4A
Monday, November 7,1994
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
Jim Slattery for governor
Kansas government has been adrift without leadership for the past four years. Gov. Joan Finney has been ineffective in articulating a coherent message and planning a vision for the direction of the state.
Kansas Secretary of State Bill Graves, Republican, and U.S. Representative Jim Slattery, Democrat, are vying to replace Finney. Who ever is elected will automatically be an improvement. Both Graves and Slattery are upstanding men who have dedicated their lives to public service, but Slattery deserves Kansans' votes and should be the state's next governor.
"From whom much is given, much is required," is how Slattery explains his duty to represent Kansas. After six terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, Slattery is prepared to pay his debt in Kansas.
Slattery supports qualified admissions for Board of Regents schools so that students who are not prepared for a four-year university can be identified. But he understands change cannot stop there. Making education more accessible for all Kansas students is a concern of Slattery's. Besides cutting the cost of tuition in Kansas, he advocates greater efforts to increase the availability and effectiveness of junior colleges and technical schools, including forming partnerships between those schools and the Regents schools. He is also a strong supporter of increasing state-sponsored scholarships regardless of race, color or creed for disadvantaged Kansans who demonstrate high academic ability.
Slattery believes that welfare should be a second chance in life — not a way of life.
Instead of paying people to stay at home, Slattery says that money should be used to subsidize work. By giving employers money to pay welfare recipients an hourly wage that can support them and their families, taxpayers' money can be better put to work, he says. And requiring welfare recipients to either accept any available job in the community or participate in job training programs would give welfare recipients that second chance, decreasing abuse of the system.
KANSAN ENDORSEMENT Kansas Governor
Slattery would be the perfect governor to keep the state budget in check. In Congress, Slattery was known as one of the most aggressive budget cutters, leading the way in Congress to kill the tremendously expensive B-2 bomber, the Superconducting Supercollider and the foolish Lawrence Welk tourist center. Slattery was the type of congressman that people claim they want - someone not afraid to speak his mind and make decisions that will benefit the entire country. Slattery will take that same attitude to the governor's office.
Graves is a fine person, but the secretary of state's office is not a policy-developing position. While Graves has made a sport out of attacking many of Slattery's votes in Congress, Graves has never been in position to take a courageous stand. His office serves as the state's paper pusher. Graves has failed at implementing the most important piece of legislation to come before his office in some time — the motor voter bill. While this would have encouraged people to register to vote, Graves has sat on the piece of federal legislation, unwilling to put it into practice.
Everyone may not always agree with the votes that Jim Slattery has made in Congress, but it takes courage to make them daily. Slattery has been on the policy end of many of issues, and his leadership and willingness to be governor is to the benefit of all Kansans. He should be elected their governor.
THE EDITORIAL BOARD.
KANSAN STAFF
STEPHEN MARTINO
Editor
CHRISTOPH FUHRMANS Managing editor
JEN CARR Business manager
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Planning Editor ... Susan White
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Editors
Business Staff
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... Regan Overy
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Letters should be typed, double-spaced and fewer than 200 words. They must include the writer's signature, name, address and telephone number. Writers affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania are encouraged to do so.
Guest columns should be typed, double-spaced and fewer than 700 words. The writer will be photographed.
The Kansas reserves the right to reject editors, guest columns and cartoons. They can be mailed or brought to the Kansas newsroom, 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall.
The other day I sat in the computer lab staring at a depressingly blank computer screen.
Required paper lengths defeat point
I should have been working on my English essay — all eight pages of it, but I just couldn't bring myself to start. Instead, I began thinking about the 3 million other things I would rather be doing, like writing this column, going to sleep, watching TV. (Come to think of it, the kitchen floor of my apartment needs scrubbing badly). I even started to stare at my reflection in the computer screen, as if the face staring back could give me some gem of advice to help me get started.
But the longer that screen stayed empty, the more I began concentrating on this pet. peeve of mine; the length requirement of papers. It seems petty, I know, but when I can say something intelligent in four pages, why should I draw it out to eight? My brain just doesn't spew out
ERIKA RASMUSSON
thought-provoking, witty paragraphs at will. Maybe it's the journalism major in me coming out, but after years of learning how to write concisely, getting a long essay assignment is a shock to my system.
Even worse, I have a term paper due this semester as well. But I guess I should consider myself lucky because, according to my professor, it is a "short" (as in 10 to 15 pages)
Inevitably, they'd be a lot better
I can't help but think that if professors only gave basic guidelines, instead of exact requirements, students would be free to write what they really thought in interesting, intelligent, thoughtful papers. They would be free from all the bull, padding, repetition and muck that students throw in to make their papers the necessary length.
paper. Excuse me, but in my opinion, a 15-page research paper can only be considered short by someone with way too much time on her hands. It's one of those assignments I'm dreading, putting off in the back of my head, hoping it will go away. It won't; I know. So another voice creeps into my head, whispering "don't procrastinate." In December, I'll wish I had listened to that little voice.
On the other end of this subject are professors who demand that a paper be about one page long and then take off points for going a few lines over. This happened to my roommate recently. She got pissed off about it and simply changed the font size — bringing it down to the exact requirement. Of course, by then it was too late, her professor wasn't going to change the grade.
