Scarlet and Black

GRINNELL COLLEGE

Grimm". Iowa

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Pass-Fail Examined

Well, it’s not the first “pass~fail" grading system
west of the Mississippi and, while it represents a step

in the right direction, there are several points which
must be considered.

The system the faculty adpoted (they insist on
calling it “credit-fail") is a half-way sort of thing. In
this case, half-way may be worse than nothing at all,
The intention of the system, as stated by chairman of
the faculty Kenyon Knopf, is to encourage students to
reduce the "emphasis on particular grades.” The effect
of this compromise pass-fail system will more than
likely be sloppy, half-way work in the course elected
for pass-fail. Under the current system — grades in all
courses — the motivation for grades is equal in all
classes. Under a total “pass-fail" system the motiva-
tion resulting from grades is equal in all courses. Under
Grinnell’s hesitant step toward “pass-fail," the motiva-
tion is unequal. Why work toward a “C” level of
achievement in a graded course and a passfail course
when there’s the possibility of working more in the
graded course and getting a “B" and working less in

the pass~fai1 course and getting the same mark,

“credit”? The example, obviously, is exaggerated It
does, however, present the case.

The fault with the case stated above is that the stu-
dents may well be mature and self-disciplined enough
to work in their pass-fail course for the sheer sake of
knowledge, They may well resist the temptation to use
the paSS<fail system to lighten their work load and do
just what the faculty and administration is against,

' fight for grades for grades’ sake.

I think it’s curious that the faculty and administra-
tion seem to have this attitude about the students of
Grinnell. I find it curious in light of their attitude to-
ward the student’s maturity and self-discipline with
regard to their non~academic life (we might stretch a
point and call it their social life). I’m referring, of
course, to the so-called North Campus problem.

It’s the feeling on the part of the administration
and faculty that the “style of life" on North Campus is
not conducive to study, They offer solutions which in-
clude replacing student»elected enforcement officers
with administration~appointed "senior advisers” or
“preceptors.” They suggest isolating freshman from the
“corrupting” influence of upperclassmen. These solu-
tions all indicate that the faculty and administration
have the lowest regard for the maturity and self—disci-
pline of students when it comes to regulating their “out
of class affairs.”

It is this uncertain view the administration and
faculty have of students that concerns me They seem
to view us“ on the one hand as responsible and on the
other irresponsible. It seems unlikely to me that a stu—
dent responsible enough to use the "pass-fail” system
with integrity would be guilty of the gross irresponsi-
bility that faculty and administration fee] exists in his
social life.

I think that before the faculty and administration
go further with their reforms they ought to form some
concrete, coherent, and consistent View of the student
bOdy.

SCARLET AND BLACK

Wilbur lenks

Friday. January 2:, 1m

Jenks’ Journal

I have been accused ol’ overwriting. Overwriling
I take to mean a disparity between the level of dis-
course and the subject matter. My only problem is
that I‘ve been trying to drive Cadillacs through corn-
fields,

In this. my filth entry, 1 am going to write about
a subject that most dearly affects the minds and
hearts of even the most insensitive among us, a sub-
ject more grave than genius, war, or selllessness.
Humble though it may seem, it is a precursor in
the most overwhelming and implacable immensiues
of the universe that emerge from the hidden anony-
mities of external and impossible objective existence.
A hard and brutal fact that brings grief and sorrow.
in the utmost privacy, to each one of us. and through
whatever machinations we may attempt to conceal
our woes from our heartless fellows, however we
might attempt to contort the natural but dark in-
clinslions of our faces, it pierces and is ever-present
and uncontrollable, a tragedy that strikes daily with-
in our midst, known to all but unknown to any.

Morning breaks intrusively and unconditionally,
and we are lorn by the eternal and nameless forces
of the cosmos to rise, to encounter of our own in-
ternal resources and blind necessity and incessant
blows of consciousness, or to remain in the wet.
warm and maternal unconsciousness where fancies
and vain imagining: sport and play upon the table
of our minds_ that abstract field of pathos and de-
sire. Here we are unborn and immersed in utter sat-
isfaction, there we are cold and defenseless against
the ruthless insults of infinite nature. But the shriek-
ing and mechanical bursts that eminate from the
most heinous of man’s devices, the alarm clock,
hastens to the extreme of mortal shock our re-
sponse to the necessity of decision. As it moved by
the sell-same electricity that charges with motion
the planets themselves, those heavenly and myster-
ious Christmas tree ornaments, we leap with a
force that in a space of time immeasurable by (he
most precise of instruments sternly dictates our as-
cent to the pristine level of the ceiling, upon which,
in great consternation and belligerence against the
malevolent powers to which man is servant, we
bump our heads, Ripped from the intensely soft and
silky hands of sleep! Desperately we grape and fur-
age through the vast wasteland of our undignified
and degraded language, crying for a curse that has
clung to meaning, one appropriate to these most
dire of circumstances. But none, alas. is to be found.
The ages have worn away the razor edge of meaning,
leaving only the most blunt and ineffective, archaic
and dim reminder of those subterranean chamber]

that once struck the most profound oi terrors into
the hearts of sinful men: “Dammit."

But the harsh realities. low temperature and in-
tense light, of our insurmountable monotony of walls,
the unsympathetic geometries of human artifacts
and edifices, burgeun and iorlily our power lo en-
dure, yea. even willfully encounter, with a noble and
rebellious spirit, zhe tasks and ceremonies of living,
that sublime and cosmic dance upon the brow of an
Omnipotent and omnipresent W. C. Fields. We are
simple men, doleful humankind, paradoxes of bestial
and angelic, carrying within us the tension that is
the source of all fruition and of death, of rebirth and
even of love. oh love! oh God! From whence comes
this unkind necessity? We get up. We scratch our
armpits.

But the terror and harrowing footlalls of our
nightly voyage have infected our mouths and indeed.
our viscera. the stronghold of our passions and most
intimate of satisfactions, with various and sundry
poisons. Our tongues, arbiter: of rumor and truth,
undying flames of wickedness and righteousness.
seem strangers to the mucoid cavity in which the
tweezers oi God have placed them It seems coated,
on what insidious factory could concoct such a loatlh
some substance, with Elmer's Glue-Alli Desperate
for relief, We stagger and plead our way to the
wash basin. white and pure citadel of cleanliness.
where one of the most overwhelming oi the achieve<
ments of modern technology, Crest toothpaste, purges
us of the potential corruption, the tarnished smile
and repulsive breath, that the evils of the night
have threatened That done, we urgently advance
to those tasks too intimate to mention, too satisfy-
ing for description. Thus prepared, we set out into
the day 4

But the greatest sorrows, the subject of my entry.
lay ahead. In the unioreseeable and unfathomable
distance that separates the present from the future
in perfldious time and unconquerable space, waits a
death more to be feared than death itself. A priva-
uon and disappointment that daily challenges the ell-
pectancy of the most noble heart. Passing apprehen-
sively through the unrecognizable and unlormed
faces of earlysmorning humanity, we move unalter-
ably, obsessed by a single goal. At that goal lies
the significance or an entire universe outside of our
own, one which nourishes our hopes and dreams,
fulfills our need for love and our craving for identity.
As we move closer we silently pray for a bountiful
outcome. Then, reinforcing our entire being against
the likelihood of profound disappointment. we face
the bleak but unquenchable truth: an empty mail-
box, 0h heavens] What great sorrows we endure!

 

Paul Robert‘s

Roberts Rules Of Disorder

 

You see I was sitting there in
this bar in Chicago Well, it wasn't
just a bar. They had this banjo
band and pitchers of beer and
people were swaying back and
forth singing songs that were pop»
Illar decades before they were
born.

And, well, they started playing
college songs. They played “on
Wisconsin" Ind several old Wis-

cousin grads stood up and cheered
and sang. And lhey played the
Natl-e Dame tight song and the
lllinois song and they even played
Iowa (pronounced with a long “A”
iwhel‘e the roll corn grows and
like that). They played several
more and lkept sitting there
waiting for, “Here Come the Pio-
neers," Those chords that would
sul- my inner loyalty to my home
on he prairie, those chords that
would bring all [he Grinnellians in
ma place lo their ieetijust like
lha Wisconsin, Notre Dame and
lilinois poop); And then the band
played something about “hack

1 ludiana" and a “l"«liib'

 

ling wreck from Georgia Tech"
and the "Eyes at Texas". I knew
we’d be next. i ordered another
pitcher of beer for the occasion
Tile band turned melancholy for a
tune with “Baa Baa Black Sheep."

And then you can imagine my
surpn'se when the lead banjo
player announced a fifteen minute
break Well, I wasn't about to let
that happen. I jumped to my feet
and hollcred, “What about the
‘Pioneers of Old Grinnell'?"

“What school was that kid?" he
hollcred back.

“Grinnell.”

“You mean the school in lrha-
ca?” someone sclcamed.

"No, srupid," someone else bel»
lowed. “The school in Mt. Ver-
non."

No, no,” i rejoined. “Grimell,
with a “G" in Grinnell, Iowa."

And then they starred shoul‘ng
things like “sit down" and “go
away" and "leave the band a7
lone” and “who's ever heard of
Grinnell anyway,"

“You boobs." l countered in

 

sch-defense, “The average hoard
scores at Grimell are twice any-
thing you ever gar. We put more
people into grad school each year
than, than you’ll ever know,"

Then I threw in my trump card.
“And besides, OUR school song is
me oldesr \Vestoi‘ the Mississippi."

Miraculously reverent, church-
like slill came over the place. i
could hear people whispering ira
the oldest school snug west or rhe
Mississippi.

"0h, hid, I'm sul'fly,” said the
band leader In n rruly apologetic
manner. “it I'd only known. Ir
moan, rile oldest school song west
of [he MiSSlssippi. it you sing it
to us we'd all like to learn it so
we can sing it too," The crowd
joined in agreement.

And that’s when I realized it.
I didn’t know the Grinnell song,
"Well,"l srutteged, “it's about
these pioneers {13m Old Gl'inncll
and. well. . . ." l sank back into
the shadows, ashamed, drank an-
oa‘ier pitcher of beer and sung the
Nou'e Dame fight sang.