Pasadena Chronicle, January 10, 1936

CONSTITUTION AMENDMENTS CONSIDERED aticna Chronicle STUDENT BODY ELECTION MONDAY Vol. XXVII Pasadena, California, January 10, 1936 No. 12 Seek To Give Mandatory Powers To Executive Elections For Coming Semester Take Place Two Days Next Week Polls Open Monday To Elect AMS and AWS Prexies As Well As Class Representatives; Presidential Race To Be Run Off Next Friday Although the Schwartz vs. Deisenroth tug-o’-war is reserved for the finals, the primary election of the student body Monday presents collegians the opportunity to vote on the proposed amendments and select from the field of all other elective officers. Supervised by the election board, polling booths will be opened first period in the morn¬ ing to continue through the day.' Final elections are scheduled for the following Friday. The upper classes will choose two from the field to run in the Friday election. Bill Caldwell, Kit Cartwright and Lloyd Howard are contesting for the senior chair. Juniors will choose from Tom Som- merville and Phil Hawgood. Stu¬ art Russell, Tom Stevens, Bill Feasley and Paul Tubman will run for sophomore president. The associated men students will vote for their officers from the fol¬ lowing field: president, Kenneth Collins, Fred Isslieb and John Mc¬ Donough; vice-president, Bob Campbell and Elwood Phillips; sec¬ retary, Jack Anderson and treasu¬ rer, Herbert Grammel. Members of the A. W. S. will select from Marjorie Betts, lone candidate for president; Ellen Lombard and Shirley Smith, vice- presidents; Alberta Anderson, sec¬ ond vice-president ; Charlotte Bak- kela, Evelyn Munn, Jeanette Moore and Mildred Schmertz, sec¬ retary; Elsie Brocksieper, Lucille Cook, Barbara Milliken and Lenore Wilcox, treasurer. Ray Kahn is the only candidate Tor associate justice. Presided over by Associate Jus¬ tice Jane Hazenbush, this morn¬ ing’s assembly will feature the in¬ troduction of and short speeches by the candidates who will contest for student body offices in the elec¬ tion next week. Results of the election will be broadcast between classes over the public address sys¬ tem. Semi-Annual R.I.C.C. Hop To Be Held Bob Mohr’s Aggregation To Play For Formal At Vista Hotel Preliminaries For Oratorv Contest Set Preliminaries for the Davis-Hall oratory contest will be held on February 11 in 2-C from two to four o’clock, with “Youth Faces a Changing World” as the main theme. Speeches should be mem¬ orized, and last at least seven min¬ utes. Finals will be held at a Rotary club luncheon, and prizes are to be given to both upper and lower division winners. The contest was first established in 1907 by J. Herbert Hall and the late M. W. Davis. The year 1932 marked the division of the contest in two parts for the upper and lower division contestants, and winners since then have been Wil¬ liam Dunkerly, William Jenkins, 1932; Louis Lagrave, Frederic Warriner, 1933; Dow Parkes, Katherine West, 1934; and Carl Diesenroth and Jesse Harvey in 1935. Mrs. Irene S. Peters, who is in charge of the contest, has been working on a record of winners in the past, and any knowledge of the winners for the years of 1908, 1909, and 1914 would be appreci¬ ated. The surprise announcement and coronation of a king of the ball club formal dance to be held to¬ morrow evening in the ballroom of the Vista del Arroyo. Bob Mohr and his orchestra will furnish the music for the affair which is spon¬ sored by the women’s social clubs on the campus. Ten candidates are now being considered for finals of the king. All clubs were asked to nominate some one “campus hero” and from the original group were chosen the ten finalists by a judging commit¬ tee of five club presidents. Bertille Glanville, restrictive in¬ ter-club council president, and Hel¬ en Sperry, secretary, are in charge of the evening’s program and re¬ mind the women that no corsages are to be worn to the dance. This is in accordance with a tradition of long standing. The school administrative offi¬ cers, the board of representatives, club advisers and the parents of the council officers have been in¬ vited to be guests at the dance. Last years’ dance sponsored by the women was held at the Alta- dena Golf club while the dance given by the men during the spring semester was at the Hotel Mary¬ land. A.G.S. Heads Attend Meet Three faculty members attended the Alpha Gamma Sigma advisers’ conference held at Laguna during the Christmas holidays. Miss Mil¬ dred Wellborn and Miss Sara T. Talbott were present as advisers of the Pasadena Alpha Chapter, and Miss Katherine Loly as state chairman of the inter-collegian re¬ lations committee. Miss Wellborn was appointed head of a committee which will prepare a constitutional amend¬ ment to provide opportunities for terminal and lower division stu¬ dents to become associate members \ of Alpha. In the meantime, ac¬ cording to Miss Wellborn, permis¬ sion has been