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Kansan
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Wednesday, January 27,1999
Seth Jones and Doug Manley / KANSAN
Editorials
Online course descriptions suffer without professors' cooperation
The KU Web site that allows students to view instructor-submitted course descriptions is a positive step toward interactive learning. However, if instructors neglect to submit the information, the site is useless. To better serve students, the University of Kansas should require instructors to submit information about class size, cost of material, topics covered, teaching style, expectations of students and grading style.
Kathleen McCluskey-Fawcett, assistant to the Provost, said that Student Senate pushed to have course content added to the University's Web site because the information personalized students' knowledge of instructors' teaching styles. The site, http://www.ukans.edu/~content/, made
Course content service merits complete assistance of University instructors.
its debut in Fall 1998, and McCluskey-Fawcett said that she had received positive responses about it. However, she said that the site would be more helpful if more instructors would submit their information.
Kevin Yoder, student bc^v president,
said he is developing a reward system to
encourage instructors to post their
course descriptions. Yoder said that Student
Senate would publicize those
instructors who had submitted information to the Web site and encourage department heads to require their faculty to participate.
An individual course description from every instructor could help student decide which courses they could afford, from which teachers they would best and in which reading material they are most interested. The Web site would help students find the best class schedule possible. Because the site is offered, it should be complete.
Students should make their instructors aware of the Web site and encourage them to post their course information. With 100 percent participation from instructors, students will be better prepared and more aware of what to expect on the first day of class.
Emily Hughey for the editorial board
Faculty salary increase inadequate
A university's programs of study are only as good as the faculty. At the University of Kansas, excellent professors have elevated several programs in the schools of Architecture, Journalism, Engineering and the College of Liberal Arts in Sciences, among other schools, to a nationally recognized status.
These programs are in danger of losing their outstanding faculty to other universities that can afford to pay more. If the University and the five other Board of Regents institutions are to remain competitive, Gov. Bill Graves and the Legislature must raise faculty salaries to a level near that or exceeding those of other institutions.
Graves' support of only a 3.5 percent increase in the budget plan for faculty salaries is insufficient.
The average faculty salary at the
Graves' subtle budget increase not enough to keep faculty salaries competitive.
University is just under $56,000 — 12 percent lower than the average salary at universities of comparable size. Regents requested approval for a 7.6 percent raise during a three-year period beginning this year. The average faculty salary would rise to more than $60,000. Graves' small increase would include a $2.5 million cache to the University to retain good faculty.
Moreover, the Legislature's apparently lax attitude toward improving Kansas' universities is outrageous and an insult to the KU professors and
instructors who have earned praise for their programs.
Consider the University's low ranking as a Category I school. Schools earn Category I status by emphasizing research and offering several doctoral degrees. Compared to other Category I schools, Kansas is ranked in the bottom fifth — ablemish on its reputation as one of the great universities in the Midwest.
Though salary levels directly affect faculty, students also are affected. Should the disparity in salaries continue, students are in danger of losing their favorite professors, advisers and mentors to universities that pay more.
Before the Legislature approves Graves' plan, students should call their state representatives and lobby for more competitive pay for faculty.
Chris Borniger for the editorial board
Kansan staff
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Broaden your mind: Today's quote
"The two most beautiful words in the English language are 'check enclosed.'"
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.
-Dorothy Parker
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Perspective
Clinton's speech reflects inability to lead country
After attending the State of the Union address for the first time, Lawrence's freshman House member, Rep. Dennis Moore, observed that
despite the president's weight agenda, it would be "almost impossible for anything meaningful to happen until this impeachment matter is concluded." To this Moore should have added, "with conviction and removal."
The partisan political atmosphere, which President Clinton supposedly deplores, is soothed by Clinton's words one
Andrew Marino
opinion @ kansan.com
moment only to be further polluted by his deeds the next.
Rep. Tom Delay (R-Texas) has revealed a typical Clintonian moment. During the 1995 budget negotiations, the first year of the current Republican majority, Clinton and GOP leaders had reached a verbal agreement on the budget. Later, Clinton broke the deal before the television cameras—and in the months and weeks that followed, the Clinton administration argued that because these "extremists" did not increase spending enough, Grandma would be thrown out into the snow and school children would starve. Republicans were even compared to Nazis committing genocide on the house floor.
Demagoguery like this only serves to harden positions, create resentment and instill fear in the heart of any innovative lawmaker proposing reform. It has, to use the American Civil Liberties Union's favorite term, "chilled" policy making.
Time and again, however, the media reminds us that Bill Clinton is one of the greatest policy makers of his generation. The former Rhodes scholar is frequently credited with possessing intelligence, memory ability and a grasp of the issues uncommon among presidents.
