Highacres Collegian MRS. BODENSTEIN RECEIVES GIFT (Mrs. Bodenstein pictured above receiving gift.) Lia Ciotola and Bonnie Bangor representing the Highacres student body, presented Mrs. Elizabeth Bodenstein with a Sylvania Porta ble television set, as a going away gift. Mrs. Bodenstein is going to the Geisinger Medical Center for an operation on her hip which will take her away from the Campus for Spring Term. A card was sighed by all the students involved and also given to Mrs. Bodenstein. The presenta tion took place before Mr. Harold Aurand’s March Bth TGIF discus sion. It was presented to make Mrs. Bodenstein’s hospital stay more comfortable and as a reminder of the students. Mrs. Bodenstein said: “Itshowed your faith in me as your friend and teacher. You see, teaching is largely an act of faith. There are no immediate results and one just has to go on, sometimes in doubt, sometimes lacking in the feeling of achievement. Now with this won derful gift from all of you, with this demonstration of your faith in me, you have restored my faith, thus enabling me to continue to work with you and serve you better. Thank you all again for your loving kindness.” DRAFT LAWS AGAIN QUESTIONED The present draft laws are un fair, but the discontinuance of de ferments to graduate students should not generate alarm. What should be alarming is the fact that deferments of this type were ever granted, and that deferments are still granted to undergraduate stu dents. The present method of grant ing deferments is a system of un fair discrimination against those who decided against entering col lege. It is hard to find adequate justification for granting a defer ment to almost anyone who occupies a classroom seat and drafting most of those who do not. Why should a boy who neglected his studies be cause he loved to toy and monkey with machines become a toy soldier caught in the machinery of guer rilla warfare? How ironical that he should be maliciously disfigured by the violent blows of a sharp machete while his “peers”, his “equals”, are taking fencing les sons, watching Combat or safely reading a book in the “Democra tic” country. The present deferment system parallels the situation that existed during the civil war, when a small sum of money could buy a substi tute for a man who did not want to serve his country. Today’s sys tem is even worse for it is the school’s bursar who receives the money, not the substitute drafter. Whether the Vietnamese war is necessary to preserve national security is immaterial when ex emptions are considered. Who is to say which youth is more im portant, the eighteen yejar oid munitions plant worker Or the eighteen year old college student with an undecided major. , If the draft keeps draining the economy of its common laborer, how effec- tive or important will the future engineers and future leaders be? What outstanding conditions warrant coddling the students by excluding him from serving his country? Will bullets penetrate deeper into his flesh than into the body of those presently in the Ar my? Wi l l he miss a fraternity party? The. only fair solution is that of inducting all men immediately following their eighteenth birthday. This action would not frustrate education. The desire for educat ion would not be quenched after two years of military service. If it should be, then the thirst was nev er very great. The complaint now, should not be “Why are graduate students deferments discontinued?”, but rather “Why should the undemo cratic practice of undergraduate exemptions continue? COLLEGIAN STAFF Editor-in-Chief Lia Ciotola Assistant Editors— John Gallagher Greg Wolfe Jeff Mason Joan Sole/ Mike Hager IStudent Affairs Editor- Sports Editor- Circulation Editor- Photographer— Robert Fogarty Bonnie Bangor Mary Stalgaitis Roseann Puhak Rosemary Sochka Pat McElwee Miss Susan Goodman Reporters- Advisor- Page 3
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers