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