Opinion
Kansan
Published daily since 1912
Julie Wood, Editor
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Cory Graham, Managing editor
Tom Eblen, General manager, news adviser
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Scott Valler, Technology coordinator
Monday, November 22, 1999
Seth Jones / KANSAN
Editorials
Bill would improve enrolling process
Each semester nearly every student at the University of Kansas goes through the tedious and stressful process of selecting classes. A proposed bill going through Student Senate may alleviate some of that stress by encouraging faculty to make the content of individual courses available to students.
Currently, there are only two resources for students to find out what academic material is covered in a particular course section — the University course catalog and the course content Web page. The catalog briefly and vaguely summarizes the general concept behind a class, and the course content Web page is where faculty voluntarily make class syllabuses
Course content Web page could prevent class shopping by providing syllabuses
available to students
The problem with the current system is that most students are unaware of the specific content of a course before they enroll. Also, not enough faculty participate in the Web page. This leads to several logistical enrollment problems and, from the students' perspective, frustration about what class best fits their needs. By not having course content available for students, some enroll in a course with expectations of the subject matter
that aren't necessarily true.
Students and faculty will benefit directly from improving the course content system. Faculty will see more students with engaging faces who have a desire to learn in their lectures rather than sleep through something they don't care about.
"Class shopping" also may be prevented by making syllabuses public. Students will not have the frustration of switching courses early in the semester because the instructor or course does not best fit their academic needs. Promoting this latest Senate resolution is a logical and necessary step to improving academic quality.
Corey Snyder for the editorial board
Feedback
Pay just part of problem
I rarely had the opportunity to see a more self-serving argument than that made by KU administrators in the article "Going for Gold," which appeared in the Nov. 9 issue of the Kansan. Both CLAS Dean Frost Mason and Chancellor Hemenway content that the reason that KU cannot retain many of its faculty is because of low salaries. In fact, money is only one issue behind the faculty drain at the University.
The KU administration seems to ignore the fact that the exodus of faculty has occurred since Chancellor Hemenway came to the University, but that salaries have been low for a long time. It is unlikely, therefore, that the issue is simply one of low salaries, Dean Frost Mason is quoted in the article as saying that a record number of professors left CLAS last year, a phenomenon more likely related to recent changes in the operations of the college than to a sudden realization by the faculty that the University has below average salaries. Chancellor Hemenway has significantly increased faculty research and teaching expectations, reorganized faculty governance and rewritten the faculty handbook, making it much easier to fire tenured faculty. The result of these changes is a significant decrease in job satisfaction, as reflected in a recent survey of KU faculty. At the same time, he has raised the salaries of administrators much more than he has those of faculty, contributing to the current morale problem.
As a member of the faculty who has considered leaving the University, I can state that the major reason I would leave have little to do with salary, but is instead related to the destructive social environment for faculty on the KU campus, in which genuine accomplishment is downplayed and sycophancy to the current administration is rewarded. This atmosphere has led to the filing of numerous lawsuits against the university by faculty.
I know several of the "record number of professors" lost by the College of
Liberal Arts and Sciences last year, and not one left solely for increased salary. All of the ones to whom I spoke described the lack of respect for faculty and the change in the atmosphere at KU since 1996 as their major reasons for leaving. This was particularly true of minority faculty who left the University, who felt that there was a lot of talk about increasing diversity on campus but no substantive action being taken to retain minority faculty.
For example, in Dean Frost Mason's own department this fall, 5 of 6 candidates for tenure, including two minority women, were voted down. This indicates a major lack of mentoring on the part of senior faculty, including the dean. The number of junior faculty being turned down for tenure and promotion under the current administration has skyrocketed, with an associated increase in anxiety among junior faculty yet to come forward. The reasons for firing faculty as they come up for tenure is that you can replace them with less expensive new faculty and lecturers. In the last 5 years, the University has removed over 40 tenured faculty lines and replaced these people with more than 100 "lecturers" who serve on one year contracts and can be terminated at the whim of a department chair or administrator. Additional statistical information can be found on our web site at www.seekpeace.com/KUSRVC. Given the insecurity associated with such temporary appointments combined with the hard line on tenure and promotion, it is hardly surprising that faculty morale at the University is low.
