4
Thursday, March 30, 1978
University Daily Kausan
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Comment
Ununged editorials represent the opinion of the Kansan editorial staff. Signed columns represent the views of only the writers.
Good advising needed
The academic reputation of the University is flawed, year after year, by the inexcusably low quality of its advising.
Students, especially freshmen, have known about advising problems for year. A recent report from a College of Liberal Arts and Sciences committee confirming the need for improved advising should surprise no one.
The committee's chairman, Warner Morse, noted that "the relationship between the students and the adviser is haphaward. Typically, the student does not see the same adviser twice."
adviser twice. In addition, only two thirds of all students in the College decide to see their advisers. Advisers' signatures aren't required on enrollment cards, nor is even seeing them required.
ALTHOUGH THE committee made several suggestions for improved advising, ideas that deserve serious attention from administrators and all of the University's schools and departments, far more is
required. Professors must be made to understand that advising students is one of their most important responsibilities.
The University also must stop stalling on its commitment to provide computerized pre-enrollment. It defies explanation why such a system has yet to be adopted.
The committee report suggests that students should have a "first-contact" adviser. His main duty would be to meet with students during enrollment to talk about choosing classes; after several weeks of the semester to discuss problems; and at the end of the semester to go over the next semester's schedule. Course schedules would be handled by other advisers.
Regardless of the committee's recommendation, which isn't bad in itself, professors advising students at all levels of their education have to care—and spend more than five minutes with them. Professors just might have more time to spend if the mythological pre-enrollment ever materialized.
Machines are disgusting. Take the University of Kansas parking system, for instance. After several months of sin against the University of Kansas' parking laws, I had descended into the lowest circle of the damned. Unpaid fines swarmed like demons, and my curiosity and imagination were aroused.
Parking bureaucracy bloated
The machine has won us over to its inexorable and inflexible efficiency. Fines weighed heavy on my conscience. I sought relief by attempting to find out whether the parking system, or myself, was culpable for all the misery and wasted hours spent babysitting thousands of automobiles.
Andrew Torres, traffic board chairman, soothed my anxieties about the multitude of sinners.
"It's been a very good board this year," he said, and he proceeded to outline new developments.
I SOUGHT out the chairman of the KU Parking Board. I confessed my sins and was taught more about the rightie who have been tightening the net around those like myself who flout the rules of the machine.
The quest had personal meaning. When I first visited KU for an interview, I heard a girl scream from the windshield. Hard I wasiser, I would have appealed the ticket to the traffic court. But I didn't live in Lawrence, and I chose the more well traveled road. And it
Guidelines on mopeds have been
established, and a car pool plan for faculty, staff and students has been formulated.
A switch from windshield decals to bumper stickers will be made next year. Torres remarked that someone had put the decals on a collectively spent on removing old windshield decals to make room for the next year's decal amount to several man-months of washed hours. That fact is why machines rule us, not the reverse.
BUT THE most germane issue appears to be how to fairly distribute parking to University personnel.
"One of the biggest problems is working out an equitable way to assign parking." Torres said. The subtleties are numerous. They form a immense hierarchical base on seniority. Parking has become a potent issue for students, though not disfranchised, at the base of the hierarchy's pyramid.
Behind the stringent system of parking lies the philosophy of deterrence. In March the fines for illegal parking were scheduled for an increase this fall.
general revenues for the University. It is a self-perpetuating bureaucracy. The parking system at KU is a paper tiger that stifles change and tightens the yoke that the machine has put around our necks.
The parking office does not generate
The current system has a certain amount of inequity built into it. Many times I have parked in an area in which there were scores of places available, yet I never found them. That was cheating someone else out of a spot he had paid for by buying a permit.
AND WHY is it that students, who for the most part are the least able to pay increasing fines for parking infractions, are fined by the brunt of the enforcement?
It is time for an alternative mode of transportation to make its appearance on KU's campus. Such a project would be a match for the collection of minds at KU, and by creating a new means of transportation from the campus to parking areas at the fringes of the campus, KU students would look forward, not backward. The machine would work for man's goals, not the machine's.
A bus system, a trolley, could be constructed from parking areas near the outskirts of the campus. Air pollution would be reduced. Noise would diminish. Students and faculty, by using the same mode of transport, would grow closer. No longer would individual isolation boots cut off the exchange of views that arises
from day-to-day contact. Few jobs would be lost because the parking staff would man the new rail system that could be used to power generators, which could power generating turbines.
A NATIONAL news story recently reported that young Americans are willing to cool their love affair with the automobile. But they apparently are willing to spend more tax money on mass transit. A U.S. Department of Transportation survey is both heartening and disappointing because it illustrates that to such innovations are the so-called "traditional" Translated into plain English, the phrase means the resistance of hierarchy to change.
