourselves to the class of 1976-77:
For most of you, next year will be your last year of
college. That year will be the one you’ll remember as
either a meaningful or meaningless experience. It’s,
your choice.
Our advice to you: get involved. It’s that simple, but
it can make all the difference. There are some 35
student organizations on this campus. Be active in just
one. It’s the only way you can make these 215 acres of
higher education mean something for you personally.
There are also numerous faculty and staff
committees here that need student representation. Get
yourself on one, and fight for what you believe in.
This school is you, every one of you. If next year is
a good one for you, it’s because you made it good. If
it’s a bad one, your noninvolvement made it that way
and to quote one of our more quotable professors here,
“That’s your problem.”
A college education can be more than attending
classes and grades. But the “more” is up to you. Don’t
leave here with just reams of notes you’ll never look at
again. Get involved.
Letters To The Editor
It's Not Radical To Use
Our Consititution
After about three weeks
of quiet investigating and
one week of screaming as
loud as I consider civil, Ifeel
that I have gained a
reasonable command of
knowledge of security on
this campus.
Since too many people
were so busy chewing on
Chief Paul to hear my civil
screaming Til have one more
go at it before I shut up and
worry about myself for 3V*
months.
Okay, Chief Paul has a
public relations problem.
Some of it (but damn little)
stems from where he has
spent a subtantial portion of
his life. Counter-intelli
gence has little relation to
higher education, but most
of the problem is on our
side. Automatically dis
trusting a man because of
his uniform is just as asinine
as judging by skin color.
Meet him sometime.
The Office of Student
Affairs presently performs
the function of prosecutor,
town manager, part-time
judge, and police commi
ssioner. Jerry South is a
good and decent man as well
as a superior administrator,
but the “Federalist Papers”
say this should never
happen. I’ve been told that
there will be changes. This
agnostic fervently prays that
they will will be substanitive.
We are lucky enough to
be very close to the State
Capitol. If we had the
collective balls to march en
masse down there next year
and scream blue bloody
murder for a Marajuana
Decriminalization Act we
could save our younger
brothers and sisters from a
world of hurt that we have
lived through.
Now that I have by
horrible accident become a
Dauphin County resident I
intend to work and vote
against the insensitive clods
presently serving as magi
strate and District Attorney.
I hope my fellow county
residents will do the same.
For those of you who
want an island from law
enforcement, I gleefully look
forward toward the moment
when you need a cop. I hope
he isn't there.
To summerize- Our jus
tice system should have all
the checks and balances
built into it that the state and
Federal justice system has.
Some state laws must be
changed. We can help
change them.
Our police cannot exer
cise discretion after they
receive an outside com
plaint There is a Ist class
misdemeanor called malfea
Is Ignorance
The Excuse?
Your Editorial column of
May 13, 1976, was mis
leading and deceptive.
You made reference to
‘unequal legal representa
tion’ between John Lane and
Deborah Peabody. Hie point
is that John Lane was at a
disadvantage. Ms. Peabody
was not a party to the
hearing on May 3, 1976. The
charges were made against
Mr. Lane by the University.
Ms. Peabody was only a
witness on behalf of the
University. As such, she is
subject to be cross exam
ined. I cross examined her
just like I cross examined
each witness for the
University.
Your Editorial, like some
of the other articles which
appeared in the May 13,
1976, edition, has reached a
conclusion without benefit
of proper knowledge about
the facts and background of
C.C. Rudlf
The Vagabond Is
Jobless But Free
By Leonard E. Brewster
Assit Prof., Humanities
and Philosophy
Nothing is more common
these days than pompous
and naive-that is to say,
professorial - exhortations
about the humanities.
The concern is employ
ment. Students do not take
humanities courses for they
are less likely to get jobs if
they do. We who teach such
courses must reverse the
trend for fear of losing pur
jobs.
One of the most common
arguments directed to this
purpose is the “Its-All-a
-Mistake” argument. Insur
ance companies, its adher
ents maintain, have a secret
passion--secret even to
themselves I think -for ac
tuaries who can scan a line
of Wordsworth; and the Civil
Service Examiners will pass
only those who know the
Aristotelian predicaments.
sance and nonfeasance. I
have personally witnessed
discretion from this depart
ment when they themselves
have discovered the viola
tion. I look forward to Dr.
South’s July report. It might
(I hope) meet all our needs.
If it doesn’t or isn’t
accepted, we will simply
have to keep fighting until
there is nothing left to fight.
I once promised myself
that I would never be a
college radical. But a
balanced and fair criminal
justice system was some
thing that was thought of,
fought and died for two
hundred years ago. I
thought.
