Opinion
Kansan
Published daily since 1912
Ann Premer, manager
Gerry Doyle, Managing editor
Angie Kuhn, Managing editor
Tom Eblen, General manager, news advisor
Jamie Holman, Business manager
Sara Cropper, Retail sales manager
Dan Simon, Sales and marketing adviser
Justin Knupp, Technology coordinator
Friday, January 29, 1999
Robert James Novak / KANSAN
Editorials
Online, pre-order textbook glitch mismanaged by KU Bookstores
One way around some of the hassle of textbook buying, as well as some of the cost, is to pre-order textbooks.
Many students chose to order their books online, as there was an advertisement on the back of the timetable that claimed students could save money by ordering their books at http://www.iayhawks.com.
Unfortunately, many students were unpleasantly surprised to find that their orders were not there when they arrived at either the Burge or Kansas Union. Instead of being able to pick up their books and then simply pay for them, they had to go through the same ordeal as the students who did not pre-order their books.
A computer glitch kept the orders from going through, and the orders
Students should have received some compensation for inconvenience of error.
were somehow lost in csiperson space. The orders were run through the Kansan server, and a change of software and e-mail server is believed to be the cause of the difficulties. The Unions offered to help students find their books, but in many cases the used books were gone, nullifying the promised discount of up to 30 percent.
More should have been done to help the students who were victimized by this computer glitch. Students who complained should have been compensated in some way for the inconvenience.
A coupon or some other sort of discount would have been appropriate. The students deserved as much for their loss of time and money.
Other businesses would do more for customers who were hurt by a mistake such as this. But there are not many businesses that sell books, so the bookstores can have less than exemplary customer service without significantly affecting business.
If a service is advertised, it should be executed properly. If not, that business should jump through hoops to rectify the situation. Students will continue to use the bookstores, regardless of the level of customer service. There just is not much choice.
Emily Haverkamp for the editorial board
Add/drop process lacks KUID check
As the tedious semesterly task known as add/drop winds down this week, it is apparent that the system needs at least one update — KUIDs should be checked.
Every day of add/drop, students line the hallways of Strong Hall waiting their turn to use the manually operated, outdated enrollment system. They are supposed to do this on a specified day and time based on the last two numbers of their KUID.
But the employees at the enrollment center are not required to check the KUIDs. Anyone could simply add or drop classes from any student's schedule just by writing the right KUID on the add/drop form.
Also, students are not necessarily able to trek to Strong Hall at their designated times because of class, work or other
Enrollment center ought to give student, scheduling protection first priority.
activities. This makes for unnecessarily long lines during the prime times, which is unfair for the people who are supposed to be there.
This also threatens students' safety for their schedules. Class scheduling can determine whether a student completes prerequisites, or even graduates on time. The possibility that anyone but the student could have access to his or her schedule planning is absurd.
hons, cafeterias, Robinson Center and others places across campus. Offering students this protection during add/drop would ensure their privacy and safety.
Ideally, students would benefit the most with online enrollment. Many universities, private colleges and junior colleges already have such systems in place.
At seemingly every event that the Uni
versity sponsors, KUIDs are checked
at basketball games, theater produc
It is only fair to check KUIDs at the door of the enrollment center to make this add/drop system as efficient as possible until a new system is installed.
But because this does not seem plausible in the next few semesters for the University, the administration needs to ensure that the present system is as student-friendly and safe as possible.