given to the chap¬ iters to extend associate member¬ ship to terminal and lower division I students as the scholastic groups see fit. No more than 10 per cent of the student body will be eligible I and a high scholarship basis will be maintained. Proposals For Additional Campus Executwe Power Challenged By Editorial Summarily empowering the student body president with a weapon to over-rule the legislative board of representatives, the passing of the nine proposed amendments to the constitution at next Friday’s elec¬ tion will radically alter local campus government. Included in these revisions on the ballot will appear changes in the set-up of the student cabinet and a new division of duties. These arbitrary suggestions drawn up by a committee of student officers might in some years have no significance and do little or no harm. Their deadliness lies in their interpretation which will vary with each president. While the committee may not have fully realized what powers they would be granting to one individual, a comparison of the present constitution with the prospective additions to the authority of the president, will show the potentialities of their action — provided the voting students do not arouse from their lethargy and read and think intelligently before they turn in their ballots. Section 1 of article IV which pertains to the powers delegated to the chief executive of the school says, ‘‘Executive authority in this organization shall be vested in the president. In the absence of the president, executive authority shall descend to the senior representa¬ tive who has been designated by the board of representatives to serve in the capacity of vice-president.” Section 2 states that, “The president shall have power to call special meetings of the representatives’ candidates for appointive of¬ fices in this organization,” and section 3 says, “The president shall have power to call special meetings of the associated students the cabinet, and the board of representatives.” — all three items of a purely executive type and neither planned nor written to give any direct power as a legislator. DRASTIC CHANGE PLANNED But in the amendments submitted for that article of the con¬ stitution there is an entirely different feeling. Section 4 — The president shall have the power of veto over all issues other than appointments brought before the board of representatives. The board of representatives may over-ride this veto by a vote of all but one of the elected members. Section 5 — The president shall have power to supervise the activities of the cabinet. Taking these two points as given in the special bulletin posted last week, the first mentioned is a startling departure from custom to say the least. Few men or women of junior college age would dare hold a position which entailed any such responsibility. And any who would dare would be only too likely to take dictatorial advantage of that veto. To use an example, if the office were filled by a person who was closely affiliated with one of the departments of the school, he could veto the budget. He could continue to veto the budget until the funds were placed exactly where he and he alone desired. It is true that the supplementary clause included in section 4 says that the board could over-ride the veto but only by a vote of all but one of the elected members. By what kind of a vote? In the statement it is not clear as to how those elected members should have to vote, in the affirmative or in the negative, but common sense leads us to sup¬ pose that the votes should all be against the veto — except one. And if one person in sympathy with the executive were absent from the vote meeting — either accidentally or by intent, would not the veto hold? Constitutional Changes Will Be Presented To Collegians January 17 Amendments Propose Increased Presidential Power, Cabinet Changes And Official Election Board Student Body Office States A revision of the constitution of the associated student body came this week with the announcement of a proposed list of amend¬ ments, which, if passed in the election of January 17, will provide for an important change in student government. The plans were originated by the Board of Representatives, who voted to place it in the hands of the students in the NEXT SEMESTER PROGRAMS MADE To date there are approximately 1300 new . programs filed for the coming semester. This shows an increase over last year’s total at this time. November 6 marked the opening date, and January 31 will be the closing one. There are just three weeks left in this semester, two of them being taken up with exams. Consequently, students are urged to make their appointments as soo as posible. Appointments may be made between 7 :00 and 8:00 in the morning and both lunch hours on the stage opposite the Records office in the Administra¬ tion building. GIVE SOLOS Constance Orozco, mezzo so¬ prano, and Margaret Robbins, con¬ tralto, members of the music de¬ partment, will be soloists at a luncheon given by Mrs. Palmer of the P. E. O. club, at Altadena on Friday afternoon. PLANS MADE FOR FINALE BY WAA Culminating the season, the W. A. A. will hold its hockey and ar¬ chery finale at three o’clock on Thursday, January 16, in the cafe¬ teria. The theme of the finale will be kept a secret until then which is as usual. The gold arrow will be presented to the girl with the highest archery score and red and blue arrows will be given to the next two highest. Arrangements for the finale are being made by Miss Jean A. Young and Miss Lorretta A. Hen- richs, gym teachers. Students in charge are Margaret Dehaan, hockey manager, and Mary Hen¬ drickson, archery manager. - 4 - GIVE ASSIGNMENTS Men’s NYA assignments are be¬ ing issued today by James P. O’Mara, dean of men, in his office, and were issued yesterday. Wom¬ en’s assignments were made dur¬ ing lunch periods and first period on Thursday, January 9. DEPARTMENTAL BALANCE UNDERMINED The question of supervising the activities of the cabinet comes next. The cabinet as it is made up of representatives of the depart¬ ments of the college is in direct contact with every activity which occurs on the campus. If the president is to usurp the power of ruling what shall and what shall not be done in all departments, where has the carefully-considered delegated authority of the constitution done? According to the original -framers of the constitution, it was patterned after that of the United States in having administrative power, a legislative power which has always been the prerogative of the board, and a representative power which is the cabinet. There will be no representative student government if the president assumes this responsibility along with his other duties. That individual should perhaps have the right to be a member ex-officio of the secretarial committees but he should not have the right to directly rule them. It is not in his province to do so for he has not carefully studied the situation as have those appointed for that purpose. The problem to be faced by each student as,he goes to the polls next Friday to answer section 4 and 5 is whether they are in favor of Pasadena junior college turning out one good executive a semester or twenty who have capably filled position of leadership. The other amendments which will be placed in the hands of the students should also be carefully studied. While they are not as drastic in their reform nor as far-reaching in their scope, they do vitally affect our future campus life. ELECTION LEGISLATION INADEQUATE Article ХШ, section 6 — Elections shall be handled by mem¬ bers of the election board. The chief justice shall preside over the election board. In the event of his ineligibility to serve on the election the board of representatives shall name a temporary chairman. Election boards have been handling the associated student body elections here for the past few years but few other than the chief justice knows how the members of that group are ever chosen. Pre¬ sumably, candidates are submitted by the class presidents from which the chief justice makes his cfioice, but this is not stated in the student constitution. It is not clear how many students compose this group or whether it within itself is organized to take care of business in the eventuality of the ineligibility of the chief justice. The board of representatives is here given the power name a temporary chairman, but it is not stated whether this chairman is to be an active member of the election board or a student outside that group. As a closing word, consider carefully these proposed amer.^meWs, then vote as you feel will do the most for the school. It is difficult to repeal an amendment once it has been officially added to the constitution. BETTY LEWIS, Editor, The Chronicle. Building Rocks Offer Danger To Curious And while we’re mentioning sudden death in its many most interesting forms, who wants to get pushed clear through a con¬ crete pillar? Thedemolition gang out in front of school would be more than willing to accomodate any person with such interest¬ ing ideas. As large parts of Horace Mann’s shirt front fall, as the natural result of an arti¬ ficial earthquake caused by an instrument colloquially termed a “skull cracker,” it would be the easiest thing in the world to intercept a ton or so of ce¬ ment and steel bracings. Of course, the men working on the job get paid for the risk to life and limb (the pay increasing- each story the worker goes up) but an innocent spectator is practically stopped by the first brick. So, as a gentle and timely warning, may we advise all those who really appreciate their short stay on this earth to keep a respectable distance from the buildings now going- down. Instructor Advocates Skepticism Roland W. Grinstead, instructor of business