If the chancellor, the provost, and the dean of CLAS are really concerned about the loss of faculty, they should work hard to change the atmosphere that they have created on campus. If they cannot change this atmosphere, it doesn't matter how much money they pay faculty; they will continue to lose faculty at record rates.
Lawrence has many Spring Break Alternatives
Raymond Pierotti Associate professor, ecology and evolutionary biology representative, Kansas University Sexism and Racism Victim Coalition
"Spring Breaks not just for fun frolic" (Kansan, 11-12-99) was excellent. In addition to spring breaks offered through the Center for Community Outreach there are opportunities sponsored by Ecumenical Christian Ministry, Canterbury House, KU Habitat, and Lutheran Campus Ministry. The trips are open to all students, faculty, and staff at the University as well as to Haskell Indian Nations University. No one is given a "religious hassle." We have had a Jewish, Christian, Buddhist and Muslim participants and those who do not identify with a religious tradition. In the spring of 2000, there will be trips offered to New Mexico, Texas, South Carolina, and New York City. All of them include volunteer service. A major difference is that there is no class enrollment required, although up to three orientation meetings are required.
The Alternative Spring Breaks offered through CCO began through Julie Ford, a KU student who went on ECM's New Mexico trip during spring break 1992. She was encouraged to incorporate similar spring breaks into CCO's programming. The result was been superb because of the hard work and efforts of the CCO leadership. Going on an Alternative Spring Break can be a "transforming experience." I hope those interested will take a "risk" while providing service to others.
Thad Holcombe Pastor, Ecumenical Christian Ministries
Election time offers less than apples and oranges
Perspective
Let's say you walk into the grocery store one day wanting to buy fruit. You get to the produce section and find only apples and oranges. If you want anything else, you're just out of luck. So, do you just buy and apple or an orange, despite the fact that you don't like either? Or, do
Aaron
Major
columnist
opinion @ kansan.com
you go and complain to the store manager?
If there's one thing that I get sick of hearing during election season, it's "if you don't vote, you can't complain." Maybe that would be true if we had an electoral system that offered a real choice among candidates, but as it stands, we're left with a "choice" between moderate Democrats — 'third way' Democrats — and moderate Republicans — 'compassionate conservatives;' moderation to the point of stagnation.
The bifurcated fruit basket that is our political system has been expanded upon with the addition of an anti-Semitic, racist banana and third political party. Although I certainly take issue with their personal and political views, I also think that it's a step in the right direction in expanding our political dialogue.
Voter turnouts are atrociously low, and popular participation in the political process is almost nonexistent. While some would like to blame this on the people, I instead see it as an incredible deficiency in our political system.
Nobody votes because nobody thinks that it really matters. And on many levels, it really doesn't. How can you still vote democratic when a Democrat president pulled a very Republican move and signed a welfare reform bill that effectively abolished Aid to Families with Dependent Children?
Both major political parties have become so enmeshed in the interests of the "free market" and corporate America — witness bipartisan support for the North American Free Trade Agreement and General Agreement on Trades and Tariffs — that people don't think that anyone speaks to their
Of course, there still are reasons to vote — even in a rigged contest between two members of the power elite. Democrats still talk about child poverty and universal health care, and these are issues that need to be addressed and dealt with. Do I think that they will be effectively dealt with in the framework of the current political dialogue? No I don't.
interests anymore. They're right; no one in the mainstream does.
People who don't vote have the greatest right to complain of anyone. When the political process has become so formalistic, so routine, so shrouded in the trite rhetoric of "community" and "courage" and "values" that they become meaningless ideas, it is time to rethink the entire process and give people a reason to get into politics.