He is never, though, commended for being a trustworthy man of integrity, and that is a source of his weakness as a policy maker and failure as a president.
As fashionable as it is to be against "imposing" or "legislating" morality, such a stance is woefully naive. Virtually every decision that the government makes has a moral component. Even something as dry
as budget negotiation is laced with moral choices.
How much should be taken from the people and used for government? How should the revenue be raised? What programs should be financed?
The answers to these questions — commonly referred to as a government's budget
The answers to these questions monly referred to as a government's budget — are simply derivatives of a set of moral priorities. Government's job is to "impose" morality. This is why any suggestion that government should operate more like a business or the president should act more like a chief executive officer brings a cringe to thoughtful faces.
The overwhelming concern of the typical CEO is the economic priorities of the company, not its moral duties. Unfortunately, Bill Clinton acts more like the CEO of his own political fortunes and less like the leader of the free world. In the past, Clinton did this to get into office; now, he does it to remain in office and because he knows no other way.
Take Social Security reform for example. In his State of the Union address, Clinton proclaimed that by saving 60 percent of the budget surplus during the next 15 years — money that is far from a sure thing — Social Security will be made sound for the next 55 years. Any Social Security expert could tell you that any person giving such an assessment either was ignorant or intentionally deceitful.
Can there be any doubt it was the latter? Clinton's numbers assume there is (real) money in the Social Security trust fund when he knows darn well there isn't. The truth is, in about 15 years, when Social Security's tax revenues start to dip below what it gives in benefits, either taxes will be raised, more money will be borrowed (meaning bigger debt), or spending will be cut.
Clinton's problem is that real solutions are politically painful, and he lacks the moral courage to lead. As a result, the country's interests are subordinated to his.
Today's conventional wisdom asserts that a separation exists between a president's public ability and his personal morality. A close examination of this president suggests otherwise. Clinton has repeatedly lied under oath, to members of Congress and to the people he no longer deserves to lead.
marino is a Prairie Village sophomore in political science.
Technology can't replace instructor's passion, skill
Last fall, I had the opportunity to hear writer Kurt Vonnegut Jr. speak. During his speech, he asked each of us to turn to the person we were sitting beside
Mr. Keller taught Composition and British Literature at Hutchinson Community College.I've been thinking about Mr. Keller quite a bit recently, especially because I detect a dis-
and say aloud the name of the best teacher we had in our lifetime. I turned to the person beside me and said, "Mr. Keller."
Duane Wagler opinion @ tansan.com
turbing trend at the University of Kansas. The problem I suspected and had reinforced in a Dec. 4 Kansan column by Don Marquis has to do with research acumen of professors being emphasized at the expense of teaching ability. Marquis called for "a faculty hiring policy that would require that the teaching skills of job candidates be as rigorously evaluated as their research skills." Agree, and I think that one of the tools that distracts from good teaching is instructors' over-reliance on technology.
I've thought about Mr. Keller longingly when I see instructors unleash PowerPoint lectures or endless overheads on students. Mr. Keller needed nothing but a passion for teaching to impart a love for his subject. Armed with a piece of chalk and a respect for texts such as "Beowulf," Mr. Keller brought literature that was hundreds of years old alive. Words danced and flared to life when he read. I would leave class, energized with the buzz of learning, after the hour-long lecture.
I realize that classes such as Algebra 101 or Chemistry 101 might not lend themselves to the immediacy that Mr. Keller had in his literature class. But I maintain that the University would do well to hire instructors who love the subject that they are teaching — and kick up a cloud of chalk dust in the process.
I know that the tool of technology can enhance a lecture and make the instructor more organized. But I sometimes wonder what purpose is being served when I see instructors waging personal battles with the vagaries of a computer program that supposedly improves our learning. When instructors fumble technology, it becomes an alienating tool that stifles discussion and learning alike.
All the bells and whistles mean little if the student doesn't understand what the instructor is trying to say. This fascination with technology as a learning tool reminds me of the story told about Ralph Waldo Emerson upon the invention of the telegraph. Someone exclaimed to Emerson, "Just think, now Maine can talk to Florida!"
Emerson responded, "Yes, but does Maine have anything to say to Florida?"
I'm not asking for a moratorium on technology tools so as to get a more pure teaching style. I'm only asking that the technology used helps the students' learning.
Perhaps one of the criteria for new instructors at the University should be to leave the prospective instructor in a room with 20 eager students. Make sure the room has a chalkboard and a generous supply of chalk. If the students stumble out an hour later with glazed-over expressions, the University can wish the prospective teachers success in whatever research area they choose.
But if the students come out after an hour emitting the buzz of learning, the University could hire a new instructor. Give the instructor the Keller stamp of approval — and a piece of chalk.
Wagler is a Partridge graduate student in journalism.
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