Opinion
Kansan
Published daily since 1912
Ann Premer, Editor Jamie Holman, Business manager Gerry Doyle, Managing editor Sara Cropper, Retail sales manager Angie Kuhn, Management Dan Simon, Sales and marketing adviser Tom Eblen, General manager, news advisor Justin Knupp, Technology coordinator
Monday, March 15, 1999
Clay McCuistion / KANSAN
Editorials
Yoder's veto of fee hike reflects sound judgment for students' sake
Recently, and for the first time during his administration, Kevin Yoder decided to veto a bill that he thought was incorrectly passed by the Student Senate. Yoder vetowed the bill to increase the Equal Opportunity Fund fee by $2, and Senate failed to override his veto at the last meeting.
The veto occurred for a number of reasons. Most important, this fee was mandated to the University by the Board of Regents. A number of years ago, when the University asked the board for money, the board handed down a mandate that this fee be added to student fees.
Because this fee was not asked for, requested by or even wanted by the students, Yoder decided to veto the bill. Additionally, because it was a
The president's killing of a $2 increase shows that Senate's preparation was hasty.
Regents-mandated fee, the Fee Review Subcommittee, which reviews fees and then recommends if they should be raised, lowered or remain unchanged, has no authority to suggest a raise of the fee. Only the board itself can take that action.
Equally important, the fee is not used in the fashion that it was designed. Originally, the money that was generated by the fee was supposed to go directly to the students it was designed to help. However, in the years since its inception, money
generated by the fee has gone toward such things as employee salaries and administrative costs. These things should have been taken into consideration by the Fee Review Subcommittee. Proper research was not conducted into the fee and its uses, nor into where the new money from the increase would go. If it went to more employee salaries, then it would be an inappropriate expenditure.
By bringing these points and others to light, Yoder did the correct thing in vetting this bill. It was not Senate's place to increase the fee, nor was the recommendation for the fee appropriate in the first place. By not overriding the veto, it is obvious that the Senate agrees.
Tara Kellv for the editorial board
Parking issue needs residents' input
The parking situation in the Alumni Place lots isn't going to get any better.
The lots, which serve residents of the University's nine scholarship halls, are crowded already. The addition of a women's hall north of Amini Scholarship Hall on Louisiana Street in fall 2000 will make the situation worse.
The Parking Department already has oversold the lots by 28 spaces. Residents find it extremely difficult to find spaces late at night or early in the morning, forcing them to park on Ohio and Tennessee streets.
Not only is parking far away at night an inconvenience for those who pay $75 for a space, it is a safety issue, especially for those living farthest away at Miller and Watkins scholarship halls.
Residents with seniority ought to be given first priority for limited permits.
When the Parking Department oversells spaces to students living off campus, it is unlikely that all those students will be on campus at the same time. Because the scholarship halls are residences, it is very likely that all students will be parking at the same time.
task force is looking into what residents in 1999 want. David Freeman, Hutchinson senior, wants to survey the scholarship hall residents to determine what their preference is.
In 1995, the Parking Department offered to restrict the number of permits sold. The All Scholarship Hall Council was opposed to the action.
One way to accomplish this would be to grant those with seniority the first opportunity to buy permits for a limited number of spaces.
If residents choose to restrict the number of permits sold, the board thinks that the restrictions should be methodical rather than random.
A Battenfeld Scholarship Hall resident in charge of the council's parking
Because the University has no immediate plans as to how it will handle the overflow from the new women's hall, it is important that Freeman and other residents begin looking into ways they can alleviate the situation themselves.
Kansan staff
Erinn R. Barcomb for the editorial board
Ryan Koerner . . . Editorial
Jeremy Doherty . . . Associate editorial
Aaron Marvin . . . News
Laura Roddy . . . Nees
Melissa Ngo . . . Nees
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Sarah Hale . . . Campus
T.R. Miller . . . Features
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Carolyn Mollett . Special sections
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Broaden your mind: Today's quote
“It's hard to be funny when you have to be clean.” —Mae West
How to submit letters and guest columns
Letters: Should be double-spaced typed and fewer than 200 words. Letters must include the author's signature, name, address and telephone number plus class and hometown if a University student. Faculty or staff must identify their positions.
