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Tuesday, May 9, 1978
University Daily Kansan
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Comment
Unused editors represent the opinion of the Kansai editorial staff. Signed columns represent the views of only the writer
Students' chances slim
Those who will be most directly affected by the sizeable tuition increase to be dealt some University of Kansas medical students are fighting back.
The students themselves are seeking a court injunction to block the tuition increase. Their fight is a formidable one; they are out to buck the Board of Regents, the Kansas Legislature and a large segment of the state, which sees the new tuition formula as a commandable way of enticing students to serve in Kansas after graduation.
THE REGENTS have voted to increase in-state medical school tuition to $3,000 a year from $1,125 and out-of-state tuition to $6,000 from $2,250. The increases are tied to a bill passed by the Legislature that eliminates
tuition for students who agree to practice in Kansas after graduation.
SO IS THE ire of students. Some are being asked to accept tuition bills more than double those they had planned and budgeted for when considering medical school.
The tuition increase is, simply, a financial incentive to entice students to serve the state. The state's concern about finding more needed doctors is sincere and understandable.
For today's medical students, the solution to a serious doctor shortage is a biller pill to swallow. But they haven't nuch chance of winning their fight in a state that sees the advantages of a plan to pump life back into its medical system.
People make KU special
Until three years ago I had never heard of the University of Kansas, I supposed the state of Kansas had a university, but Archie Dykes and the RU Juyhaskys? Never heard of
When I first stumbled over KU, I was a freshman in a women's college in St. Paul, Minn. I was in the Minneapolis library, hunting for a journalism school to transfer to.
According to my mother, KU now is considered the school to go by to high school seniors in Iowa. That may be true now, but I can remember the hoots when I first announced my Kansas in-
Friendly advice was fast and furious. "Stay away from those redneckes," someone who once had been near Kansas warned.
"HOW WILL I be able to tell who is a redneck?" I asked.
"Well, whatever you do, don't ask them straight out."
ask them straight out.
In spite of that sage I decided to brave Kansas.
My family was with me the first time I saw KU. My mother was struck by the well-groomed campus. My dad was struck by the liquor laws. I was struck dumb,
Today I am struck dumb again for the same reason. I
made an incredibly lucky choice when I transferred to KU. Reviewing the past three years, I'm not sure I could have done any better in arbitrarily selecting a school.
I read a book once entitled "Never Tire of Protesting." In most of my columns this semester, I have protested one thing or another about Kansas, Lawrence or KU. The proudest people also tend to be the pickiest people. I guess it is amparticular about what KU does because that is soon to-be ala mater, transcends its loisy Kansas cowschool image.
KU HAS something special—if La Grange High School seniors can see that, it must be there.
What is special? Well, it's not the topographical features of Lawrence, it's not neon-lit 23rd street, it's not probably not the student daily. More than all the URU special because of the people.
ness or whether my source was angry at the Kananes, angry at my questions or just plain busy, all the sources cooperated.
As I worked on my editorials this semester, one thing continued to impress me. Regard-
It's a kick, really, for a punk like me to be given information just because I happened to be curious. Of course, as much as it was a kick, it also was a kick of disbelief in unfavorable comment about one particular department and, except for subsequent blazing letters to the editor, I would be through with it. My response to truth and my interpretation of the truth and no one else.
BUT FOR every department at KU there is also a Kansan reporter trying to eke out some opinions of the reporters or the newspaper's could have stressed earlier.
The semester is over now.
That's an understatement that I can't help celebrating. Thanks to my Kansas exposure, I am a major in marine race. Now I'm itching to leave the Sunflower State and its outdated myths. But I'm taking some new myth that I understand, and spreading to spread only good comments about the people of KU.
Cases of multiple personality are rare in the history of psychology. But I offer the Kansan as an inanimate case in point.
Kansan fills mixed bag of roles
The Kansas continuously switches roles as a soapbox, soundboard, whipping boy, reference, even a learning tool. This semester, it has shouldered accusations, some that came simultaneously, of being against Jews, Palestinian, Iranians, blacks, the University of Kansas Athletic Center and Polish Americans. On the latter two, I contend my conflict of interest.
Quite a list. It makes for quite an assorted image.
OF COURSE, had the Kansan truly embodied all such personalities, it never would have been able to stand the test of its questioning, unrelenting, unpleasant.
readers. A self-appointed analyst soon would have struck upon the Kansan's schizophrenic tendencies and disgraced its name in the practice.
