PAGE FOUR Editorial Opinion Early Fee Payment An uncooperative state legislature forced the Uni versity to tighten its financial belt last summer. That move precipitated several new policies, many of which are unfair to the students. One of these unfair regulations is the requirement that all students must pay their room and board fee and tuition a month before the start of the term. A $25 late fee is charged for failure to comply with this ruling. Until August 6 University policy had allowed students to pay their fees at anytime up until the time of registra tion. Then, without warning or previous announcement, the University instituted the new policy, just 19 days before the fee payment deadline. We realize that the indecisiveness of the legislature and their failure to grant a portion of the additional funds requested by President Walker might have precipitated a financial crisis for the University in August. But since the University survived the immediate crisis and since the increase in tuition and room and board is supposed to make up for the money not granted by the legislature, we see no reason for continuing the policy requiring payment a month in advance. The financial hardship that the pre-payment ruling creates for many students is obvious since it cuts off another four weeks from their earning time. It should be noted that this ruling is in direct contradiction to Uni versity policy of last year. When the four-term plan was announced, University policy-makers lauded the long Christmas vacation as a period in which students could earn extra money 'to help pay the fees for the winter term. But the new fee ruling nullifies that possibility be- cause winter term fees must be paid by December 8, the first day of the Christmas vacation. Past statistics indicate that most students pay their fees before "the last minute." Nevertheless,' University administrators claimed that the elimination of that "last minute rush" was the purpose for the new ruling. They also asserted that the advance payment will allow the University to have an accurate count of the number of students planning io live in residence halls. We cannot understand why the University needs pre payment of fees to .estimate the number of residence hall occupants that will report for classes. The halls have been filled to the point where students were living in linen closets in the past few years. We see no valid reason why the University should impose a hardship on the students by requiring payment of fees a month before registration. We call upon the University to revert to its former policy of allowing - students to pay their fees any time before registration. Informing the Students The Senate Committee on Student Affairs will soon be considering a newly revised constitution for student government. It is a constitution that has taken innumerable man hours of discussion. It was obviously needed from the inception of the past SGA and should be considered with especial care by the committee. A constitution,-after all, shapes the government it was created to guide. And student government this year, as was evidenced in the SGA workshop of encampment, is seeking to expand its area of defined jurisdiction over the students it represents. This constitution brings representation down to the basic living areas, closer than was ever before attempted. In line with this close representation and expanded power we ask that the SGA President and the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Student Affairs issue regular statements of the committee's progress so that the students will be prepared to undertake support and leadership in their government. A Student-Operated Newspaper 57 Years of Editorial Freedom. O'llr• Daily Tilllrgittu Successol. to The Free Lance, est. 1887 Published Tuesday through Saturday morning during thr Ilniversity year. The Daily Collegian is a str u lent•operated newspaper. Entered as second-class matter July 5, 1934 at the State College. Pa. Pest Office under, the act of March 3, 1979. Mail Subscription Pricer 46.00 a year Mailing Address Box 261, State College, Pa. JOHN BLACK Editor °IMO" THE DAILY COLLEGIAN. UNIVERSITY PARK. PENNSYLVANIA WAYNE HILINSKI Business Manager c osP ~. \ ~..,,or,, ,p...=,,„„ 11l 1 ..itzz, I`7lir 1 `71ir • ' NI 0=3,... J........,_ .. 7 4 ; ! .. : • :. . : , 4E1E22 11 ti 11 i 2 t, 0 , 1.1 WHAT COLOR (S A PEACE CONFERENCE? Letters Chaplain Asks Spirit, Even in Loss TO THE EDITOR: As one who is majoring in "spirit-ology," I wish to make some state ments about the Penn State- Miami game: *Observation: At the begin ning of the game, Penn State seemed to have more spirit than Miami, but with each un fortunate setback to a promis ing drive, it appeared that Penn State became dis-spirited, whereas Miami's spirits rose. •Comment: Naturally! Who wouldn't be somewhat dis couraged under the circum stances? oQue.Stion: Are we interest ed only in sharing the glory of a winner, the honor of a high national rating? (Apart from not winning on the scoreboard, what did the team or coaches do to justify the noisy condem nation of some of the fans in Rec Hall?) •Request: Let's reverse the process and support our team with strong school spirit. Since spirit is a basic factor in the performance of the team, we should not leave it all to the players and coaches! o Short Sermon: If God wait ed to offer His grace to those who were already winners in the game of life, no one would ever win. —Robert Boyer University Baptist Chaplain Gazette Alpha Kappa Poi, 7 p.m., Kappa Sig• Alpha Lambda Delta, 13:3O p.m., HUB ballroom Angel Flight Pledges, 6 :20 p.m., 101 Wagner AWS Elections. 