UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN editorials
Unsigned editors represent the opinion of the Kanan editorial staff. Signed columns represent the views of the editors.
March 27.1980
Owens proved worth
Johnny Orr has been hired as the basketball coach at Iowa State University. He is coming from a successful career at the University of Michigan, where he coached the Wolverines to 248 victories against 146 defeats, four straight NCAA tournaments and one national intlational tournament. He will be a formidable opponent for the Jayhawks in the years to come.
KU could have been dealing with another formidable coaching opponent if things had turned out differently last weekend. One of the other Big Eight universities was reportedly seeking the services of a coach who had led his teams to eight national post-season tournaments, six conference championships and 296 victories against 144 defeats. Quite a record for 16 years.
But that coach, Ted Owens, decided to stay at KU for at least another season, thus sparing Jayhawk fans the risk of being injured. The nation's winningest coaches.
It is surprising that Owens decided to stay. It would seem that he would have accepted an offer from the University of Oklahoma, even if it had not been his alma mater. The situation here was not very friendly, with students, alumni and players indicating that they would be pleased if there were a different Kansas basketball coach next season.
An offer from Oklahoma would have made it easy for everyone to get that new coach. Owens could save face by making a triumphant return to the land of the Sooners, Bob Marcus, KU athletic director, would be able to please the fans who have been loudly crying for Owens' sculp without having to pay off the remaining two years on Owens' contract, and KU fans would have a new coach who would keep them quiet for at least a year or two.
But Owens decided to stay at KU. Maybe the offer from Oklahoma didn't come. After all, the main pressure down there came from a booster team and an athletic department. Or maybe the came and it wasn't good enough.
Or maybe Owens decided to stay here and prove his worth to the fans, again, instead of taking the easy way out.
No matter how it happened, KU probably will benefit. For one thing, Owens has shown over the last 16 years that he does know how to coach. This season proved nothing. With the changes in college basketball during the last few years, all traditionally strong teams are not having it so easy. And the other teams in the Big Eight are tougher than they used to be.
At home, Owens has to deal with personnel problems on the team. Last year, after a lot of fan and media pressure, he went to Wichita and recruited Ricky Ross, the "Whitcha phenom." But the phenom turned into a spool washout as a freshman. And Danny Reed, a former America candidate, had a disappointing season. There were others who didn't play up to expectations.
But these things will pass. KU is better off with Owens that it would be with just about any other coach in the country. Owens probably would be more accepted if he were a more charismatic or legendary leader, like Phog Allen, Adolph Rupp or John Wooden. But he is not. He is a private pressurees coach with the media pressures coaches at a major college basketball team. But he has proved in the past that he can handle the coaching pressures. The disappointments of the past season have not shown otherwise.
Berman not helping small Kansas colleges
Chancellor Archie R. Dykes, in an interview I read some time ago, noted that he derigated and found the experience especially valuable because of the ease with which he could participate in a wide variety of activities. He said he greatly facilitate one's choice of profession.
One must wonder if Berman is prejudiced against small Kansas colleges because of their connections with various religious organizations. Many students, he can rest easy in most cases.
To the Editor:
If the reporting in the March 19 Kansas of State Sen. Arnold Burrow's comments about the approaching death of small colleges in Kansas is correct, one must wonder about the reason for his increasingly shrill vendetta against these schools and the need to defend them, all of whom are deserving of more rational treatment by an educated person.
For example, at Baker University no one can go beyond the sophomore year without reading large amounts of the writings of the late William H. Paul, St. Paul, Ovid, Voltaire, Rousseau, Karl
In the past Berman has professed great interest in the welfare of individuals (such as his children) and he seems concerned only with helping state-supported institutions, in particular KI to maintain and increase their high standards. He is a small, independent college, I can attest to the fact that many of the students who need the learning environment they provide
Not every high school graduate, especially if from a small town, is ready for the large classes and often impersonal students who attend universities or Kansas State, and many desire a liberal arts background rather than the more general introductory courses offered at junior colleges. In some cases, students must be well-versed in college and transfer later to a state university.