As I left Torres' office after my confessional, I mentioned by belief in the trolley plan. He offered his wholehearted support, but he also warned of the inevitable resistance to change the bureaucracy.
To whom would parking permits for cars be issued if a new transport system were to graze KU's campus? Certainly Chancellor Archie R. Dykes would get one, and so would a few top aides, where would the line be drawn?
The line should be drawn sharply and surgically. Our passionate love for the automobile cannot blind us to habitual hindsight and a vicious circle of parking fines, which create only unadulterated red tape.
Increase in school levy provides teacher incentive
Lawrence public education is a paradox. Because the resources of the University of Kansas are nearby and available, the quality of education in Lawrence public schools presumably should be high.
In the past it has been high indeed. Graduates of Lawrence High School have been awarded plenty of scholastic awards, including scholarships from the National Merit program.
But educational quality takes money. The paradox is that although Lawrence has the capability to keep its teachers' salaries and spending levels in schools high, it is not doing so.
A group made up of officials and administrators from the Lawrence district, District 497, recently completed a study of teachers in the 11 largest school districts in the state. It found that the Lawrence district had lower taxes, less spending for each teacher, fewer teachers' salaries than the average for the 11 districts.
He also said that District 497 had the highest assessed valuation for each student of all the districts.
That means there is more property value, more of what actually is the base for taxation, in the other school districts.
the group's findings have prompted some discussion among the members of the school board about how well or how badly teachers in the district fare. Current salaries for beginning teachers are about $480 a year. By today's
BUT THE president of the school board for District 497, Charles Oldfather, said Tuesday that the district was in the middle of the districts cracked by school population.
John Mitchell
Editorial writer
standards, that figure seems low.
The bigger question arises when the proposed increase for next year is considered. The Kansas Legislature this session probably will authorize a spending increase that will increase salaries by $200, to $8,640. That is an increase of less than 2.4 percent, an increase much less than the rate of inflation.
LOWER SALARIES for teachers do keep the tax rate in District 497 down. But with such meaely increases, the area becomes less attractive to teachers. If the good teachers can get more money elsewhere, which they probably can do, they might go elsewhere. Lawrence's status education could suffer.
There is a proposed solution to that problem. The school board Monday approved a referendum, be it a referendum or an increase of the tax levy in the district by 4.44 mills. That would be $4.44 more for every $1,000 of property valuation, and in such a district as 497, the increase would be more than $80,000 for the schools.
In contract talks, the district and the teachers agreed to a package costing $712,000. Teachers' starting salaries would be raised to $9,600 a year, an increase of 7.2 percent, to $10,580 a year, in inflation rate. This increase, of course, is contingent upon the approval of the referendum question.
THE TEACHERS and their organization, the Lawrence Education Association, have
made concessions to the school district to head off extended dispute. In negotiations March 18, they gave up the inclusion of a provision for arbitration in the state law, which is important, importantly, the association has agreed to accept the lower salary increases offered by the state if the referendum failed. Its only concern was that the department had held. The association will abide by the outcome of the election.
That is important. The teachers are willing to keep the school system going so that they provide adequate salaries might lead to strikes and vociferous protests by the association is commendable.
There is no organized opposition to the referendum as vet.
But it fits the problems any issue of its type has–problems originating in a complacent, bored public. School levy issues have had a history of failing, people are becoming more needed them badly. People are seldom excited about a special election, especially one that will raise their taxes. The problem becomes one of overcoming getting to the poles those who want a high quality of teaching.
IT IS A curious thing that the people who always seem ready to vote are those who are against changes and say no. The parents in District 497 can indeed do without the increased levy—as well as without much incentive for teachers to come to Lawrence and teach on schools that Lawrence could afford.
They also can do with disgruntled teachers. But when they are capable of getting the better incentive, the higher levels of money and probably better teacher attitudes, it seems foolish—and paradoxical—to do without.
IHP necessarv for generalized education
To the editor:
You recently printed a letter from the Rev. Dr. Vern Barnet in which he said he had produced detailed documentation to support every charge he's made against the Integrated Humanities Program. This should be a great opportunity (if not a responsibility) for me, giving my reporting, instead of the name-calling that has received so much space in the Kansan. I still would like to know what that evidence is.
However, this debate may have become largely academic, if you pardon the pun. The administration has decided that it is unnecessary and has consequently cut the budget of the
KANSAN Letters
and other programs. The program will have to do without its administrative assistant and graduate student instructors.
I wish our administrators had been present at the excellent lecture 'recently given by my friend, Eric Schaefer,' "Everybody's Business," referring to the study of the humanities. He said it was impossible to understand our culture as a "multiplicity of fragments," the departmental staff of the Universities in the United States. He said we had lost the type of education that should be
common to all men, the generalist, humanistic or philosophical approach to learning. Great books were once written that could be understood by the common educated man, such as Darwin's "Origin of Species." The latter was not necessarily to be understood by those in a different branch of their own specialty, much less by the common educated man.
