Page 6 University Daily Kansan, July 16, 1981
Discrimination hinders integration into college Isolation greets foreign students
Bv ACHAL MEHRA
By ACHAL MEHRA Staff Writer
Five oceans have been crossed, a language barrier has not. Six continents have been bridged, their cultures have not.
"You cannot sweep it under the carpet. Foreign students do go through a culture shock." Clark Coan, director of Foreign Student Service, said.
James M. Stinson, in charge of foreign student admissions in the Office of Admissions and Records, said fully integrated fully into university life.
THEIR FAILURE to integrate fully has manifested itself into isolation and, some foreign students charge, outright discrimination.
Although University administrators down play the magnitude of isolation and discrimination of foreign students at the University of Kansas, the university themselves view it as a serious hazard to their academic and social lives.
One foreign student who asked not to be named said that many University offices were practicing the most blatant form of discrimination in the country.
He said that it was not unusual for job advertisements to say that communications skills were required.
"This is a euphemism for 'foreign students keep out,' he said. "It is racism of a different kind."
George Woodyard, associate vice chancellor for the Office of Research, Graduate Studies and Public Service, who heads an ad hoc committee on research issues, said this was the first time the problem had been brought to his attention.
He said that if language discrimination did exert it was a serious violation of student rights. However, he said many jobs do require communications skills, and it would be illegal to deny a job to a student because of language only when the skills were not required.
STINSON ALSO said he had not heard of any complaints about
discrimination against foreign students in campus jobs.
He said that foreign students may feel discriminated against because they do not realize that certain jobs require writing skills.
However, many foreign students said they were discriminated against not because of their abilities to communicate but only because of their pronunciations.
They said most jobs did not require communications skills.
Stinson said it was wrong to discriminate against a student solely because of his pronunciation. But he acknowledged that foreign students may find their pronunciation a handicap.
"While I don't approve of it, the handicap exists for foreigners anywhere in the world," he said.
Small-town Kansas isn't accustomed to such a presence of foreign students
Coan said that a few cases of discrimination had been brought to him by students, but that there had been none recently.
He said he had mediated some cases and had referred students to the Office of Affirmative Action in others.
MOST COMPLAINTS, Coan said, proved unfounded and stemmed from a communication gap.
Kupadanam Billa, from India, president of the KU International Club, said several students had complained that he did not think it was a major problem.
"To my knowledge people are very fair," he said.
Billa said that allbuth some Americans discriminate, other people like foreigners and go out of their way to hire them.
Jose R. Pernia, president of the Venezuelan Club, said discrimination against foreigners was not common in his country, and it was prevalent in non-academic offices.
Sualp Yurteri, president of the
Victor Archibong, president of the Nigerian Student Association, isolated cases of discrimination did not cause discrimination in the University of discrimination in the University
Turkish Club, agreed. Discrimination was particularly common in hourly workers.
Billa said that Iranian students might have been singled out for discrimination during the hostage crisis when tempers ran high.
Billa said many positions were given to foreign students because Americans were not available to fill them.
One Iranian student said the hostility still lingered.
"We ARE CHEAP labor for them," a post-doctoral fellow said. "We get the jobs Americans don't want."
To many foreign students, discrimination in jobs is just one manifestation of their failure to integrate into university life.
Another problem with integrating into university life is the feeling of isolation for many foreign students.
He said foreign students tended to segregate and isolate themselves.
Archibong said some foreign students made things difficult for themselves by remaining in their own circle.
Yurteri agreed. Many foreign students viewed themselves as different from the start and decided that they must enter the amgt into American society, he said.
"I have never had a problem," he said. "Everywhere I went I got a response."
However, Thrombe said foreign students were inhibited because Americans stereotype foreigners.
"Americans don't understand a follower until they have met one," he said.
Smit Vajaranj, president of the Thai Student Association, said foreigners were less isolated on the East and West coasts than in the Mid-West.
"People in small towns in Kansas are not used to foreign students." he said.
students often invited hostility toward themselves by their actions. They were critical of demonstrations by foreign nations, and were misunderstood by Americans.
But Coan said he did not believe that the attitudes of Americans toward foreign students had a geographical connection.
Billa agreed, saying that the right to freedom of speech was sometimes abused.
"We come here to study, not indulge in hostile political activity," he said.
He said that actions of a few groups were often generalized, and people viewed all foreign students as troublemakers.
Vajaranant said some groups forgot that they were in another country.
Some students said that foreign
"Foreign students enjoy, and should enjoy, the right to freedom of expression."