Mara, John Stuart Milt. Signum Freud, *The Conflict of the Eyes*, Elison. Students are required to come to grips with the conflicting opinions of these writers by writing several essays on their
Berman also seems to be ignoring the fact that many of the small colleges in Kansas provide jobs for graduates of state-supporters, all of whom would not remain. A few cases, spouses of faculty or staff members of state universities have found positions in independent colleges. At a time when two-career families are increasing, these options often did result in the ability of state schools to attract or retain valuable employees.
I believe our senator and others who agree with him on the tuition grant program should take another look at the need for and the contributions of the small independent colleges in Kansas. They not only provide an important role for young people, but also play an important role in the economy of the state and the lives of many individual Kansans.
Carol Dinsdale Worth
Lawrence graduate student and Assistant professor, Baker University
Views in editorial need more maturity
In reviewing your editorial of March 19 titled "Paraphernalia plight," I would like to make a suggestion.
To the Editor:
Why don't you put the editorial in abeyance for about 10 to 15 years, at which time you can review it with the benefit of more maturity and experience.
I would venture a guess that at that time you probably won't think that I am so ignorant.
Ed Carter
Lawrence City Commissioner
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Editor James Anthony Fitts
Editorial Editor
Brenda Watson
The stone steps leading to Spooner's main entrance are roughly patched with cement. The terra cotta columns of Spooner's entryway are crumbing. Inside, the building, a few offices of the Museum of Anthropology have been terminated and the one day the museum's permanent home-if additional funds are ever obtained for Spooner's renovation, that is.
KU students gaped in wonder at the building's electric lighting system. And with good reason. The incandescent lamp only had been discovered 15 years earlier. It would be warm if it would become a cheap, widely used means of illumination.
Spooner Hall hasn't always been in such sad shape. When it opened in 1884, it was a gem of a building, complete with a fireplace and staircase. It was one of the most
THE NEWFWANGLED incandescent bulbs shined on the theater stage in Kansas City. Badroom room for 80,000 more volumes and KU administrators were confident that the building would safely hold the growing library for many years.
Funds for Spooner's construction had been provided through a private gift, William Spooner of Boston, uncle of then Chancellor Frank Snow, provided money for all construction costs as part of a $90,000 bequest.
Spooner Hall, a faded owner of the 19th century, sits imposingly along joykaw Boulevard, not far from the main entrance. The building's façade
Henry Van Brunt designed the building, drawing from the Richardsonian Romanesque style that was then in vogue. The original building, which replaced the buildings of Van Brunt's buildings have escaped demolition. Spooner has been changed little since it was completed, and it is now a museum.
Business Manager
Vincent Coultas
Spooner worthv of renovation funds
IN SPITE OF ITS assets, Spooner's life as KU's library was short. The University's book collection outgrew Spooner's capacity 20 years after the building's completion, a library, Watson, was constructed in 1924 to take its place.
bob COLUMNIST pittman
Advertising Manager Chuck Chowins
Spooner sat empty until 1926, when it was reopened a Spooner-Thayer Art Museum. It was abandoned again in 1978 when the University's expanding art collection became more important for it. It has been empty, again, for the last two years.
Today, workmen with power tools climb Spooner's massive oak double stairways. Sandwiches are served in the open cupboard. In the rear of the building, the gallery is lined with scaffolding and tools instead of the books and artwork that once filled the room.
Incessant hammering and sawing is heard in the Museum of Anthropology offices on the first floor. But completion of the museum's expansion is pending.
Managing Editor Dana Miller
A PROJECT TO REPLACE the building's roof is almost finished, and the building's windows are slowly being replaced.
General Manager
Rick Mason
About $30,000 has already been spent on the renovation. After other projects are completed, such as replacement of Spooner a quantitated heating and cooling system, the total renovation could easily stand at more than $1,000,000.
when both projects are completed, years may pass until more important aspects of the renovation can be tackled, according to Allen Wiechert, University director of facilities planning.