The distribution requirements for a degree supposed to provide the cultural exposure of students in the arts and arts ests of the graduate, providing an enriched life of the mind, at least in liberal arts. An editorial by a graduating senior at West Point for the publication for elimination of such "junk"
courses, so that a student could concentrate on the requirements for his profession, completing in two years what is now required. He must have attending senior also is a declared candidate for the state Legislature. Apparently the distribution requirements didn't do much to enrich his life. Perhaps he would much to enrich anyone's life.
The purpose of the HIP is to integrate these fragments into a whole, providing the generalist and philosophic approach to the Greek language, the Greeks, through the Romans and up to modern
influences. It's more basic than the shorter Western Civilization Program and is an excellent precursor to that program. The IHP begins at the beginning, which should have been a part of the freshman's secondary school preparation but was not.
cernaps in a world of specialists, the most endangered species is the generally educated layperson. The administration's decision to make it more difficult to receive a liberal education at the University of Kansas.
Food stamp buyers confront red tape
Auburn nontraditional student
The Suffolk County Department of Social Services in Haupauge, N.Y., provides applicants for food stamps with a blue form requesting information—"if it applies to you, please provide your application." The main contents of the form are as follows:
Marilvn J. Alien
2. Past 12 months' gas, electric, water, fuel bills, last garbage bills and proof of payment. Canceled checks or insurance. Dealer, propane dealer or water company are acceptable.
3. Past eight weeks' pay stubs, including proof of tips and commissions of all members of the household, or a salary from employer of gross earnings and deductions.
1. Proof of amount and payment of rent or mortgage and property taxes if paid separately.
4. All bank books of all household members, including savings certificates and credit union accounts.
5. COPIES of your last two checking account statements.
receive of the following benefits: compensation, disability, pension, Social Security or veterans' benefits.
6. Proof of the amount you are currently receiving or expect to
including veterans' educational benefits.
7. If you are claiming that you are unable to work, you will
need a statement from your doctor telling how long you will be unable to work. If you are receiving Social Security disability, a copy of your last check will do.
8. If you are collecting unemployment benefits, please bring your unemployment book.
if ineligible, proof of ineligibility from the unemployment office.
11. If you are paying child care so that you can work or go to school, you will need a statement from your employer, address and telephone number and how much you are paying.
9. Certain union members collect unemployment union benefits. This is considered income and must be verified.
10. Certain union members have annuity accounts. The amount must be reported as a resource. If you feel these are frozen funds, you will need a fund from the fund so stating.
13. IF YOU are paying medical insurance or a doctor, dentist, hospital or druggist, you will need proof of payment and how often payment is made for each service required by your deduction. For example, if you must take prescribed medicine on a regular basis.
12. A copy of your last telephone bill.
18. If someone is giving you money, get a statement from the person giving amounts and how long this gift will continue.
17. Social Security number,
alien cards, citizenship papers
for all family members.
14. If you are receiving or paying support of alimony, you will need a copy of the court order and proof of the amount you are receiving or paying from the past four weeks.
15. If you are lending you money, you will need a statement from them giving the amount they are lending and when repayment is expected to begin.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
KANSAN
Kan...n Telephone Numbers
Newsroom-864-4810
Business Office-864-4358
Editor
Barbara Rosewicz
Published at the University of Kansas daily August 12, 2015. Subscription prices for August and June and July except Saturday, Sunday and half-月 subscription prices are $3 a month or $18 per month. Subscriptions by mail are $3 a month or $18 per month. A year outside the county. Student subscriptions are $4 a month or $18 per month.
Managing Editor Editorial Editor
Jerry Saa John Mueller
Mackenzie Harrison
Senior Manager
Sage Ban
John Mueller
Associate Campus Editors
Campus Editor
Assistant Campus Editors
Associate Sports Editor
Associate Entertainment Editor
Entertainment Editor
Copy Chiefs
Mary Mitchell Bergman,
Lori Bergman,
Make-up Editors
Wire Editors
Editorial Writer
Photographer
Staff Writers
Staff Artist
Deb Miller, Leo Bedron
Bettie Bedron
Wilma Branun
Ellen Bradley
Pam Keey
Lori Bergman,
Mary Mitchell Bergman,
Lori Bergman,
Make-up Editors
Wire Editors
Editorial Writer
Photographer
Staff Writers
Staff Artist
Business Manager
Bettyla Thornton
Assistant Business Manager Karen Thompson
Advertising Manager David Hedges
Marketing Manager Linda Clemente
National Advertising Manager Kim Morrison
Classified Manager Katherine Dawson
Dawn Dawson
Publisher News Advisor David Dary Rick Musser
Advertising Adviser Mel Adams