Thanks for listening,
Ray Martin
this case,
It frightens me when
some omnipotent soul sets
up a system, polices that
system, makes the rules for
the operation of that system
and then sits in judgement
of all who violate the
unpublished rules/
If this University claims
to have a fair and impartial
system of judging its
students, it certainly was not
displayed on May 3, 1976.
The fact that your staff,
some ad-hoc members of the
Hearings Board (husbands
included) and the University
community have not been
able to discern the real
parameters of this case
indeed unfortunate. Maybe
ignorance is the excuse.
John M. Jones
Assistant Professor
of Business
Law and fasnraneo
Thus students just don’t
understand how quickly they
will be snapped up if they
will only major in English
literature or ancient philo
sophy. Unfortunately there
is little sign that employers
understand this either.
But there is always "The
Better Person Argument” in
which it is conceded that
humanities courses do
nothing to get you a job, but
in which it is also
maintained that you will be a
better person for having
taken them. But this
proposition evaporates as
soon as it is discovered that
no one-least of all a
humanist-knows what it is
to be a good person much
less a better one.
I adhere to a third
position which I choose to
call “The Vagabond Argu
ment.” Very briefly, it holds
that the purpose of humani
ties courses is to render the
students who take them
unemployable, that is to
say—useless.
This is accomplished by
treating as exemplary unem
ployable, useless people.
Furthermore, what is at
tended to in such figures is
exactly what made them
unemployable and useless.
We study in Socrates, for
Faci^^JFonun^
instance, his habit of
hanging about the market
place asking impertinent
questions of those who
might have helped him get
ahead. Naturally, anyone
who treats someone like
Socrates as worthy of
imitation, can hardly expect
to impress the recruiter from
Pringle's Potato Chips.
But the advantages of
being even more intimately
linked through employment
with a fundamentally corrupt
society such as our own are
easily exaggerated.
As we continue to
subvert foreign govern
ments, plot the assasination
of their leaders and gorge
ourselves in the presence of
their starvation ( or in the
The Capitol Campus Reader
The Pennsylvania State University
The Capitol Campus
Middletown, Pennsylvania 17057
ph. 717-944-4970
The C.C. Reader Is published by the students at Capitol
Campus every two weeks during the fall, winter and spring
terms. Printing is done at the Middletown Press and Journal.
The Reader office Is located in W-129, Main Building.
The opinions expressed in this newspaper do not
necessarily represent the views of the students, faculty or
staff of Capitol Campus or The Pennsylvania State
University.
Paid advertisements in the Reader are not necessarily
endorsed by the editors or staff.
Office Hour* Spring Term
4th period 12:1$ to 1:30 p.m.
Wld
6th period 3:05 to 4:20 p.m.
Edltor-InChlef.
Associate Editor.
A sal stent Editor..
Photography Editor '.. Meric Switzer.
Business Manager. Tom Grogan
Advertising Manager Robert Bennett
Assistant Advertlalng Manager. Robin Platt*
Suit Jean Beany, Randy Fee, Rebecca Oswald, Deborah Young, VliglnU
Lehman, William Kane, Vem Martin, John Leierzapf, Mark Appleby
Pettis Stanchak, Ray Martin,
Hot Uon Coordinator.
Faculty Advteer
Typaeatter*
May 27, 1976
Dr. Leonard Brewster
ultimate refinement of deca
dence, adopt expensive
diets), we might reflect on
the impracticality of doing
anything on the assumption
that such a society will last
out the decade.
However, even if we were
not suirounded by such
reeking decay, we might still
ask whether wo as human
beings are meant to be mere
instruments to someone
else’s purpose, in other
words, employed and useful.
This is the question that the
life and activities of Socrates
suggests, and the answer
seems obvious: human
beings are supposed to have
their own purposes.
The reason for studying
literature, philosophy, mu
sic, and the other utterly
useless, but peculiarly hu
man disciplines is to show
what having one’s own
purpose or, what comes to
the same thing, being free as
a human being is all about.
In each of these subjects
man appears, not as a victim
of an alien world, but as the
maker of his own world. And
to overcome and even bend
to your own purpose that
which would enslave you is
to be free.
The purpose of the
humanities is thus to
nurture and promote unem
ployability, which is just
another word for freedom. If
we as teachers of the
humanities fail to do this, we
shall become, by a just
irony, the same type of
dreary functionary we there
by produce.
Phyllis Schaaffar
Qairy Achanbach
...John Sianchak
Paul Balll*, Social Commltlaa Chairman
Dr. Malvyn Habar
Oaborah Young,
■Kaisn Plckana, Robert L. Fisher Jr.