Lamar University Press (Beaumont, Tex.), Vol. 57, No. 1, Ed. 1 Friday, September 5, 1980 Page: 3 of 14
fourteen pages : ill. ; page 23 x 16 in.View a full description of this newspaper.
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*
UNIVERSITY PRESS September 5,1980»3
Viewpoint
New equipment
needed by UP
Today’s edition of the University Press
was almost not published.
Wednesday afternoon, the typesetter
equipment went out...again.
The last time the equipment failed, an
issue of the UP had to be canceled. This
time, we managed to get the issue out with
great inconvenience by relying on the
equipment at the Beaumont Enterprise-.
Journal.
If the Beaumont Enterprise-Journal had
not been so cooperative, we would have
lost $2500 worth of advertising for this
issue.
The UP staff and director would like to
thank the Enterprise-Journal staff and,
especially, Jim Welch for helping us
publish today’s edition.
Trying to publish a student newspaper
the size of the University Press with the in-
adequate equipment we now have is hard
enough without having to deal with that
equipment not being dependable.
It is difficult enough for the staff
members to balance full-time jobs with a
full load of classes. A breakdown in the
equipment means working at the UP late
at night and being back early the next mor-
ning.
The staff simply cannot keep working
late hours several nights a week and keep
up with classwork.
Although breakdowns usually cause the
staff to work harder and pull together, so
does any disaster.
In the issue following the canceled issue
last year, the staff wrote an editorial ex-
plaining why there was no Sept. 19 issue.
We will again attempt to explain why the
typesetting equipment keeps failing.
The present typesetting equipment is ob-
solete. It was purchased when the Univer-
sity Press was an eight-page weekly
tabloid, which is the equivalent of four full-
size pages. Since then, the University
Press has gone full size and comes out
twice weekly, with an average last year of
10 pages per issue.
This means that the University Press
currently produces five times the amount
of the newspaper work that it produced
when the typesetter equipment was first
purchased.
In addition, the staff has to use the equip-
ment to set a 48-page magazine each
semester.
The company which produced the pre-
sent equipment has not manufactured that
model for four years. As a result, there are
four people in the states of Texas and Loui-
siana trained to repair the machinery,
which means a longer wait for repairs.
The present typesetting equipment of-
fers few editing capabilities. All copy
must, therefore, be carefully proofed after
it has been set. This extensive and time-
consuming proofing, calling for cutting,
resetting, and pasting, costs student
publications approximately $4,000 per
year. This cost could be alleviated by more
modern equipment where editing can be
done in the machine.
The present typesetting equipment is of
little teaching value. The equipment offers
students limited experience with up-to-
date equipment that is being used in con-
temporary professional journalism. For
example, most professional newspapers
are using video display terminals.
The present typesetting equipment is
painfully slow. It will produce no more
than 20 lines per minute at maximum
speed. More modern equipment can pro-
duce up to 400 lines per minute.
The UP staff members realize that when
they accept their position, hard work and
long hours are expected. However, staff
members have limits to their dedication
when long hours are required because of
antiquated equipment.
Unless our equipment is updated, the UP
will not be able to maintain its high stan-
dards of journalism.
Goal remains
Each year, before production begins on
the first issue of the University Press, the
staff sets goals for ourselves and the
newspaper. These goals represent what
the staff hopes to accomplish during the
year.
One gdal has lem&ined constant year
after year. That goal is to report the news
accurately and objectively to the readers.
This year, the staff will again use that
1. goal as their main objective.
We plan to do this not only by bringing
news of what is happening on campus, but
also by increasing our coverage of news of
the community, state, nation, and other
parts of the world.
It is important for the readers to realize
that they, toos must contribute to the
newspaper. For if the University Press is
to be a voice for the readers, then the
readers have the responsibility of letting
us know what they would like covered.
Only through the help of the readers can
the staff accomplish our main objective.
The quality and success of the University
Press depends largely on open lines of
communication between the staff and the
readers.