But she brought up an important point, and that is that as college students, we shouldn't have to play
games like that. Playing with font sizes and messing around with length requirements are things that remind me of high school. I understand that some professors don't have time to read long essays, and others feel that an in-depth analysis of some literary work is necessary, but come on! Is there really that big a difference in a few extra or a few missing lines?
Erikn Rasmusson is a Minnetonka, Minn., enior in magazine journalism.
Matt Hood/ KANBAN
War threatened a new marriage, but love is victorious in the end
It was about three years ago that I got a call from a lovely, young woman, pleading for help in an unusual and romantic emergency.
Irena Haramic and Max Popovich both 22,were getting married in three days.
The reception was going to be very big, a Croatian banquet with a Croatian band strumming mandolin-like instruments and playing the traditional kolos.
The emergency was that the band had just canceled. The leader had learned that Max, the groom, was Serbian and Max's many Serbian relatives would be at the wedding.
Because of the unpleasantness in Yugoslavia, the Croatian band leader feared that an ethnic mini-war would break out on the dance floor.
Irena asked if I could do something to help.
In truth, no. If I could play tamburitza music on a bugarija, I gladly would, but I can't. I offered to come and sing but she declined.
So all I could do was write a column that described the sad situation and called for world peace and understanding so these problems would not arise in the future.
"It was wonderful." Irena recalls. "One guy read the column and drove
And to my surprise, that did the trick. No, we have not achieved world peace and understanding. I have my limitations.
But several tamburitza musicians, Serbian and Croatian, volunteered to put a band together.
MIKE ROYKO
in all the way from Wisconsin. They senaded them as we walked in the door, and they played all night long, and we danced and danced. And they didn't charge us. And when people asked them who was Croatian and who was Serbian, they wouldn't tell. They said it didn't matter. And nobody was killed."
That was three years ago. Recently, I was filing away some old columns, and I wondered what had happened to the tail, lovely Irena and the taller and handsomer Max.
So I tracked them down in Valparaiso, Ind., where they live in a pink brick house, and Max works as a technician at the university.
Now they are three. She's 14 months old, and her name is Gabriella. And Irena says they are happy.
But in the beginning, it wasn't easy.
"The first year it was really hard because of the war. I'm very argumentative, and everyday there was something terrible on the news and I was so angry.
But in the beginning, it wasn't easy.
"I'd visit my parents and my mom would say, 'Oh, gosh,' and my dad would say, 'Oh, they bombed this,' or 'They bombed that,' and I'd get upset and I'd go home all furious and yell at my husband. Once when a hospital was bombed, I went home and yelled at him, 'How can your people do this?' I walk in the door and be a monster.
"Luckily, he looks at both sides. He'd stay calm and he'd calm me down. Then really, because of the baby, I just stopped paying attention to it. The first years of marriage are hard enough without a war between two people. There's nothing I could do except in my own little world, and we're doing the best we can.
"What I've learned is you cannot let outside influences tear you apart. Before anything, we're two people. We're human beings before we're anything else. As two people, we are very compatible and love each other so much. And that comes first."
"If you're trying to build a life together, you cannot let other people color your ideals, your values. He taught me that. My husband taught me that."
Max says, "For someone of my generation to hate someone for a crime committed by his grandfather, it's got to stop. Really, it's the family that teaches hate. A child is born innocent, and its our job to teach them."
I don't want to hear anymore complaints about the young members of Generation X.
Mike Royko is a syndicated columnist for the Chicago Tribune.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Lawrence needs two high schools
I write to you in support of the school bond issue that will, among other things, provide the necessary funds to build a second high school in Lawrence. As an educator, a concerned citizen of Lawrence and a parent, I believe that it is in the best interest of Lawrence and its students to build a second high school.
Current consensus correlates smaller schools with school effectiveness, community and school identity, and individual fulfillment and participation, while large schools are correlated with school inefficiency, institutional bureaucracy, and personal loneliness.
There are nearly 100 studies in current educational research on the subject of school size and its effects on students. An overwhelming number of studies show that smaller schools are educationally better for all students.
There are two factors that affect school size — number of students and the physical size of the school. And these two factors must work together. The number of students in the building must be low enough that teachers can use the best teaching strategies possible.
Results suggest that smaller schools allow students of different abilities and backgrounds to reach their potential, while larger schools are not educationally effective for economically deprived students. Other research shows that students from smaller schools, including those who are academically marginal, participate in a greater variety of academic and extra-curricular activities. These students report more and deeper satisfaction from their participation than students in large schools
Academically, large schools often fall short of the mark. In nearly all cases, students from small schools had higher mean scores on standardized tests than other students. And students from moderately sized schools had higher mean scores than those from large schools. It is also difficult to reach academic potential in a school prone to discipline problems. School characteristics correlated with discipline problems include large size and overcrowding.
The research is clear: In order for all students to succeed in school — in academics, in ability to participate in a variety of activities, in terms of personal well-being and growth — they are best served by a smaller school. We must remember that a school's primary function is to educate students to their fullest potential.
The students of Lawrence deserve a second high school.
MIXED MEDIA
Karen Symms Gallagher Dean of Education
By Jack Ohman