**Guest columns:** Should be double-spaced typed with fewer than 700 words. The writer must be willing to be photographed for the column to run.
An letters and guest columns should be submitted to the Kansan newsroom, 111 Staufer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length or reject all submissions. For any questions, call Ryan Koerner or Jerome Doherty at 864-4924.
If you have general questions or comments, e-mail the page staff (opinion@kansan.com) or call 864-4924.
Classroom cooperation key to higher learning
Perspective
At least that's what I thought as I perused full-color brochures from the University of
Kansas and other colleges my senior year of high school. Here, I thought, were places where professors and students worked together in the search for academic enlightenment.
classes at the university level are supposed to be fun and enlightening.
Clay McCuistion
 opinion@kansan.com
I thought wrong.
Many classes at the University are battlegrounds. Professors and students have an adversarial relationship, as if hatred and dissension were integral parts of the learning process.
From the student's viewpoint, teachers are the evil oppressors. The invading forces prey on peace of mind and consume leisure time. It's almost as if the evil professor sits on one's shoulder constantly, saying: "Shouldn't you be studying now instead drinking that 100 beer?"
But surely all students have felt persecuted in a class — as if the instructor deliberately set out to fail them. Surely, professors have taught classes where they felt the students deliberately resisted instruction.
Every class isn't like this.
The ultimate act of aggression is the test.
This sounds far-fetched, I realize. But why do students groan when a surprise test is handed out in class? That collective "ugh" rising from the seats in a lecture hall is not a sound of joy. It's a sound that is best translated: "Why does the teacher hate me?"
The test is the invasion force, the unannounced landing. Students have two ways to respond to the aggression — by defending themselves, or by going on the offense.
When they defend themselves, students try to do the bare minimum. They want to avoid death or severe injury, but they don't mind a few scratches. A book might be scanned before class. Cs and Ds are "defense" grades, not very good scores, but passing.
Going on the offense involves study. The invading force will not only be subdued, but it will be pounded, pummede and crushed into submission. Students decide to face the aggression of the
test with aggression of their own. As and Bs are the offense grades, good scores, but harder to get
The concept of classes as battle is reflected in everyday speech. Consider these four common phrases:
"I fought hard for that grade."
"That test killed me."
"I bombed that test."
That test killed me.
"@ ★ ★ that touched!"
Students perceive instructors as brutal and violent. Grades — supposedly an objective measure of class work's quality — become a cause for pitched battles. Tests main and slaughter their takers.
All of these words are meant figuratively, of course. Speech has considerable power, however. If students use these terms daily or weekly about their classes, something is wrong. Universities apparently aren't giving pupils a positive experience.
In the days of high school, this animosity between the teachers and the learners made sense. The law or stern parents decreed that students had to attend. If teens rebelled, they had a reason: They wanted to make it perfectly clear they hated classes, teachers and anything connected to school.
No one forces students to attend college. Sure, parents can force their offspring to move to a town containing a university, but actually attending classes is voluntary. Mom doesn't have to call the school office and tell secretaries her child is sick.
In a college setting, the irritations and tribulations of the high school existence don't apply. Self-motivation and self-will become factors. Life is no longer easily mapped out.
Why persist, then, in treating classes at the university level like high school wood shop?
The role of education should not be combative. Teachers should not be oppressors. Students should not be the oppressed.
Learning at its best is cooperative. It's collaboration between minds. Reducing that collaboration to trench warfare harms both teacher and student. Real knowledge, well-learned, is too precious a thing to thoughtlessly discard.
An instructor must instruct for the benefit of students—not for his or her own smug ego.
A student must learn for the benefit of his mind not for a grade
McCuistion is an El Dorado sophomore in pre-journalism.