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UNIVERSITY PRESS
Editor
Sports Assistants
Susan Marlow
Kevin Lindsey
Managing Editor
Jack Schwartz
Frank Conde
Sonceria Standifer
Copy Editor
Entertainment Assistants
David Harrington
Jim Kilpatrick
News Editor
Sarah Moss
Sharon Solomon
Sports Editor
Drorit Szafran-Heitner
Advertising Assistant
Larry Going
Campus Editor
Kristi Jordan
Graphics Assistants
Mary Galow
Entertainment Editor
Wendy Bourg
David Martindale
Becky Moss
Photographers
Wire Editor
Kurt Artman
David Crum
Jim Aulbaugh
Business Manager
Charles Creek
Ann Lavergne
Jim Harris
Advertising Manager
Kerry Hock
Renita Johnson
Advertising Representative
Shawn Prablek
Staff Writers
Paula Lagush
Graphics Coordinator
Ann Bond
Rose Broussard
Bonnie Doiron
Tommy Newton
Ann Marlow
Graphics Editor
Marvin Montgomery
Lisa Wilson
John Pugh
Cartoonist-Illustrator
Jack Sewell
Lance Hunter
Typesetter
Photo Editor
Ingrid Faulk
Fernando Prado
Circulation
Robbie Toran
Production Manager
Gloria Post
Assistant Director of Student Publications
Jill Scoggins
Director of Student Publications
Howard Perkins
Publisher
Student Publications Board
George McLaughlin, Chairman
Thi- University Press is the official student newspaper of Lamar University, and publishes ever) Wednesday and
Friday during Ion* semesters, excluding I olidays and Wednesday s immediately follow ing school holiday s.
Offices are located at P.O. Box 10055. 200 Selzer Student Center. University Station. Beaumont. Texas. 77710.
Opinions expressed in editorials and columns are those of the student management of the new spaper. These opinions
are not necessarily those of the university administration.
The University Press welcomes letters, and the staff invites readers to express themselves on matters that concern
students, faculty, staff and the community. The editor reserves the right to edit letters. Letters must be signed and
must list a telephone number where the writer of the letter can be reached. Student writers must include home town
and classification. Faculty and staff writers must include department and position. Letters should be limited to 250
words.
To be eligible for publication, articles must be submitted by Friday to be included in the following Wednesday issue.
Deadline for the Friday issue is the preceding Wednesday. For larger news stories, publicity chairmen of organizations
and departments should work with the UP staff well in advance so that maximum display and coverage can be ac
complished.
JLw__-1-1-!--
OE ARE PROUD
TO REPORT RN END
TO HOUSING SHORTAGES
WITH THE (ADDITION
OF NEW OUTDOOR
facilities...
College entrance examinations:
‘We’ve been fooled by testers’
DR. RICHARD MEISLER
Despite occasional fits of wishful
thinking, most of us have never really been
convinced that Ultrabrite will make us
sexy.
Madison Avenue and Colgate-Palmolive
(and the others) try their very best, but
common sense prevails. We may spend
some of our money on their products, but
we know better than to accept their
claims.
The toothpaste companies could learn a
lesson in marketing from the Educational
Testing Service (ETS) and the College En-
trance Examination Board (CEEB), the
sponsors of everybody’s least favorite test,
the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT).
For decades ETS and CEEB have sold
us their main product, the SAT, so ef-
fectively that they have caused millions of
Americans to take leave of whatever com-
mon sense they may have possessed in
other matters.
Toothpaste manufactureres would like
us to believe that they are selling us
health, sex or happiness, but they never
succeed. We know that they’re selling
toothpaste.
The amazing accomplishment of ETS
and CEEB has been to get the public to
overlook the basic fact that they are
selling tests.
We have been persuaded that we pay our
money in order to participate in the Great
American Dreams of equality of op-
portunity, social mobility, meritocracy
and objectivity. The secret of the good ad-
vertising, of course, is that the test makers
hide behind the mysteries of social scien-
ce, compared to which the mysteries of
love and sex are minor.
If Colgate-Palmolive could marshall for-
ces half so powerful on behalf of
Ultrabrite, dentists would start to appear
on unemployment lines in large numbers.
ETS and CEEB have successfully defied
common sense by insisting on and per-
suading us to accept three closely related
ridiculous propositions about the SAT.
They are:
1. The SAT is an aptitude test that
measures inherent capacity to learn; it is
not, in other words, a test that measures
learned scholastic skills and information.
