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Thursday, April 15, 1976
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN Comment
Oinions on this page reflect only the view of the writer.
Colleges restricted
Government intervention in the educational process strikes at all true academicians. Nobody wants Big Brother telling him what to do. We don't have the power to be havens from the distractions of the outside world. They are supposed to be free from restrictions, free to discover the pure truths which rule the universe.
ACADEMIC FREEDOM is a wonderful concept, but to have true academic freedom one would have to be isolated in mind at the very least. In most cases physical isolation would probably be required, too. Yet there aren't many universities on Pacific islands. They are a part of the real world and they were established to serve the real world. Therefore, they suffer from the realities of the society they serve.
Too often we view the University as an island. It took me several years to realize that just because this was the University of Kansas, it didn't necessarily approve the attribution of Kansas. We at the University tend to take an elitist approach in views of our society. We are above the restrictions of the outside world.
SURE, AFFIRMATIVE Action is good for certain segments of our society, but not for some programs at KU. Sure, some say welfare recipients should be closely monitored to make sure they spend their money wisely, but why should scholarships have so many strings attached.
Red tape is obviously a bureaucratic evil that should be cut back whenever
possible. The federal government was established by the people to serve their needs, and that concept should not be reversed. However, state universities rely heavily on their government for service, just as many other segments of society do. The educational process is an unbelievably expensive one. And the dollar is the major factor in determining the level of government intervention.
PRIVATE COLLEGE and universities pay the price of freedom, but more and more of these institutions can no longer pay that price. Public schools rely heavily on the state, and therefore are accountable to its restrictions.
THE UNIVERSITIES have obviously been restricted by federal intervention in their affairs. But their complaints are not unique. They are only being held accountable to the same restrictions the rest of society struggles under.
The educational system has never really proved in the past that it is any more responsible in its actions than any other segment of society. A large proportion of the legal battles over racially discriminated schools and institutions of learning have always had their share of bond-dogges.
Unless they totally break their financial ties with the people who pay their way, the only alternative is to work within the system. Maybe some of the great economists and political scientists our universities produce can be granted sabbaticals until they can clean up the bureaucratic process.
By John Johnston Contributing Writer
During the past six months, the University of Kansas has been involved in an extensive self-evaluation of sex discrimination on campus. When the investigation reaches its conclusion, few facets of the university will be left unfeited.
THE STUDY CAME about
unity of the problem. The committee divided itself into three areas: admissions, employment and treatment of students. Within these areas, they examined the procedures and policies of the University in regard to discrimination.
KU wages battle of sexes
INCLUDED UNDER the divisions was a vast range of
When pausing to think of all the areas of the University that the committee had to deal with, one can begin to see the enor-
By Marne Rindom Contributing Writer
UNDER THE guidelines, each educational institution must complete a self-evaluation by July 21. At KU, the TITLE IX Self-Evaluation Committee began its study in October and then moved to the steering committee before spring break.
following the enactment of Title IX guidelines July 21, 1975. These guidelines were provided by the Department of Health, and are designed to means of bringing universities into compliance with the sex discrimination section of the Education Amendment of 1972. This law provides, with some exceptions, that students in the United States shall on the basis of sex . . . be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity within the federal financial assistance."
areas. Just to name a few, admissions investigated such as recruitment and testing procedures and the employment group studied hiring practices and pay scales.
The third division, the treatment of students, was broken down into two areas: athletics and academics. Athletics included such areas as recruitment, facilities and scholarships for incollegiate athletics. Non-athletics dealt with health planning, single-ease organizations and other organizations.
BUT AT KU, the existence of the self-evaluation committee isn't the only sign of the passage to a higher level of guidelines have brought about some changes. The two women's honor societies, CWENs for sophomores and Martboarder for seniors, have begun to receive feedback. On the other hand, the male societies, Owl Society for
juniors and Sachen Circle for seniors, have chosen to disassociate themselves from the University rather than accept women. Their adviser now serves the societies on his own time instead of as part of his work for the University.
THE AREA THAT has received the most publicity during the Title IX discussions in Congress, federal regulations recognize the disparities that exist between the men's and women's programs and the vast changes that must be made. Therefore, the new rules will be provided the area additional time, until July 21, 1978, to comply.
Although the plan to merge the men's and women's programs has been postponed, the issue is far from resolved. The two athletic offices, the student union and the senate are all seeking ways to relieve the inequalities between the programs. The issues, though, involve many complicated problems, especially
those of a financial nature, and they won't be easily solved.
THE OFFICE OF Student Financial Aid has also received close scrutiny but in all probability, it won't have to cover the cost of training. Although the scholarship funds marked specifically for men and women differ greatly ($75,000 for women, $14,750 for men) or more, it still allows use unrestricted funds to help create a better balance.
These are just three areas that have felt the inquisitive eye of Title IX peering at them. The university will work with and the self-evaluation committee finish their investigation before the July 21 deadline, the University will be feeling other aspects of the all-encompassing acts of the
ALREADY QUESTIONS have been raised concerning the inequities of the deans of men's and women's offices. Will they be able to meet the Dean of Students? Will the University have to build two
These questions and many more, which the members of the self-evaluation committee considered in their confidential discussions, and again in the near future, for the federal government is suing the withdrawal of federal government funds as an incentive for the University to come into rapid compliance of the law. These funds are too large to be ignored it to ignore anything that vaguely resembles sex discrimination.
new scholarship halls that will provide the same facilities for men that Miller and Watkins now offer only to women? And what will become of the Pearson Integrated Humanities Program with its teachings that some people consider sexist?
Government muscle flexed in research
The ways in which the federal government influences the University are many. Some of them—discrimination and privacy regulations for universities—have been widely published.