education delivered an address on “Economic Supersti¬ tions” to a limited number of the student body during the convoca¬ tion period last Monday. “Be skep¬ tical,” advised Mr. Grinstead, warning students that man’s beliefs commonly accepted as true are on¬ ly political schemes. He presented 17 points, discussing each and showing why and how they were wrong. The old fear of losing freedom through government cooperation was one of the points brought out in the speech. “Rather to starve in freedom than to grow fat in slavery,” is the expression used to describe this fear held by so many people today. “The right of ignorance,” an¬ other “myth” that the people ap- I pear to be demanding of their gov¬ ernment, was also dwelt upon in the talk. “Economic security will discourage initiative and thrift,” was the next point on the long list of complaints made by the public “Human / nature can’t be changed;” “we have an oversup¬ ply of labor,” and “the national debt of the United States is near the breaking point” were three more statements attacked by Mr. Grinstead. SERVICE BUREAU TO ASSIST CLUBS Fifty Pasadena and Altadena clubs were informed by letter of the Service Bureau, which is now being formed in the junior college under the new organization depart¬ ment. These letters were sent out during Christmas vacation by Bill Weil and Maria Tomicich, chair¬ man of organizations. REGISTRAR HERE To confer with students who in¬ tend to enter Occidental college, Miss Florence M. Brady, registrar of the college, will be in the records office on Wednesday, January 15, from 1 to 3 o’clock. Miss Brady is the second registrar to grant con¬ ferences here, Mrs. Edith Walker of Whittier being the first. coming election. Mimeographed notices of the proposed amendments were posted on the bulletin boards of the stu¬ dent body office, on the day preced¬ ing the recent Christmas recess, thus fulfilling the requirement that notices regarding amendments be posted publicly for a period of two weeks before election. List Revisions The proposed revisions and amendments to the present form of government, as presented in the poster, published by the Board of Representatives, follow: Article IV (add) Section 4. The president shall have the power of veto over all issues other than appointments brought before the board of repre¬ sentatives. Clause A. The board of repre¬ sentatives may over-ride this veto by a vote of all but one of the elected members. Section 5. The president shall have power to supervise the ac¬ tivities of the cabinet. Article VIII (revision) _ Section 1. The cabinet shall con¬ sist of the following appointive of¬ fices: Secretary of activities, sec¬ retary of athletics, secretary of finance, secretary of music, secre¬ tary of oral arts, secretary of or¬ ganizations, secretary of publicity, secretary of public relations, sec¬ retary of records, and secretary of social affairs. Article IX Section 4 (revision). Department of oral arts shall be responsible for debating, oratory and drama¬ tics. Section 5 (revision) (publica¬ tions and publicity to be combined to publicity). The department of publicity shall be composed of the secretary of publicity and his as¬ sistants. It shall be responsible for ' all publicity appearing on the cam¬ pus or in associated students’ pub¬ lications. It shall also be responsi¬ ble for all associated students’ pub¬ lications. Section 8 (add). The department of music shall be composed of the secretary of music and his assist¬ ants. It shall be responsible for all vocal organizations, the band and orchestra.- Section 9 (add). The department of organizations shall consist of the secretary of organizations and his assistants, two of whom shall be the presidents of the inter-club councils. It shall be responsible for the furthering and upholding of club activities and standards. It shall also promote interest in clubs and club activities and maintain a complete file of the organizations, their members, their activities and other pertinent information. Section 10. The department of public relations shall consist of the secretary of public relations and his assistants. It shall be responsi¬ ble for the off-campus publicising ( Continued on Page Three) ■ - i - Office Approves 235 Graduates In Winter Class On January 31, 1936, 235 present students will officially graduate from Pasadena junior college; 165 are lower division and 70 are up¬ per division. Of the 14th year group, 29 will receive junior certi¬ ficates, while 41 earn diplomas. As has been the practise for many years past, the January class who wishes admission to any graduation until June. Friday, June 19, 1936, in the Rose Bowl is the red-letter day for both the January and June graduates. Any member of the January class who wishes admission to any others school will find the records office ready to transfer grades, credits and all other necessary in¬ formation.