Ryan Koener ... Editorial
Jeremy Doherty ... Associate Editorial
Aaron Marvin ... Nees
Laura Roddy ... Nees
Melissa Ngo ... Nees
Aaron Knopf ... Online
Erin Thompson ... Sports
Marc Sheforgen ... Associate sports
Chris Fickett ... Campus
Sarah Hale ... Campus
T.R. Miller ... Features
Steph Brewer ... Associate features
Augustus Anthony Piazza ... Photo
Chris Dye ... Design, graphics
Carl Kaminski ... Wire
Carolyn Mollett ... Special sections
Laura Veazey ... news clerk
Kansan staff
Jason Pearce for the editorial board
News editors
Advertising managers
Matt Lopez ... Special Sections
Jennifer Patch ... Campus
Micah Kafitz ... Regional
Jon Schlitt ... National
Tyler Cook ... Marketing
Shannon Curran .. PR/ Intern manager
Christa Estep .. Production
Steven Prince .. Production
Chris Corley .. Creative
Jason Hannah .. Classified
Corinne Buffmire .. Zone
Shauntea Blue .. Zone
Brandi Byram .. Zone
Brian Allers .. Zone
Justin Allen .. Zone
"Do your job and demand your compensation — but in that order."
Broaden your mind: Today's quote
Cary Grant
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 home-town if a University student. Faculty or staff must identify their positions.
Fellow dancer leaps to Crimson Girls' side
Perspective
he basketball team won't be competing this year.
How to submit letters and guest columns
All 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 Jeremy Doherty at 864-4924.
Sorry. Budget cuts, what can I say?
Oh, and next year, they won't be hiring bas
Jamie Patterson opinion@kansan.com
keenball coaches either.
Why would they? The players all know how to run,
and we understand the game, right? It's easy, just get the ball in the hoop.
If you have general questions or comments,
e-mail the page staff (opinion@kansan.com)
or call 864-4924.
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.
Furthermore, our baseball team will be paying for their own uniforms, hotel rooms and travel expenses.
The swimmers and divers will all be buying their own books next year as well.
Ok, fine; I'm kidding.
all know that we wouldn't treat our valued ath-
I know that we wounds'treat our valued athletes in such ways — at least not all of them.
You may have forgotten the lottery
Department has forgetteth the Scoot Twigs.
The Spirit Squads include cheerleaders, mascots, Baby Blues and Crimson Girls.
An article ran in the Jan. 21 Kansan about the Crimson Girls attending a national competition despite the wishes of the Athletics Department.
According to the story, the Crimson Girls would now focus primarily on cheering for athletic teams at the University, which always has been a part of being a Crimson Girl. This year, however, supporting other teams is all the department would like them to do.
The world is full of dancers. There are tap dancers, break dancers and electric-slide dancers. There are also belly, jazz, pointe, ballet, modern, high-kick, ballroom, square, line, hula, disco, swing and ice dancers.
Within these particularities are both good and bad dancers.
But they all share one thing in common – the love of dancing.
There are few differences between retro night at the Granada and a ballroom dancing competition: the dress-code, the audience and a lot of practice.
The expression of oneself through dance remains the same.
I started dancing before I could walk
I danced in studios until I reached high school where I danced on a competitive team. Every year we anticipated the state competition and every year we placed second — always the bridesmaid and never the bride.
During my senior year, after months of 30-hour practice weeks, the team knew it. We were walking down the state finals aisle in a white dress.
We were about to compete against our biggest rivals. We had passed the preliminaries and were now among only six teams in the state to vie for the title.
It was the Super Bowl for dancers
The Wicked series for dancers
The Wimbled for dancers!
The excitement and glory of competition is part of what dancing is all about. It was our time to shine instead of just being half-time entertainment. Competitions were part of what gave our team meaning and strength.
We went on to place second, again.
MURY, I haven't danced since. Even though I took it in three years, I still consider myself a danger.
Supporting other teams on campus is a very honorable thing to do.
The Crimson Girls, a team composed of dancers, are categorized as "Athletic Support."
I'm glad the Crimson Girls support the football team.
oal team. I'm glad they support the basketball team
There is so much more to dancing than cheering for someone else.
But shouldn't someone support the Crimson Girls?
I know there are plenty students out there who are dancers. Some of are excellent line dancers, swing dancers and electric-slide dancers.
There are very few dancers, however, who are dedicated enough to endure long hours of practice.
There are even fewer athletes who would endure the dismissal of their passion as trivial.
Our dance squad has been dismissed as second priority.