Red tape an invited guest
The discussion of Title IX is far from over. How many changes the University will be forced to undergo is impossible that the road to compliance won't be smooth.
Colleges and universities all over the country are screaming in what they say is exercituting the skills of their government intervention in
countless forms, complete the inconsequential reports and constantly suffer the consequences and activities outrageous government.
But other influences, some at least as strong as the regulations, have not.
By John Hickey Contributing Writer
more forgiving if not for the taintaining the actions of universities. They accepted, at first, the very intervention they now so strongly repudiate. That repudiation led to strings attached to money the universities desperately needed. Enrollment was increasing; they needed money for research, for new buildings and facilities. They took the money and the accepted the strings.
accomplish the goals of the Great Society.
That the government should involve itself in all sorts of previously unheard of ways and places wasn't something dreamed up by John Kennedy and even Mr. Bush idea that had been kicked around the universities for years.
THEY BEAR A responsibility less vicarious than is usually remembered. They originated and popularized the idea that the police can intervene in the private affairs of citizens and institutions to
INDEED, WHERE does the federal government turn for its personnel but to the academic ministry or members of presidential cabinets, heads of investigatory committees, advisers to governors and other federal bureaucracy itself are professors or their students.
Naturally, such a disheartening state of affairs requires an adjudication of responsibility, a basis for the one who throws one's one sympathy and compassion for the besieged professors and administrators suddenly declines. For one sees the dead tape, like blood, on their hands.
AND INDEED one could be
How the universities will be able to deal with the federal government isn't yet clear. But it won't be easy to tell the government to pack up, get out and go on home duty or number all who bid invited it here.
situationalized the reform movement and picked up the speed of an avalanche. The universities accepted federal money, giving the bureaucracy a foothold toward regulating them. From then on the inertia of the universities was sufficient to carry it into almost every part of the universities, in spite of their growing protests.
IT TOOK A long time to start the government rolling toward needed social reforms. But after it got started, it in-
Of course the massive bureaucratic apparatus later assembled and the fundamental ineffectiveness of most of its programs were never envisioned. Furthest from the minds of professors in the state of affairs in which their own sanctuaries are so ruthless and systematically invaded.
THUS THE BATTLE cry,
"Get the federal government off campus;
let the university run its own affairs," comes from the *American Institute* of government red tape—the faculty and administration
their affairs. Affirmative Action, Title IX, Occupational Health, Education and Welfare—the list of government agencies and regulations dealing with the intimidates and demoralizes.
It is they who must serve on the myriad committees, file the
important source) came from federal revenue sharing funds.
THE MOST IMPORTANT of these is the influence the government exerts through its research grants.
Research is the thing that separates a university from a glorified high school. Although research is so much more valuable, research is over-emphasized compared with teaching, the fact remains that if a school wants to attract well known faculty members and if it wants to have any sort of a decent program, it has to do research.
The federal government was directly responsible for 86 percent of KU's external funding
AND IF IT wants to do research, it has to have grants. And if it wants to get grants, the federal government is the place to go. Of the $2.6 million in awards KU and the Med Center received in fiscal 1975, $2.29 million came from federal
THE UNCERTANTY that is an integral part of federal research grant administration, it has also struggled with the President and the Congress.
By Jim Bates Contributing Writer
and indirectly responsible for another 8.6 per cent.
THIS VIRTUAL monopoly of research grants by the federal government means that the nationwide research community is buffeted and tossed by every political wind.
When Sputnik shocked America's ego in the early 1950s, the physical sciences had a field day. Space-related research programs started in universities everywhere.
Special Focus:
Then, as suddenly as it began,
it was over. The winds had
changed and transportation was
the big concern. Then defense.
Then energy. Then cancer.
Then who knows what.
The government at the University
ACCORDING TO THE University's annual research report, "The erratic pattern of the college population and propionation has had a very disturbing and unsettling impact upon the educational and scientific community, leaving it uncertain, uncertain, and demoralized."
Who can blame the researchers?
The best they can do is watch the trends, hope they have strong departments in the right places, and apply whenever possible.
agencies, not only that, but a large percentage of the $2.3 million received from state agencies (the second most
Early in Richard Nixon's first term, the White House campaigned for a cutback in research spending. Ford has picked up where Nixon left off, and lists "Big Education" right on his ballot and "Big Government" when it comes time to make a speech.
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Editor
Carl Young
Congress, however, has traditionally supported an extensive program of federal funding to bolster occasional flurries of outrage about so-called dooboldogies (grants for the study of love, for example) the Congress still supports the present grant system.
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AND UNIVERSITIES,
although they resent the fact
that the government grants
determine how much and what
research is done, are rooting for
Congress all the way. Sparadic
and undependable funding is
better than no funding at all.
Regardless of how many grants the government decides to give, every university in the country is after all of them. The competition among universities is enormous and frantic as among those universities' football teams.
STATISTICS SHOW that KU has pretty much held its own in the fund-gathering battle according to the research report. The number of grants it has received compared to other universities over the past decade has remained fairly constant.
But KU does have a weakness. To carry the football analogy a bit further, KU has the ability to play-player-behavior modulation.
More than 43 per cent of KU's grants go to the Behavioral and Social Sciences. More than 72 per cent of KU's federal funds come from the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.
OBVIOUSLY, KU would be in trouble if its behavior mod program slipped or if HEW had to cut back its funds.
The University is constantly trying to diversify itself more, but given the pattern of federal funding for research and possible job. Foundation grants are always a possibility, but never a good one. Foundations, which don't usually have the money to give away to begin with, have been further weakened by the recent economic slump.
SO IF KU wants to do research, it is going to have to continue to rely on the federal government research what the government wants it to research and it means it has to struggle with bureaucratic strings, but it really doesn't have any choice.
As far as research is concerned, it's the American way.