My diagnosis is that the paper is sound of mind and, usually, body, falling prey only to a switch headline or two. Rest assured that there are no organized attempts to suppress the news. First, although perhaps a knock at my neck will leave me with no way to ensure that 66 staff members and reporters always follow even the simplest instructions. Second, if omissions must be explained away, attribute them to man's failability, a student's priority of an impending test over a Kansan story, a source's undying reluctance.
THE KANSAN harbors no bias. The fact that 56 different suffers are responsible for Kansan news and comment is testimony that there is no shortage of Kansan news. Although working for the Kansan, each is allowed to exercise his own mind.
It is when the results of those mind minglings clash with readers' interpretations that there is open season on the Kansan.
Experience this semester has taught me firsthand that readers like to criticize their newspaper. And how can I complain? Newspapers like to make quick, sharp comments on new events and people. Readers exercise the same
mentality when they fire back. And let's admit it, neither side understands the other as well as it knows itself, yet each feels the need to judge. Yes, readers and newspaper think along more similar steps than they probably care to recognize.
YET, AS maschistic as it might sound, the airing of differences is the only way to approach that undefinable truth, the common ideal. The Kansan is not worried that criticism will tarnish its image—it apparently has enough images to go around. And Kansan has said that he has maintained his watchdogs this past semester and done its best to live up to the idealistic image set for itself.
But, in living and dying by the rule, that judgment also must be left open for interpretation.
Finals prompt bizarre behavior
The University spaces out the examinations in such a way to make it possible to undertake (or "pull") several all-nighters in succession, then to fall asleep for a long period of time ("crash") until just before the next exam.
Someone probably could achieve new heights in research-topic inconsequentiality in sociology, or perhaps change how college students change as spring finals approach.
It would not be a difficult thesis to write. The material is close at hand: At the University of Kansas, there are about 24,000 examples waiting to be indexed.
These examples, students, exhibit certain similar traits toward the their environment, represent departure from their ordinary character. In fact, sometimes a student displays con-
For example, there is the well-known paradox of the student who alternates between staying awake until midnight and attending all nights during the same final examination weeks.
PRESSURE OF the upcoming exams and the fact that some students have buried their textbooks for a particular exam, students of a semester, convince those students that the only remedy for their sagging grades is a series of sleepless nights. During those nights, frantic study is substituted for a study session for a study session of that type is all-nighter.
when the cycle of all-nighters begins again.
Elaborate rituals are usually conducted alongside the all-nighters. The recreational drug of choice is caffeine, in the form of coffee or soda for the beginners.
Those who take particular pride in their incassant studying at finals time carefully cultivate their skills, and they shaggle, the eyes bagg. If the students are normally clean-
shaven, they will have bristly stuble, lengthening day by day. Mustaches droop. On others, the emphasis shifts to the eyes, which remain continually half-closed.
THE IMAGE is a very important part of the final crammer's psyche. By changing that way from the image of sartorial and tortoise-s肋endor to an obviously work-worn, haggard creature, the student portrays the imperfections of human beings, burnt-in out in every sense but that of surrender.
It has not yet been proven how much of an impression that image makes on a machine-scored final exam.
world of the student rival those of professional athletes
One KU chemistry major reportedly站 in the shower for 45 minutes just before a final exam. P: champs he ex-
plained. The water gradually changes from hot to lukewarm to cold.
ANOTHER STUDENT,
having crammed his mind full
of whatever it could hold after
several all-nighters, dons a
cloak and covers his wallops his brain with the loudest music he can find for about a hour before the test.
Less severe treatment of that
type is currently under in-
vention in mental hospitals.
As an academic equivalent
of the follow-through in sports, many students believe that a prescribed behavior pattern *after* the test will enhance performance before beginning about it immediately through the test itself.
Most after-test rituals consist of a journey—always by the same route—to a certain destination, usually a tavern. There the student, driven by ancestral urges, always quaffs exactly the same amount of drinks, tears the amount is determined by the individual and is almost always near or beyond the upper limit of his capacity.
IN WASES where the matrons closely, such as in one day or on consecutive days (an ancient term for that is "hummer"), the rituals may be abbreviated or delayed. The research involved in compiling a project based on those habits and others might be extended to involve hours of observation, questioning students at drugstore counters and coffee displays and conversations at local taverns. All but of that could be financed with a grant resulting in a resulting paper could win awards for originality and scientific merit.