This process begins with actively encouraging alternative political views to come to light. Massive finance reform, to the level of eliminating private campaign financing and putting politics back into the public sector, is a good place to start. No one critical of corporate wealth and power will get the kind of private financing that the tools of corporate power, Democrats and Republicans, will get. And we're all well aware of the importance that money plays in the current process.
Along with this goes regulating the main media services — newspaper, radio and television — so that more equitable time is allotted to candidates from a wide range of political parties. As it stands, a select few candidates are hyper-exposed to the point where you would think that they were the only people worth paying attention to. They're not.
The list could go on, and like most things that I write about, we would have to really question the basic principles under which this society operates to see any meaningful change.
So, in the meantime, I would recommend looking at www.politics1.com. It's a great site that lists all sorts of American political parties, from the most boring, Democrat and Republican, to the more extreme Socialist Workers Party. You just may find your political voice in the fruit salad that is our political system.
Major is a Deerfield, N.H., senior in sociology and American studies.
Americans should watch what their taxes support
Much has been said about the controversial exhibition entitled "SENSATION: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection at the Brooklyn Museum of Art." In The University Daily Kansan, there have been several columns, one cartoon and one editorial about this exhibition. Why should you read one more?
The answer is: That there are some topics that should be mentioned again and again in order not to be forgotten.
"The only way in which a human being can make some approach to knowing the whole of a subject is by hearing what can be said about it by
The exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum of Art deals with two aspects of United States that are very important to all of us: freedom of expression and economics. Coming from a Third World country, I have to say that I admire America's openness to a variety of opinions and ability to constantly finance the cost of bringing international exhli-
Mariana
Paiva
guest columnist
@karasan.com
persons of every variety of opinion," said philosopher John Stuart Mill.
But the problem with freedom of expression and the bad quality of art is not what is bothering New Yorkers, or Kansans, either. What some people did not like was the idea of this exhibition being sponsored by our public funds (yes, I say our public funds because although I'm a foreign student, I have to pay taxes like everybody else). And when money is involved, relationships between those for a given action and those against it usually get ugly.
bitions to its museums. By being able to see and talk about different ideas, viewers can only enhance their ability to understand the world and its diversity. That is the price Americans pay to tolerate what some consider bad art.
What is so bad about this exhibition — that most of us just saw through television — that can mobil-
lize so many people against it? Why do people complain so much about the Brooklyn Museum of Art exhibit and not about the public funds that have been used to maintain that, and other, institutions?
Let's look at the case of the School of the Americas. Since 1946, Americans have sponsored a U.S. Army base in Ft. Benning, Ga., to train Latin American soldiers. The result? Hundreds of human rights abuses that have been committed by the graduates of the School of the Americas in the name of fighting communism.
The following are two profiles of the more notorious graduates of the School of the Americas, taken from the home page of the School of the Americas Watch, an online publication working to shut down the school.
As I've said, Americans have the right to express themselves freely and to a stable economy that enables it to promote a forum of ideas. So, instead of trying to cut a museum's public funds or trash an exhibition that we haven't even seen, let's use this freedom of expression to denounce crimes such as the School of the Americas and promote justice and diversity as much as we can.
"Gen. Manuel Noriega — jungle operations, drug trafficking, racketeering. De facto leader of Panama who, in 1988, became the most powerful foreign official ever indicted by the United States." "Gen. Roberto Viola — military dictator, 1981: Achieved power via scheduled change of military rulers. Viola was convicted of murder, kidnapping and torture during the 'dirty wars.'"
If we are concerned about how our public funds are being used, we should focus on issues that can have real impact. Looking to art — good or bad — can only enhance our critical and artistic skills. Tolerating the School of the Americas in the name of democracy has kept Latin America in turmoil even after the Cold War. Besides that, financing this violent institution has not benefited you in anyway.
Paira is a Rio de Janeiro senior in Latin American studies and journalism.
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