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Thursday, January 26, 1978
University Daily Kansan
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Comment
Unsigned editors represent the opinion of the Kanian editorial staff. Stated columns represent the views of only the writers
Med bill makes sense
The state of Kansas is haunted by a shortage of doctors in rural communities. A bill now before the Kansas Senate would help relieve that shortage.
Specifically, legislation passed this week by the Senate Ways and Means Committee is designed to raise tuition at the University of Kansas Medical Center's School of Medicine and grant fee waivers to students who agree to practice in Kansas. The state, which sinks considerable sums of money into training doctors at the Med Center, would be able to financially induce new doctors to remain in the region that produced them and bring tuition more into line with that at peer institutions.
Under a wily adopted amendment to the original bill, the Senate panel decided not to let the legislature set the Med Center tuition. Instead, the Kentucky Legislature would reimburse the fees.
THE REGENTS' tuition plan would increase fall 1978 fees from $1,525 to $3,000 a year for resident students and from $3,025 a year to $4,000 a year for nonresident students. But more importantly, the bill includes incentives to keep students in Kansas after they graduate from the Med Center.
The financial inducements are twofold. If
students agreed to practice in certain areas of Kansas after they graduated, their full Med Center tuition would be paid for them. If they agreed to practice in other areas, designated as medically underserved, they could receive not only full tuition, but also a $500 a month stipend for living expenses. They would designate the underserved areas, which usually would be the rural parts of Kansas.
For each year a student had a fee waiver at the Med Center, he would have to practice in Kansas for 12 months. The bill, simply stated, sets up a carrot-and-stick proposition for prospective doctors: Promise to help the state and the state will foot the bill.
There are those who will contend that the Senate bill intrudes upon individual freedom by mandating where a person can work. But such reasoning is specious, if only because the working arrangement is anything but permanent. More importantly, however, the quality of medical care is a social operation that doctors must bear in mind to swear the operational oaths. The quality of medical care is more than having good doctors; it is also having good doctors where they are needed. Rural Kansas needs them, and the Senate bill provides them.
Realism is required
A healthy dose of realism is in order concerning KU's spring commencement. The University's commencement committee, as well as some officials, cannot seem to acknowledge the fortunate truth. Graduation just isn't possible in Memorial Stadium this spring if renovations are to be completed on time.
Construction on the stadium renovations isn't expected to be done until September. In
the interim, contractors for the renovations have made clear, insurance problems preclude having public events in the stadium.
Given the apparent intransigence of the parties with whom the University has contracted, why hasn't the commencement committee made final alternate plans yet to hold graduation elsewhere? Why hasn't it faced the inevitable?
Parking hold frustrating
To the editor:
When I tried to enroll this semester, I was amazed to discover that a "parking hold" had been placed on my registration materials and transcripts. I do not own a car. Investigation showed that my father, who visited the campus several times last semester on business, had received, once, a ticket for a parking violation because one of the departments on campus. However, traffic and security had no record of this transaction and I received a parking hold.
In order to clear the hold, my father had to send a letter through the federal mail to the campus police. Not only do I like to work with my students withholding my enrolment materials and transcripts for a parking violation regardless of the circumstances. I also resent being treated like a baby every time I go to Daddy's. I to enroll in classes.
Mary Savage Lawrence senior
Editorials need heavy subjects
To the editor:
We, as concerned students of this university, would like to see the Kansan crawl out of its national school time for the paper to venture out into the real world and not to remain in the murkey National Enquirer-like depths of last semester. We're sure students who are tired of reading the sludge that passed for university-oriented issues such as Farrah Fawcett Faith KU, desired Christmas gifts, blue jeans and bicycles.
Philosophical musings are sometimes pertinent, but they should not take daily precedence over the important issues of our time. We're sure that the readership is mature enough to understand, and also would welcome, discussions on ethical issues in economic problems. Features belong on the feature page and editorials on the editorial page. Although this may be jour-
KANSAN Letters
nalistically simplistic, we hope the editorial staff of this semester's Kansas has better staff than last semester's stuff did.
Conservation, tax incentives and a love affair with solar energy characterize legislators' approaches to energy this
Howard Epstein
Topeka sophomore
Greg Ellis
Paola sophomore
Though no one member of the Kansas Legislature would want to isolate what legislators are thinking, the feeling is strong that the state has a definite role to play in the administration of consciousness among the state's citizens.
Sun glows as energy alternate
State employees, numbering more than 37,000, according to state administration department statistics, figure largely in lawmakers' visions of the future.
"One of the things going around is the concept of getting the state directed toward energy conservation," State Sen. Charlie Angell, R-Plains, said yesterday.