It also would make interesting reading. Students would page through it to find revealing commentary on themselves. The study might have shown that students with healthy sales throughout the school year—except during finals.
Proposed KUAC advisory board is defended
To the editor:
I feel that I must respond to the May K Amanan editorial in which assistant athletic director Jerry Waugh's proposed student advisory was referred to as "studi.
The only thing I agree with in the article is that "at first glance, the idea is greatly less than the fact because the University of Kansas Athletic Corporation would be seeking more student opinion, something it has been encouraged for not having enough of.
But I must take issue with the Kansan when it later reverses its position and terms the program "stupid" for reasons not only because it is not only a good one at first glance but at all subsequent glances. If the author had taken time to check some of the facts, he would have learned that his decision was ill-founded.
Letters
To set the record straight, the board would not be made up of only six fraternity men; its members were three from Panellinic, AURH and ASHC representatives. This point was stressed several times at the Interfraternity Council meeting in 2013, when he asked the idea. He simply had not had time to address the other groups before the cries of interest filled the room. From student body president Mike Harper and the Kansan.
Another issue was the application form sent out by this office to fraternity presidents. The application was made up entirely by the IFC office. Waugh had no knowledge of it. The presidents from fraternity attached an email from IFC personal correspondence, which was none of the Kansan's concern to begin with.
It is really a shame that when the KUAC tries to meet some of its criticism in a responsible way that certain self-centered
individuals take it upon themselves to run it for the rest of the student body. I strongly urge Waugh, athletic director Clyde Walker and the KUAC to *reintend the board because its potential for the University and its students is tremendous.*
David S. Baker IFC president
Writer's opinion lacking facts
To the editor:
Let us hope that Bob Beer's recent assault on the Men's Coalition does not represent aermanism. We should be Bob Beer's editorial standards.
In evaluating our organization, Beer apparently found it necessary to use an entirely differentethnic inclusion including the following:
1. Carefully avoid all facts, no matter how crucial, which do not support your editorial argument. Our Out-Reach program, the most essential service we offer. Yes, Beer, some counseling programs for men do exist. We do not endorse "readily" available. Males, because of prevalent cultural attitudes that portray physical and mental problems as a result of being more than cured, are traditionally more reluctant to take advantage of such programs. The Out-Reach program is designed to become this cultural barrier.
Beer also thought it necessary to judge the Men's Coalition by standards that have never been applied to other organization groups. For example, the same services available to men through the dean of men's office are available to women
through the dean of women's office. Why should our organization be singled out for criticism on this matter? If they feelecting us those groups that duplicate services, he should turn his attention to the women's organizations, which were allocated about $4,000, compared with our $300. They need more reservoirs in Kansas Union next year, we have none.
2. When in doubt as to the facts, guess. Although no attempt was made to advertise our Sept 7 organizational campaign, we have been extensively publicized and that only 16 people participated. When asked to explain this obviously inaccurate news, they agreed regretly, that a couple of people had erroneously told them they had seen posters advertising the meeting. Those posters were from our Sept 7 meeting to our Open March Forum, not our Sept 7 meeting.
3. Always quote out of context whenever it will help to support your argument. Be accusers the Men's Coalition of being against affirmative action. He states that the men's statement on principles, which states that the male's position in society is constantly threatened by supposedly egalitarian political developments. But he neglects to quote out of context the line, which states that true egalitarianism demands equality of responsibility as well as equality of rights. Our society has fulfilled only half of this requirement. In the name of equality, we shouldleges and advantages that historically have been male "rights" have been substantially dissipated by modern ethics.
However, those traditional disadvantages and responsibilities of manhood, such as mandatory induction into the armed forces and almamy, continue to be the exclusive burden of the male. Apparently the problem is that question this double standard is to be against affirmative action.
The Men's Coalition has been misunderstood precisely because of people like Beer who believe that motivation to grasp our organization's significance. In justifying his comments, Beer stated that the editorial page is meant to promote Men's Coalition heartily agrees. However, we think the editorial page is reserved for opinions based on fact, not on disinterest in deaths and unfounded conjecture.
