My thesis from Kansas University

I wanted to write a blog post about my thesis for my master's at KU.  So this happened during the mid 1980s. I went directly from college to grad school (minus the summer break in between).

First let me digress, that was a weird summer because as soon I got back to Kansas after graduating in Iowa, I was helping my parents pack up the house. I could sense the dread from my parents of moving away somewhere comfortable to a new workplace. It was really weird to move even further east in Kansas.  For my Dad at least, the move became the first time he lived in town. We had neighbors just across the driveway. You could walk down to the post office. But I wasn't in the new town for long, less than two months, and then I moved to Lawrence.  One of my three moves in Lawrence the two years I lived there for master's degree study.

KU was a culture shock for me. I went from a college of 400 students to a university of 25,000 student. I had easy, relaxed living before.

An interesting story about my thesis. This was before Microsoft Word and instead was in the early days of word processing software. I was using Leading Edge to type up my thesis. I gave the floppy disk (yes the 3.5 floppy disk of yore) to the departmental secretary in order to print out three copies for binding. Somehow or another, a mistake was made and a period was inserted after every word! I was beyond words.  The college had to send the disk to the company to fix the issue. It came back fixed and all ended well.

Here is the cover to my thesis: Supervision Practices and Opinions of College Student Newspaper Advisers. If you are ever in Lawrence, it can be found in the archive library.

This thesis reviewed the current legal status of the student press on the college level and surveyed their faculty advisers on the advisers' attitudes and practices concerning censorship of student newspapers.  Information was gathered via mail questionnaires and follow-up mail questionnaires. Each mailing including a self-addressed stamped envelope for easy return. The survey covered 92 colleges around the Lawrence region of the country.

I then wrote five hypotheses about what I would find from the calculations of the surveys. The hypotheses were written and approved by my thesis committee before the surveys were mailed out.

I had to learn very quickly Honeywell computer skills and punch-out cards in order to run cross-tabulations of the survey responses to the questions and then to the related hypothesis. I did significance to chi-square and cross-tabulations through SPSS-X statistical analysis program. Yeah, I had to learn that program really quick as well.

I had help of course. There was a young woman in the KU Statistics Lab who helped me tremendously through the program and data input process. My professor from Westmar had decided to move back to Kansas and he lived very close to Lawrence. He helped me develop the survey tool. I also thanked my parents profusely in my acknowledgements because without them, I would have never found an affordable apartment to move into, nor keep me calm when I thought my thesis had been ruined by the period after every word.

Some more pictures below. One is the thesis title page and the other is one of the many tables depicting cross-tabulation and all of the numbers I dealt with for each question on the survey. This was a massive undertaking but I am very proud of this accomplishment even if it was over 30 years ago!

 

Songs and Long Ago Memories

"I was listening to the radio; I heard a song reminded me of long ago."
Eddie Money: I Wanna Go Back

I don’t know about most people, but many times when I hear a song from the past, it often triggers memories I’ve associated with the song.

Out in the country, when I was still young enough not to be in school, I remember quite well an old yellow rectangular radio box. It was in the kitchen. My mom would have it tuned in to the nearest local radio station. 

I remember that situation because I heard a song that really caught my attention. Mind you, I was only four years old. But I still remember that feeling to this day: hearing Bob Dylan’s Blowin” in the Wind come across that old radio in the kitchen. Probably set me on my road to question authority and to dislike rules.

From the decade of 1980-1990, here are a few selected songs and associated memories.

John Lennon – Woman. College freshman, dancing at a dorm party on St. Patrick’s Day 1981 and all of us breaking the college alcohol policy.  Green (spiked) punch.

US Highway 136, Nebraska

April Wine – Just Between You and Me. Back home during my first college summer break. Off some patch of grass near US Highway 136 and Republican City, Nebraska, I happened to find a party:  I can still recall the beauty of the star lit sky.

Talking Heads - Burning Down the House The dance halls in LeMars, Iowa.  What crazy good times.

Elvis Costello – What’s so funny about Peace Love and Understandin’. An anthem while a college newspaper editor to push me further in writing passionate editorials.

Duran Duran – Hungry like the Wolf. Had the pleasure of having the Marriott feed me every day while living in Washington, D.C.  They would blast songs at a high decibel across their café area – nothing like eating while hearing the pornographic ending of this song (the extended version).

Twisted Sister – We’re not going to Take It. Kemper Arena, Kansas City, at a Twisted Sister concert. Can still remember the bass guitar waves hitting my chest like a hammer.

Genesis – Invisible Touch. A private, members-only club, Gammons, in Lawrence, Kansas where I played backgammon for hours, ate free food during happy hour, and met a lot of KU coeds. The day I left Lawrence heading for some type of life in northern Kentucky, this was the last song I heard from a Kansas City radio station as it faded off into the distance.

The Who – Eminence Front. Right next door to Gammons was a smartly located pizza shop, Pizza Shuttle. One early morning after leaving Gammons while I was waiting for my pizza to be made, I can still remember the conversation between the employees. Eminence Front begins playing. Employee one asks employee two – who plays this song? Employee two replies, exactly. Employee one looks quizzical.

Corey Hart – Never Surrender and Bruce Cockburn – If I had a Rocket Launcher. KU student in Lawrence, KS. Two songs that helped me back onto the road of spiritual discovery. 

Dive Bar, Covington, Kentucky

U2 – Angel of Harlem. At a dive bar in Covington, Kentucky picking up fast games of pool.

John Mellencamp – Paper in Fire. Clubbing in Cincinnati dance halls along the riverfront. What crazy times.

Midnight Oil – Beds are Burnin’. Small venue in Cincinnati packed to the gills rocking out to political rock music. 

The band Velcro Pygmies. Yesterday’s. The happening Chattanooga night club. I loved Yesterday’s – ran a bar tab, great music, met a lot of people, and the Pygmies just blew me away with their energetic performances.

Please enjoy a playlist of the 14 songs mentioned in this post.