Car pools—the butt of endless cartoons and jokes—apparently are not a joke to legislators. But it's unlikely that the jokes and controversy about car pools will cease.
"It'S JUST not our nature to want to give up our freedom of movement." Angell said.
Designing car pools for state employees is more complicated than one might imagine.
"How can the state, in effect, force car pools?" Angell asked. To illustrate this point, he headed to a parking lot trying to take part in a car pool with his secretary, who lives just far enough away from other car pool members homes or the car pool counterproductive.
It's a little late to debunk city planners who encouraged spread-out cities during the pandemic like the mythological Hydra, wasteful aspects of energy conservation sprout up wherever and whenever concrete is promoted by legislation.
It may be that like energy waste, energy conservation is primarily a matter for the individual energy-user to practice.
Staggering the working hours of state employees is a conservation measure making the rounds at the statehouse. Part of the rationale appears to be the increased use of public systems, as encouraged by the staggered working hours.
But staggered working hours would make car pools more difficult to schedule.
CURIOSULY, giving mass transit a break is not a priority for the legislature. A bill that would have allowed the Topeka
Improve Watson by writing officials
Watson Library is a disguise to the University of Kansas. It is unsafe, understated and undefinished. KU's main library is a bitter, baffling anomaly—a marked inferior part of an institution that prides itself on academic excellence.
KU has requested money to improve Watson Library. The Kansan urges students to write their hometown legislators in support of the increased library funding that Gov. Robert Bennett has asked them to appropriate.
Active action must be taken if Watson is to be rescued from its present condition. Legislators can be reached at the state capital building, Topeka. The names of hometown senators and representatives are available at the reference desk in Watson.
Clay Stauffer Editorial Writer
A fee levy on state parking lots to encourage car pools also is being considered by more than a few legislators. Employees would be charged a higher monthly rate than employees who traveled to work with passengers in their cars. The fee schedule would decline as the number of persons in the car
with approved fuel efficiency ratings, probably based on Environmental Protection Agency ratings or on a case-by-case scheme, is another concept that appeals to some lawmakers.
BUYING STATE vehicles
"That sounds really good, but again, it has problems," Angeli said.
Angell, who is a farmer, gave an example drawn from his experience. A state employee working for a water agency is burdened with tools and equipment that only a larger car or pickup can hold. If mandatory use of standard or state vehicles standard, more paperwork would doubly be created by the need to deal with exceptions such as Angell's example.
"Those are the kinds of questions that have to be resolved." Annelle said.
The questions are dull, and the constant encroachment of exceptions to conservation standards would frustrate even the most devout friend of the earth.
Kansas lawmakers are intrigued with solar energy, perhaps because the memory of a long, hot Kansas summer never fades. Tax incentives for installation of solar energy apparatus have an honorable reputation, but the solar energy field's recent emergence as a possible alternative energy source.
"Generally, it's been well established by the legislature in the last two years that solar is the active alternative," Angeli said.
Engineers and architects generally aren't as optimistic as legislators. Most experts predict that solar energy collecting equipment will be widely developed before the sun can begin to assuage our imminent energy ache.
"THE PROBLEM, of course, is economic feasibility," Angell said.
As engineers downplay the role of solar energy devices, technological advances attract the energy-conscious homeowner, and for that matter, the lawmaker as well.
A holder bill from the 1977 session outlines a tax incentive scheme that would give the owner of a solar-energy device an incentive to lease it if the building acquires 70 percent of its energy from the sun.
Unfortunately, the addition of solar energy equipment increases the assessed value of a unit purchased and gains the tax rebate would offer.
Interdependence is the key concept, as any energy conservation neophyte realizes that economic growth and economic growth play have with energy estimates determines the price of growth.
The energy moves being considered by legislators are modest and cautious. It may be that Kansans will have to wait until a year's wages are paid or that they would kawlt credits to develop substantive measures against economic stagnation.
"AS A STRONG ADVOCATE OF SOLAR ENERGY, I RECOMMEND WE GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE AND HEAD FOR MIAMI!"
Benefits of "wet" Union dubious
But the politicians aren't. The Legislature's move to add beer to student unions' menus a few years ago was a major breakthrough in itself. "Campus liquor privileges," in this case, refer to a bill that permits liquor to be served in
An item appeared in the newspapers this week that twice bore the misleading headline, "Campus Liquor Privileges." People who merely drink from Topeka probably got the wrong idea. In fact, even after tacking the three-paragraph story, a person easily could be under the impression that the Kansas Legislature actually is campus liquor privileges.
student unions. Again, don't get the wrong idea. This by no means suggests that martins or even sloe gin fizz might soon be flowing in the Kansas Union. But at least few drinks are likely to be flowing in the students' direction.