When the Crimson Girls competed at Nationals they represented the University as athletes.
They have fallen victim to budget cuts and to a society that chooses to support and idolize only a select group of athletes.
The Crimson Girls competed against thirty other teams and were in fourth place going into the final competition.
Despite the fact that the Athletics Department opposed the Crimson Girls competing, I applaud the team for their accomplishments at Nationals.
Until our Spirit Squads are treated as invaluable rather than insignificant, the Crimson Girls should be allowed to do the one thing that they do best.
Patterson is a Minneapolis junior in English.
High school not the same after college experience
was glad to leave high school
I wasn't alone, of course. Look at any picture of graduating high school seniors and notice the sloppy grins plastered on their
faces. A tantalizing hope races through a senior's mind: "I can leave this stupid school and my brain-damaged classmates to start a new life somewhere where people are 'cool.'"
Why then, do I keep going back? Like a moth attracted to one of those blue zappy things, I keep fluttering back to my alma mater: El Dorado High School.
Clay McCuistion
opinion@kansan.com
Although I accept some
responsibility for the matter. I must place blame on the University of Kansas. The University lets out for winter break a couple of days before the El Dorado school system. Here's the chance, then, to drop by the old stomping grounds and annoy teachers and current students.
I could stay home, but both of my parents are teachers and my brother and sister are at classes. No one is around. I must entertain myself at any cost. What's more fun than going back to high school and reassuring myself once and for all that I don't have to go there anymore?
Actually, there are many things more fun than that. Most of them involve breaking the law, though, so I end up reluctantly visiting grand old EHS.
The smell is the one thing that never changes. It's the first thing I notice every time I visit. The odd combination of floor wax, cheap detergent and body odor all produce a scent that screams. "It's school! Run for your life!"
I don't just stand and sniff the air when I visit EHS, though. There are teachers to see, students to greet and memories to relive. Dropping in on teachers is fun — mainly because they don't change. In the year and a half I've been gone from high school, I could have grown a beard, had dattoes inked all over my body and undergone extensive plastic surgery. My old English teacher, just for comparison, has the same hairdo she did in 1942.
"What have you been up to?" asked Mrs. Gertrude Klugg-Finkelstein — my junior honors English teacher — the last time I visited.
It's like stepping into a time warp. A year and a half is an eternity in the life of a college student. Classes have been taken, one's mind has been expanded and numerous misdemeanors and felonies have been committed. For a high school teacher, a year and a half lasts about an afternoon. This makes communication difficult.
What could I say? Did she really want to hear about the 45 hours of classes I'd taken?
Did she really want to hear about my misdemeanors and felonies? Should I show her the tattoos? A complete answer to her question would have taken a few hours.
"Clay, did you hear me?" Mrs. Klugg-Finkel stein said. "What have you been doing?"
I searched my mind and answered as best I could.
"Stuff." I replied.
The high school does change, though. It happens at a slow rate, but imperceptibly, inevitably, it is altered. Teachers retire or move on to different jobs. Seniors graduate, and freshmen start. It's hard to notice these differences when one is overwhelmed by nostalgia. Perhaps one doesn't want to notice the difference.
Mrs. Klugg-Finkelstein keeping her hairstyle, and the school smell retaining its same antiseptic tinge reassures me. While life at the University might stretch my mind in bizarre new ways, at least the old high school will stay the same. I'd like to believe that. I want to believe that.
But, upon close examination, Mrs. Klugg-Finkelstein looks a little older. The bags around her eyes sag a bit more than they used to. The librarian is no longer pleasant, grandmotherly Mrs. Adams, but an efficient young college graduate. Lockers have been painted a slightly different shade of red. The students wear new styles of clothing. The school has changed. I have changed.
A year and a half ago, I was glad to leave El Dorado High School. I didn't hate it — I just knew it was time for me to move on. Somehow though, I never expected EHS to move on without me.
McCuision is an El Dorado sophomore in pre-journalism.