2. People cannot significantly improve
their SAT scores by practicing, coaching
or training.
3. An individual's score on a machine-
graded, multiple-choice test of a few hours
duration can be an especially good predic-
tor of his or her success in college.
I don’t usually go to the Harvard
Educational Review for my light
recreational reading.
The May 1980 issue, however, contains a
delightful and brilliant article by two
faculty members at the Harvard Medical
School, Warner Slack and Douglas Porter.
Entitled “The Scholastic Aptitude Test:
A Critical Appraisal,” it brings together a
convincing body of evidence and logic that
shows that the three ETS/CEEB proposi-
tions are false.
A much longer study of ETS, “The Reign
of ETS: The Corporation that Makes Up
Minds/' written by Allen Nairn and spon-
sored by Ralph Nader, was published at
about the same time last spring.
The conclusions of the two studies
overlap considerably. They agree that we
have been fooled by the testers, whose
behavior has been the sort of thing we’d
expect from hucksters of patent medicine.
The problem, however, is not simply
that we’ve been suckers, but that the
machinations of ETS and CEEB have done
real damage to human beings.
In the remainder of this column we’ll
describe Slack and Porter’s major fin-
dings about the SAT and the devious
behavior of ETS and CEEB. In our next
column we’ll discuss the kinds of damage
that have been done to several generations
of students. We'll also mention steps that
might be taken to prevent such harm in the
future.
The critical empirical issue is that of
coaching or preparation for the SAT, for it
bears directly on the question of whether it
is an aptitude test.
If students can raise their scores by
being well-prepared, coached or
educated—possibilities repeatedly denied
by ETS/CEEB—then the SAT is an
achievement test and not a measure of in-
nate capabilities.
Slack and Porter review all the available
studies about coaching.
They also examine closely the
ETS/CEEB literature designed to inform
students and colleges about the nature of
the SAT.
Quoting CEEB documents, they con-
clude that “Clearly, there is ample eviden-
ce that students can successfully train for
the SAT and that the more time students
devote to training, the higher their scores
will be, particularly if the coaching
materials are well prepared and the
training program is part of the school
curriculum.
Furthermore, it is clear that this evidence
was available to ETS and the College
Board when they reached their conclusion,
‘slowly and with care,’ that ‘intensive drill
for the SAT, either on its verbal or
mathematical part, is at best likely to
yield insignificant increases in scores.’ ”
ETS and CEEB have failed to cite
research that contradicts their position,
and they have misinterpreted some of the
research to which they do refer. The SAT
is not an aptitude test. Coaching helps.
Equally dramatic are the facts con-
cerning the efficacy of the SAT as a predic-
tor of success in college.
It turns out to be a lousy predictor. Com-
bining a student’s SAT scores with his or
her high school grades improves the
prediction of success in college only
slightly as compared with the use of high
school grades alone.
And here, with admirable logic and com-
mon sense, Slack and Porter summarize
the situation: “The SAT is another stan-
darized test of achievement and should be
judged accordingly. If stripped of the aura
of ‘aptitude’ and considered together with
other achievement tests and high school
grades, the SAT is a third-rate predictor of
college performance. This stands to
reason. Despite their variability from
school to school, high school courses
provide the experience, in class and on
examinations, that most closely relates to
college courses....”
Even the ETS/CEEB subject-matter
achievement tests are better predictors
than the SAT.
The testers have chosen to soft-pedal
that fact, for they are not eager to tarnish
the image of their best-selling top-of-the-
line product, even to promote one of their
own slightly more effective products.
In our next column, a discussion of some
of the consequences of all of this, starring
Mr. Underachiever and Ms. Overachiever.
The
Doiron
Report
Gadgets, life,the future
‘I do begin to have bloody thoughts’
By BONNIE DOIRON
of the UP staff
Thoughts while waiting for the water to
boil:
There it sits in its pristine beauty. One of
these days (I say this every morning), I
am going to take it out, put it together and
actually use it. It is now nine months old.
Why cannot I face this newest mechanical
gadget? It is only a common ordinary
mixer with bowls and beaters. Maybe, if I
threw the old one in the garbage, I would
have no choice.
How I hate anything mechanical.