If all this seems a little vague, maybe it is because at the moment, a bill to grant "campus liquor privileges" is in a very early stage of the lawmaking process. The bill is currently in the Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee. It
was introduced at the request of State Sen. John Crofoot, R-Cedar Point.
"I DON'T remember where the idea came from. Someone just told me about it last year so I had to find a photo-fraced this year," Croot said.
According to Crofto's guess about the bill, campus liquor privileges will apply only to private cocktail reception held in the student unions during the evening. Crofto said that he wasn't sure about whether the bill would be written as an exemption to the statute that prohibits liquor consumption on state property. Currently, the only exemptions to that statute apply to the consumption of alcohol at university and at private residences of the state's university presidents and chancellor.
Obligatory education has flunked out
By ROGER SIPHER
N.Y. TIMES FEATURES
CORTLAND, N.Y. — A decline in standardized test scores is only the most recent indicator that American education is in
One reason for the crisis is that present mandatory-attendance laws force many, who have no wish to be there, to have little desire to learn and are so antagonistic toward school that neither they nor more highly motivated students receive the high-quality education is being birthed of every American.
The solution to this problem is simple. Abolish compulsory-attendance laws and allow only students who have completed getting an education to attend.
This will not end public education. Contrary to conventional belief, legislators enacted compulsory-attendance laws to legalize what already had existed. William Landes of the economist firm of economic economists, found little evidence that mandatory-attendance laws increased the number of children in school. They found, too, that school systems never have effectively
THERE IS no contradiction between the assertion that compulsory attendance has had a positive effect on children attending school and the argument that repeal would be a positive step toward improving education. Most of the reasons for compulsory education for their children. Unfortunately, compulsory attendance hampers the ability of public school officials to maintain disciplinary and disciplinary policies.
Private schools have no such problems. They can fail or dismiss students, knowing that such students can attend public school. Without compulsory attendance, public schools would be freer to outstude whose academic or personal experience. The educational mission of the institution.
enforced such laws, usually because of the expense involved.
ASK HIGH SCHOOL teachers whether recruitment students learn anything of value. Ask
Has not the noble experiment of a formal education for everyone failed? When we pay homage to the homily, "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink," we have pretended it is not true in education.
teachers whether these students do any homework. Ask whether the threat of low
grades motivates them. Quite the contrary, these students know they will be passed from
grade to grade until they are old enough to quit or not, as is more likely, they receive a high school diploma. If they could legally quit, most choose to remain because they know they are likely to be allowed to graduate and they do acceptable work or not.
Abolition of archaic attendance laws would produce enormous dividends.
It would alert everyone that school is a serious place where one goes to learn. Schools are neither day-care centers nor indoor street corners. Young people who have missed school, indeed, an end to compulsory schooling would require them to stay away.
a private club does, the serving of liquor will not directly result in increased theft because that because of the size of its facilities, a "wet" Union will be more attractive to outside patrons, in this way, profits.
Schools should be for education. At present, they are only tangentially so. They have little chance of encompassing social function, trying to be all things to all people. In the process they have failed minerally at what they normally formed to accomplish.
Roger Sipher is associate professor of history at the State University of New York at Cortland.
The interests of the students ought to come first in the Union's business. Because the majority of students will not be 21, most student groups will not be cocktail parties. Will the facilities still be as available to these groups as they are now? Many students now serve at banquets held at the Union, but if liquor is served, students in grade 21 will be able to work.
Although he says he hasn't done any research on the bill, Crofoot thinks it is a good idea.
THERE IS NO question that the campus liquor privileges bill, if passed, will open up the Kansas Union. But a question does exist about whether this legislation is beneficial to the University of Kansas. Because the Union will not be able to sell the liquor, as
"There are many conventions held in student unions but for private cocktail parties you have to go across the street to a club or mote. This will open the student unions, be said.
Finally, will the union take on a private club atmosphere after dark? If so, how many students will this alienate?
These objections may seem premature, but it is not uncommon for such relatively obscure bills as this one to be passed with merely a whimper of protest. Coptod says opposition from the Kansas United Dry Forces. For reasons besides that group's assertions, though, the campus liquor privileges bill should be watched. The Kansas lawmakers need to pay more attention to how liquor contends with students in university's student unions, will affect the universities themselves.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Published at the University of Kansas daily Auckland. Subscriptions are accepted by mail on Wednesday, June 1 and Jury date on Saturday. Sunday and bank transfers may be made to U.S. Post Office #60445. Subscriptions by mail are $1 a member or $15 a non-member for a one-year membership. Student subscriptions are a free course outside the county. Student subscriptions are subject to availability.
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