The money sources have simply dried up. The national Historical Preservation Foundation, which provided nearly half of the renovation money has, cut off funds for renovation of college buildings. And the Kansas museum, which provided the other half, has short-sightedly refused to allocate more money for the renovation.
Spooner's future remains in joparpy. Unless necessary repairs are made soon, more money and time will be required to restore the building to its original condition. Spooner has one of the lowest monetary problems is common to past KU renovation efforts.
Spooner's sister building, Dyche Hall, survived troubled times in the 1930s but just barely.
FIFTEEN YEARS AGO, KU lost old Fraser Hall because University officials had deemed its renovation too expensive. Faculty in the minds of many Ku professors and alumnae, Fraser Hall was victim of the KU wrecking ball. Its massive towers, sweeping stairways and Victorian ornamentation have been replaced by another Fraser, a forgettable shoebox of a
Dyche's architectural surgery went on for nine years, until it was responded in 1941 with a new interior and design.
in 1932 and was closed by the state architect. Because the building's floors were made of weakly reinforced concrete, they swayed slightly. University officials also feared that the tower might collapse.
Dyche, with its gargoyles and tower, was declared unsafe
AS WITH SPONDER, the Dyche renovation was marred by financial problems. But the Dyche renovation, ironically depressed by the public work projects, was Depressed Money for public works projects was available in 1980s and KU took advantage of it to save Dyche. The Public Works Administration provided some of the money needed for the project—nearly $10,000 and the Legislature put up $9,000 more.
KU officials still hope to obtain the money needed to Spooner's renovation. Wiechert says, but they expect it to be a draw-out process. If future work progresses as work continues, now it could be 10 years before the project is completed.
MEANWILE, CONSTRUCTION and labor costs will continue to increase and Spooner will continue to deteriorate. KU planners hope to be successful next year for Spooner's signature for additional grants for Spooner's renovation.
"Whoever Findeth Wisdom Findeth Life," is inscribed on terra cotta banks above Spooner's main entrance. Perhaps the inscription will become prophetic and next for the complete renovation of Spooner Hall.
KU's oldest building deserves to stand for another 100 years.
Americans still blind to foreign policy
To the wider public, which must bear the costs, the turmoil abroad and even our own diplomacy are still largely shrouded in mystery and myth, a foreign policy too foreign to predict. The judgment and authority as in no other area of our democracy.
SANTA FE, N.M.-Behind the cheerless unity of our national fraternity, the hostages in Tehran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan have shown again how dangerously we obscure international affairs remain for most Americans.
In the daily din of crisis it has been easy to forget how little we knew before, or understand still of what has happened. The embassy seizure broke over much of the country in 2015 and brought unseen, its course wild and menacing. Perhaps it could not have been otherwise in a society where most newspapers usually apportion only 15 percent of news coverage to government officials and journalists their readers both to look at that remnant anyway; when television customarily shrivels the world to a collage of 90-second summaries and photogenic symptoms; where as many as one-third of Americans polled by SALT cannot recognize a hostage being held in Tehran, the president's commission on foreign language and international studies was deploring the "most mentality" in which foreign students are being handed from the requirements or aspirations of American students.
Bv ROGER MORRIS
New York Times Special Features
We were not able, it turns out, to videotape the social and political aspects of the community convaded by forced modernization, the medieval
THE PAROCHALISM drove some people into the streets to pummel Iranian students, while most other Americans have been in relatively quiet places in the face of what seems the impenetrable domenia of the ayatollah or the implacable evil and efficacy of the Kremlin. After 50 years of power world and with far-flung alliances, Iran has become the slave of the rest of the planet only a distracted, fleeting glance.
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xenobioha embedded in Persian politics, the decay of the feudal Alafan dictatorships successively patronized by the feudal aristocracy, the recent coup and invasion. For purposes of informing, these are crises without history, and as a result, the public does not know how to respond, it lacks a sense of what the problem should be and how to prevent similar tragedies in the future.