Director Stanley Kubrick opened Hollywood's eyes
I doesn't take a movie fanatic to recognize that a genius died last week. Although almost every college student has been scared by The Shining, awed by 2001: A Space Odyssey
by The Shining, awed by 200 and shocked by the graphic
After the collapse of the studios' dominance of Hollywood, Kubrick led an expansion of the film medium to reflect social and political issues like never before.
and shocked by the graphic brutality in A Clockwork Orange, most may not be aware of director Stanley Kubrick's impact on the film industry and society as a whole.
Jenny Oakson
oainion@kansan.com
Without such a breakthrough into the darker, controversial side of
Kubrick anticipated a new cinema for a new time. In Dr. Strangelove, he used war and violence not as symbols of extreme pain or emotion, but as a standard human characteristic. We saw the destruction of mankind as a result of human error. Kubrick observed humans and the unspoken rules by which they act and react, and he dared to draw a caricature.
Kubrick's next film, 2001, served as a social commentary from the heavens. With a skilled eye, Kubrick saw the line between what the country wanted to see for entertainment and what might be too self-analytical for moviegoers to handle. He often danced around the line to serve a helping of criticism on a silver platter.
Although some called Kubrick stubborn, he opened many doors for self-expression. He never allowed his work to be distorted for popularity or monetary gain.
movies, we'd still be watching pictures produced by the five mega-studios starring stable sets of actors, bound by lifetime contracts — in other words, movies about dancing and patriotic war films in which the mighty United States always wins.
Kubrick is partly responsible for broadening directors' artistic control. As he independently
Today, however, it seems as if a majority of the movies have reverted back into the age of the blockbuster. Instead of Fred Astraire or John Wayne, we have dinosaurs and Will Smith.
That is all the more reason to mourn the loss of Stanley Kubrick — in the hope that his magnificent brand of truth-telling and filmmaking wasn't just an interlude between box office hits.
Oakson is an Overland Park senior in English.
directed, wrote and produced his films, he opened doors for other directors to create films beyond the ruling hand of studios and distributors.
His films were popular and widely acclaimed. The era served as a catalyst for the world to willingly hear the statements Kubrick wanted to make.
Knutrick discussed western taboos, often making adaptations of controversial novels. The people of the '60s and '70s responded to his realism and flocked to his movies.
A master director and a pioneer of independent vision, Kubrick brought us more than special effects and sex. Many have mimicked him and lusted to attain his bravery and intensity. Some say that Quentin Tarantino transparently has borrowed aspects of *The Killing*, Kubrick's third film.
Boschee cartoon tarnishes Kansan
Feedback
In Lolita, one notices the sensuality that Kubrick used to deal with the story of an older man obsessed with his nymphet stepdaughter. Without showing the young actress naked, Kubrick used her character's sexuality to its full extent — so much that it seems dirty. And, with Vladimir Nabakov writing the script from his own novel, Kubrick maintained the story's characters, plot and humor, and added his own non-sentimental sharp-edged vision.
Humor was one of his strongest connections with audiences. We find ourselves laughing at a drill sergeant's slurs in Full Metal Jacket and are humored by the world of Alex and his band of punks in A Clockwork Orange. Yet these films are not comedies. Kubrick used our own hopelessly human emotions and tendencies to show the most extreme consequences of coveting control.
I am writing to ask about the cartoon printed in Friday's University Daily Kansan. I'm wondering who was the genius who drew this cartoon, and even more so, who was the genius who decided to run it?
Wait, I understand, let's take a freshman on our basketball team who has done wonders
While were doing that, let's just make fun of the kid's whole family. Are you going to go to North Dakota and kick bisg dog next?
I always had heard about all
this year on the court and make fun of him. Sure, Jeff Boschee has a ton of confidence on the court, so let's try to take that away from him by showing that the student newspaper likes to make fun of his haircut.
the awards that the Kansan has won, and I can see why. You guys put together a great newspaper.
But when I see something like this, I had to turn it over to see if this paper was from KU or MU. Please use better judgment in the future when running these editorial cartoons.
Tim O'Donnell Wichita senior
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