7 p.m., 212 HUB Block "S," 6 p.m., 212 HUB Ed. Student Council, 6:15 p.m., 215 HUB Folklore Sec., 10 a.m., HUB ground floor Freshman Customs, 6:30 p.m., 218 HUB Greek Week Exchange Dinners, 8:15 p.m., 214 HUH Greek Week Phamplilet Comm., 9 p.m., 915 HUB Jars Club, 7 p.m. 10 Sparks Jazz Club Booth, 11 a.m., HUB ground floor Junior IFC. 7:30 n.m., Assembly Hall, HUB MI Student Council, 9 p.m., 216 HUB Penhel, 6:30 p.m.. 203, 217 HUB P.S. Bible Fellowship, 12 :15 p.m., 212 HUB Sciluhplattlers, 7 p.m., 301 End A. Senior Claes Adr, Group, 8:16 p.m., 817 HUB Interpreting Flames Grow Dim For The Present By J. M. ROBERTS Associated Press News Analyst Several developments in the last few days have served to take some of the heat out of the international situation. Foreign Secretary Lord Home of Britain said he thought, after talking to Secretary of State Dean RUsk and Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko of the U.S.S.R., that the Soviets had finally been convinced they were ac tually on a collision course with the United States This enhanced the feeling that has been growing for some days that the Soviet Union, while perhaps signing the "paper treaty - with the East Germans about which Presi dent Kennedy said he was not concerned, will actually back away from any dangerous showdown this year over East German control of Allied access to 'West Berlin. Acif ai Stevenson, U.S. am bassador to the United Nations, has said he has "some expecta tions" the Soviets may yet come back to the nuclear test conference table. He did not go into what this would mean to Allied confi dence in any agreement that might be made only after the Soviets have completed all the tests they now want to make. The Soviets also seemed to realize their troika proposal for reorganizing the United Nations secretariat had been caught in a snowdrift. They came up with a face-saving proposal for a "little troika" undersecretariat without veto rights over a temporary secre tary general to serve out Dag Hammarskjold's term. There was no indication the Assembly would accept this, either. The prospects were for a rather colorless secretary general until the permanent succession fight is resumed next year. There was a possibility that final determination of the ap propriation for U.S. foreign aid in the next year would bring a simmering -down of some of the sell-seeking man euvering which the underde veloped nations have been do ing. Red China gave some lip Snowed A SANE Policy After surviving the confusion of registration, I walked with increasing speed toward the exit of Rec Hall where I was handed an impressive-looking sheet of paper. I slowed my gait and began to read it. Under the heading of "The Pennsylvania State University" and "Old Main" were three para graphs. The first was addressed "To All Students" and explained what nearly every student al ready knows will happen if a nuclear explosion were to occur in the vicinity. Although I just skimmed through that material, the mere thought of the dreadful topic transformed the jubilant stti. tude that comes with complet. ing registration to a serious, thoughtful one. But as I read further my mood changed again, and before completing the second para graph I was laughing loudly. That paragraph said "In the event of an alert on the campus or in State College, all student residents of campus residence halls are to report to their rooms immediately and remain there for further instructions from University officials." With harmful radioactive debris floating all through the stmosphere, does the University believe that students would be safer in their residence halls TUESDAY, OCTOBER 3. 1961 service to Soviet-type "coexist ence" for a change, in an ap parent effort to create con fusion about her aims among the neutrals as the fight over her U. N. membership ap proaches. But she made no reference to the one great demand of the United States, that she re nounced her promise to use force in the Formosa matter. Any contribution Red China might make to a period of greater calm can only be con sidered as strictly tactical and temporary. France contributed to the healing of a sore spot which had seriously embarrassed the Western world by beginning to withdraw her troops from the city of Bizerte back to her mil itary base there, following Tunisia's backdown from her demand for immediate French withdrawal from the country. The Syrian revolt appeared to have put an effective damper on the effoits of President Ga mal Abdel Nasser of Egypt to create a single Arab state in the Middle East and produce an ultimate federation with other new African states to consoli date his front against Israel and confront the world with a new power. These developments with re gard to Europe and the U.S.- Soviet confrontation thus ele vated Southeast Asia to the chief spot of danger in the world, with a new war appar ently beginning as the rainy season ends in Viet Nam and Laos. Whether the Chinese Reds, under great pressure for agri cultural expansion, would let their apparently hopeless bid for U.N. membership delay their action in Southeast Asia was a very debatable question. by joel myers than in the basement of a stone building. It seems that someone would have as much chance to survive the damaging effects of radio active debris in an open field as in a room on the seventh floor of a Pollock dormitory, waiting for a by-then contami. nated University official to make a decision. We don't doubt that the offi cial making that decision would think of the students ahead of his family and himself, but it seems that unless decisions of this sort have been made and carefully explained prior to the occurrence of a catastrophe they would be ineffective. It is unfortunate that at a time of fiscal crisis the Uni versity would choose to waste money for printing such an utterly useless notice. The only thing it accomplish ed was to reveal that the Uni versity lacks a nuclear policy. We hope any future funds, no matter how small, that are used for this purpose are di rected toward the development of a SANE nuclear policy.