Mike Pendergast
Apartheid policy needs to change
Chris Huppe
Shawnee Mission junior
Richard W. Paradise
Overland Park junior
Steven D. Dillman
Overland Park sonphomore
Overland Park senior
Three semesters ago, when I first came to KU, I was told that the University had become a breeding ground for conformity and has been training financial security were the primary motivators for most of the students here. Although none of this has been taught in our university, Whiteside's timely report on the policies of the KU Endowment Association suggest that the students are not alone in the complacent acceptance of ideological flaws in American society.
To the editor:
Richard Porto, Endowment
Association treasurer and spokesman in Whiteside's article, acknowledged the association's economic participation in corporations that might be significant in political policies and oppression of the apartheid policies of South Africa. Porto and the association maintain that their sole responsibility in managing the $6 million fund is "sound" but they are not making while making the attempt to "stay neutral in political questions." I submit that any corporation or association with $6 million to spend has too much power to ignore the political influence of their selection of investments.
Because the association and Porto refuse to involve themselves in judgimental decisions concerning the political impact of those issues, they are supporting the apartheid policies of South Africa, they are failing to take an active role in putting into practice the ideological principles of human and social justice to make this University possible.
The association's determination not to support shareholder resolutions addressed to the issue epitomizes the sloth and infidelity of protective passivity and perhaps the hypocrisy of this University. Porto contends that if the association does not manage its management's policies, then we wouldn't have them in our portfolio." Shareholder resolutions such as those presented by the University of Cape Town to a company to withdraw from South Africa, do not constitute a final or threatening call-to-arms against the company in their own best interests for effective methods for expressing ideological viewpoints.
social change. I urge Porto and the association to make public relevant shareholder resolutions and to invite further discussion on the matter. I appeal KU-Y for their efforts thus far.
The failure of the Endowment Association to become involved in such a resolution is a failure of the Association to be given potential as an instrument of
Chris McNell
Norwalk, Conn., senior
Weekday focus unduly flashy To the editor;
We are sure the Kansan will accumulate a stockpile of letters commenting on its features, feature "Strippers" and of these letters might question the reasoning behind the Kansan's focus on a noncampus event in order to up to this point, centered mainly on sidelines of college life. Other letters might be your campus fire and bristowate encumbration of the entire subject.
Our complaint is based on neither of the above. In fact, we have always agreed that university students can become too wrapped up in campus life and that doses of drugs are not beneficial. What did bother us about the article was that of all the seemingly endless subjects that could have been developed and presented as a human interest story, the subject of stripping was chosen. The idea was to Jazz Festival that was held in Kansas City. Why not expound upon women artists in the state or political activities of various women's groups? Would not an interesting article on sexual harassment be appropriate than advertising exploitation of women by drooling drunks at the Avanti?
In all fairness, the Kanan should be applauded for its use of Weekday to magnify human feelings and a breath of fresh air in the
inherently negative news format that all papers fall into. All we are asking is that a good thing not be run by the press (sex or otherwise) angle must be employed before the public's curiosity is aroused. Don't strip one of the most enjoyable and well-written parts of your work of its journalistic integrity.
Julie Cantrell
Leawood senior
Erica Flowerchinger
Independence junior
Med tuition bill
too encumbering To the editor:
The medical scholarship bill recently passed by the Kansas Legislature is interesting, but similar attempts to use these mechanisms to ensure any significant numbers of positions in rural areas have met with less than desired results. As we move forward with what we are, as future students, are beginning to perceive regarding coercion and mandatory locations are basically abbreviated to those people who choose to pursue a profession.
Self-determination could well be a part of the definition of the word "profession." Being obligated to a family-type or general practice when working with children, it can result in a very rewarding life. However, the fulfillment that one could potentially receive from this kind of practice, knowing that you render a most valuable service to your employer, is no greater than any financial reward that one might otherwise have.
Freedom to do as you choose within the constraints otherwise placed upon a responsible member of society is what you and I choose. I would hope that pre-med students would examine closely any aspects of self-determination. In that vein, you may develop a small measure of cynicism as you grow older in realizing that politics is basically a rearrangement of dollars, being aware of these things would make it easier for one to choose life-location and a more psychologically rewarding regardless of what else may transpiire.
Richard Arnspiger II
Ashland senior
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
KANSAN
Published at the University of Kansas daily August 16, 2017 (11:45 a.m. EDT). June and July are excused Saturday, September 10 and Sunday, September 11. Subscriptions by mail are $9 per semester or $15 per quarter. Subscriptions by phone are $65 per semester. A year outside the county. Student subscriptions are $30 per semester.
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