ustxtxb_obs_1969_10_24_50_00013-00000_000.pdf

Check one or both: Enclosed is S5.00. Please enter my subscription to Space City News for one year. Enclosed is my generous contribution in the amount of S Mail To: Name Space City News Observer Ad Address 1217 Wichita Houston, Tex. 77004 City State Zip Space City News, Houston’s bi-weekly new left tabloid of politics and culture. housing regulations permitting women 22 and over to live off-campus for the first time in the school’s 79-year history. A code of student conduct and a disciplinary appeals system have been set up. Kamerick and faculty members recently organized a faculty senate, to act as an advisory body to the president. The senate consists of 47 voting faculty members and two nonvoting students. Kamerick was instrumental in the hiring of NTSU’s first black administrator, T. J. Lee Jr., of Dallas, who became assistant dean of students June I. Against formidable odds, Kamerick also is pushing the search for black faculty members. North Texas, for financial reasons, is unable to compete in the currently high-priced contest for qualified blacks. And, Denton still keeps Negroes “in their place.” Whites control housing around the university and refuse to rent to blacks. And, blacks otherwise interested. in teaching at North Texas, take one look at “Shacktown” the mini-ghetto where they would have to live and turn down the offers. Nonetheless, Kamerick says, “It is certainly my intention … that we integrate this faculty as soon as possible.” Despite the absence of black instructors, a course in Afro-American history was conducted last fall and spring, and regular American history courses offered increased emphasis on black contributions and on the origin of racism in the United States. Courses in Afro-American literature, art, and other subjects were planned this fall. Despite his campus-wide popularity, however, Kamerick has not been rewarded with the level of student-faculty participation he hoped for. Still, the faculty, he feels, is growing increasingly “eager and anxious to become involved.” On the other hand, only 15% about 2,000 of NTSU’s student body participates in campus elections, mainly to elect cheerleaders and homecoming queens. Student government stirs up no emotions, and offices up for grabs often see only one candidate and a few hundred votes. Kamerick nonetheless feels that the best way to reach the student body is through its elected representatives, and in an effort to strengthen student government and participation in it he has turned to the long-forgotten student senate for appointments to university committees. Students now serve on 19 university committees, mainly as advisors a practice almost unheard of at North Texas before Kamerick. The campus, Kamerick feels, is the place to solve campus problems, “if it can be done. We have to show a lot of restraint and patience, and we have to do the best we can to make sure that the avenues are open as much as possible for every complaint to be heard. That’s mostly what I’ve tried to do this year, hear what the complaints are and try to correct them as much as we can.” AT LEAST some students and faculty have been impressed apparently by Kamerick’s ability to create change, and by his message “to get involved.” Student radicals who have made no headway with tent-revival attempts to convert NTSU’s conservative student body are turning their eyes toward campus politics, which they conceivably could overrun Viva Max! style, and toward underground journalism, which they can’t afford. Students who normally sit on their duffs in the student union can now get involved, at least, in a fast game of ping-pong or pool. The three-story building previously offered only soft-drink machines, one television, and numerous chairs. If more money were available, Kamerick says he would establish “a university press and a good daily newspaper.” But money not campus violence is the big problem facing North Texas, and Kamerick is disappointed with the Texas Legislature and the Dallas Chamber of Commerce. Higher education in Texas “isn’t funded well at all,” Kamerick feels. “It’s hard to get over to the Legislature that we are in competition with the big schools in the Midwest and with some schools in the East. I don’t believe they [the Legislature] understand what a big gap there is … and there is a big gap [financially ] .” The recent approval of a University of Texas at Dallas 40 miles away did nothing to improve the outlook. North Texas already has experienced a levellingoff in undergraduate enrollment, Kamerick October 24, 1969 13 It’s nice to know how others view us: A journal of “considerable influence in Texas public life.”THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, Oct. 22, 1967 “In 14 stormy years, the Austin-based bi weekly paper has tangled singiehandedly with oil and gas interests, exposed statehouse scandals, often made life painful for politicians in the land of Lyndon.”TIME, Sept. 27, 1968 “A respected journal of dissent.”THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE, March 2, 1969 “. . . that outpost of reason in the Southwest . ..”NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS, April 11, 1968 I’ . . . that state’s only notable liberal publication …”THE WASHINGTON POST, Nov. 25, 1968 It . . . delights in exposing the peccadilloes of the Texas establishment …”THE PROGRESSIVE, November 1968 “No doubt the best political journal in the state.”THE REPORTER, Nov. 30, 1967 “Time and again since its first appearance in 1954, the Observer has cracked stories ignored by the state’s big dailies and has had the satisfaction of watching the papers follow its muckraking lead.”NEWSWEEK, March 7, 1966 But a national reputation isn’t worth much unless it helps you, the occasional reader, decide that you need to be reading the TEXAS OBSERVER regularly. r HERE’S HOW THE TEXAS OBSERVER 504 West 24th Street Austin, Texas 78705 Enter a 1-year subscription, at $7.30 \(including 4 1J name \(please street city state I l Check enclosed \( I To be billed l SUBSCRIBERS: Don’t let this space go to waste. Please pass this copy on to a friend and make an “occasional reader” out of him, at the very least. Thanks.