ALMOST EVERYWHERE in public affairs, however tangled the issues—from sexual discrimination on the job to the sizing of nuclear power plants—Americans have come to feel entitled and able to lobby, ligate and boisterously
ASIDE FROM THE shedding of a handful of figures too badlyainted by Vietnam, no other field of American endeavor over the last two decades has been so little revived that it has become an almost national security establishment. No other copy of government so meagrely reflects the rich diversity and creativity of the nation as a still predominantly white, male Foreign Service, its professional sensibility about the world of business. Its international success since lost to bureaucratic conformity and superannuation.
WORSE STILL IS our heedlessness of the people unaccompanied to which we have relinquished foreign policy in Washington, the sanctum of national security from which dour, mostly anonymous men emerge from time to time to announce discreetly some fresh disaster. Incredibly, the fate of these men with fateful decisions made about the Middle East and South Asia by many of the same bureauxateurs who have helped shape our policy toward the region since the close of the 1950s.
Yet no other public institutions so continuously escape accountability, retain such mystical immunity to the spreading democracy of our era. Some of these officials trace careers along a trail of smokering embassies and shattered American interests from Laby across Iraq to Turkey, captains with a record of too many collapsed tunnels and timbers, would at least be an inquiry, and some question about having them in charge for the next desert.
challenge the old regime's business as usual. By harsh experience, we have learned not to delegate, not to trust blindly, not to assume and accept that we are somehow reliant on our betters—learned, that is, except in foreign policy.
Now, that policy is coming home with a staggering price. In a world making us pay our own way, stagnal diplomacy and doomed clients and distorted intelligence reports are rising in importance and demand. Our institution-club gentlemen. They are manifest, for millions of people, in fuel shortages and inflation, higher interest rates, rising health care costs, falls most savagely on the majority of Americans with incomes under $20,000, the people whose pocketbooks do the paying and whose sons tend to do the dying for foreign affairs.
NO OCCULT FORCES block reform of the system. The lethal fault with American foreign policy is a matter of interest, because it is often associated with servative conspiracy, but rather a relatively banal-bipartisan mediciology and bankruptcy of management. A loss of competence more than a loss of nerve, it is not all bad. If you are a government commission or school board, a deceptive computer railroad; or an expiring automobile manufacturer like Chrysler—or those most of us feel competent to criticize and overhaul.
Nor is our turbulent post-imperial nation of nations so unfathomable. The mysteries of foreign affairs will yield to much the same diligence, imagination, sensitivity and self-knowledge we have brought to successful citizen reform from environmental protection to civil rights to the women's movement. That meaningful change is more complex than it seems, and a complex for broader public participation is one of the most brutal, anti-democratic myths of American politics.
YET NO RESCUE is likely from above. A capricious, ever-nervous Congress currently practices its foreign policy peregrine by a principle of devise and repent—has devised sensible restraints on the executive when it fails to govern appropriately. With intelligence Agency scandals of the mid-1970s, it now repeats its bold intrusion into national security. For its part most of journalism continues to treat foreign affairs alternately as circus and afterthought, and to keep in Washington the most un investigated reporters, correspondents incurably domestic amid the co-option and self-imporfance of the beat.
No Democratic or Republican presidential challenger portends more than a slight establishment shuffle of officers—involving, almost certainly, the return of former senators from the old Senate and the public. (Before his current decline, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy was privately and periodically briefed by an accommodating group of Carter administration assistant secretaries, men who had been charged with illegal loyalty.) No white papers issue from that earnest Carter administration to explain how we got to this awful pass, there being far too many holdovers even to begin to blame him for the loss of that position. The salvation even harder, no best-sellers describe our erroneous zones in Foggy Bottom, advise how to make and improve our own foreign policy or warn to us prepare for
Meanwhile, as we relegate life-and-death diplomacy to the pursuit of clerks, and as we surrender what may be our most vital democratic sovereignty to them, other countries can take their place. We have different creeds—in Arabia, in the Philippines, Indonesia or Korea, in South Africa, in Latin America and even Mexico. To a policy that remains too foreign, we will
Roger Morris served as a senior assistant on the National Security Council staff from 1879 to 1898 and later as a