No, I take that back. I do not hate
mechanical gadgets. They hate me. Each
time I approach one, I can feel its hackles
rising. I am easily intimidated.
I gave away my electric can opener. It
refused to work for me.
I hesitate to mention my bouts with
washers and dryers, not since the gas
dryer blew up in my face. And all I wanted
to do was light its pilot.
Washers get even with me by over-
flowing; going on and on ignoring their
timers; pushing all the clothes to one side;
walking across the floor; and just for
meanness, becoming mute.
I am, at present, on good terms with the
dishwasher. I wash dishes in the sink.
Thoughts while frying the bacon:
I never cease to marvel at how the small
inconsequential actions or words of some
have a long and continuing influence on
others.
I can never fry bacon without remem-
bering Louise M. She once mentioned to
me that she constantly turns her bacon
when frying it. I now compulsively, con-
stantly turn the bacon.
Then, there is Alice who makes delicious
tea. She boils it. So—I boil my tea.
I never say, “You’re quite welcome,”
without vividly seeing the .kind lady who
first used that expression to me after my
thanks for the lift she gave me on a hot
day. I was only 12, but it was the first time
I had heard the word “quite” used in quite
that way.
Thoughts while stirring the sugar in my
tea;
My father could never abide anyone
stirring sugar in their coffee by the round
and round method. Drove him wild.
Stirring sugar in anything always remin-
ds me of my bewilderment at an early age
upon discovering that dirt would not
dissolve in water.
Bewilderment plus terror overcame me
when I was told that we were on the outside
of the world. How could this be? The Sears
catalogue had a picture of the world on one
of their covers in the ’20s and we were
definitely on the inside looking out.
Thoughts while chewing each bite 30
times:
The late Peter Farb in his book, "Con-
sulting Passions,” writes, "Food and
drink have such intense emotional
significance that they are often linked with
events having nothing to do with
nutrition.”
Methinks I have been having too many
events of intense emotional significance
requiring food and drink.
Do you know how to tell a European
from an American? The European retains
and uses his fork with the left hand—even
if he is right-handed. The American holds
the fork in the left hand, cuts the food with
the knife in the right hand and then swit-
ches the fork from the left hand to the
right. In ail the spy movies this was a dead
giveaway.
Thoughts while thinking about whatever
possessed me to think that I could write a
weekly column:
“I do begin to have bloody thoughts.” —
Shakespeare.
Perhaps it would help if I would go out-
side and watch the grass grow.
The Japanese used to place a special
personally selected or perhaps gifted rock
in their garden. When upset or troubled or
just to regain harmony of soul, they would
go sit in the garden and watch the rock
grow.
Some Americans are learning and
teaching that solitude is a real turn on. It
was our very own Henry David Thoreau
who said, “I never found the companion
that was so companionable as solitude.”
Of course, solitude leads to thinking, and
thinking leads to philosophizing.
Maybe I should take a course in
philosophy. One course would not be
enough because the English philosopher
Francis Bacon wrote that a little
philosophy would turn one’s mind toward
atheism.
I have discovered what philosophers
really do. They advocate, clarify, con-
template, articulately express, think,
found, and contribute.
Would that we all could practice this.
You could begin by thinking about where
you will be when the year 2000 rolls
around. Don’t worry about your age. It has
been said that beautiful young people are a
creation of nature, beautiful old people
create themselves. One is never too old or
too young to be creative.
I do hope you agree with the older
Americans recently surveyed by two
Brooklyn College psychologists. Of the 800
elders, aged 60 to 90, 93 percent said they
liked sex.
Personally, I have always thought that
sex was a four letter word spelled LIFE.
This reminds me of Hugh Downs.
Remember Hugh? He is planning his 100th
birthday anniversary which will be
February 14,2021. That’s LIFE.
I can hardly wait to become an older
American. The alternative is drastic.
In the meantime, I recommend to you
John Keats’ advice - to let the mind
/become a thoroughfare for all thoughts."
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Marlow, Susan. Lamar University Press (Beaumont, Tex.), Vol. 57, No. 1, Ed. 1 Friday, September 5, 1980, newspaper, September 5, 1980; Beaumont, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth500257/m1/3/?q=Lamar+University: accessed June 4, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Lamar University.