"This is not a totalitarian state or the Soviet Union," he said.
Pernia said Americans were conservative and considered all demonstrations by foreigners as radical or communist-insoiled.
Yurteri said he did not question the right of foreign students to demonstrate but questioned the hostile and violent demonstrations.
Archibong said. "There are laws governing violence that can deal with illegal demonstrations."
But Archibong disagreed
No one had the right to mandate that foreign students could not demonstrate, he said.
SOME AMERICAN students often participated in the demonstrations, Pernia said, and banning demonstrations by foreign students would also abridge the rights of those Americans who shared their views.
Whatever their rights, most foreign students admit that hostile demonstrations by Iranians during the Iranian crisis and the hunger strike by Latin American students concerning American policy on El Salvador have done much harm to their image among the local populace.
RECENTLY, AN AD HOC committee on international education that Woodyard heads was constituted; it will study the attitude of local students toward the political activity of foreign students.
Woodyard said the problems of foreign students with the Applied English Center, the building of an International House, the Host Family and the Host programs, and other academic centers, also be examined by the committee.
SATURDAY
(How foreign students view the issues Woodyard's committee is examining is the subject of the next article.)
On Campus
Michael M. Webb, trombonist, will give a MASTER'S RECITAL at 8 p.m. in Swarthout Recital Hall, Murphy hall.
A MIDWESTERN MUSIC CAMP
STAFF RECITAL will be at 7:30 p.m. in
Saworth Recital Hall, Murray Hall.
in Swarthout Recital Hall, Murphy Hall.
TODAY
TOMORROW
The Midwestern Music Camp will present a JAZZ RECITAL at 7:30 p.m.
There will be a MIDWESTERN MUSIC CAMP STAFF RECITAL at 7:30 p.m. in Swarthout Recital Hall, Murphy p.m.
Scarsdale
Albert C. University
carrillon, will give a CARILLON
RECTAL at 3 p.m. at the Memorial
Carrillon.
JAYHAWK
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To Campus
THE VISTING ARTISTS SERIES will present Patkest Kostek Huebner, trumpeter, at 3:30 p.m. in Swartout Recital Hall, Murphy Hall.
The Kansan welcomes items for inclusion in On Campus. Organizations should submit lists of free activities at least two days in advance.
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Today's the last day to sign up for the Recreation Services table tennis and badminton tourney. Entries will be accepted until 5 p.m. today in 208 Robinson. Play begins at 10 a.m. Saturday July 18.
Because about half the students who are admitted actually enroll at KU, about 225 new foreign students are contacted to join KU this fall, Sinson said.
LAST SEMESTER, 1.610 foreign students enrolled at KU, about 6 percent of the total enrollment.
Administrators identified several reasons for the popularity of KU among foreign students.
The University of Kansas has consistently ranked 24th among U.S. institutions in foreign student population, and is a member of the Institute of International Education.
James M. Stinson, who is in charge of foreign student admissions in the office of admissions and records, said 450 students admitted to KU for the fall 1981 semester.
Recreation Services
They complain of isolation and discrimination, but still they come. Nearly 250 of them every year.
Stinson said KU had built up a strong international reputation for some of its programs.
Tie In With Us
Foreign students at KU face special difficulties
"While KU may not have the traditional reputation of Harvard or MIT, it has a record of involvement with the United States since the turn of the century," he said.
He said many governments included KU in their list of recommended U.S. universities.
EVEN THROUGH KU does not actively recruit foreign students, as many universities do. Shannon said his office received a foreign student application every year.
"We accept only 10 percent of those foreign students who apply every year," he said.
Clark Coan, director of the office of foreign student services, said former students were the strongest promoters of KU to their countrymen.
More than a decade ago, the University adopted a policy for foreign students that pledged to promote the "knowledge of a foreign language and intellectual nor national boundaries."
MARTLERUMHOFF/Korean STL
The statement said, "Such personal interaction will, it is hoped, serve to eliminate narrow-minded prejudices and cross-cultural misunderstandings by providing a healthy appreciation of divergent cultures, ideas and nationalities."
Charlie Steinbacher, of EBRE Engineers in Lawrence, overlooks the construction of a new water pipe system. The system is being installed between 19th and 23rd streets and between Vermont and Tennessee streets. The city plans for the new system to give stronger water pressure and help lower the rust in the water.
Business school tightens admission requirements
Staff Reporter
By JULIA SANDERS Staff Reporter
Students anticipating admission to the KU School of Business will have to meet tough standards this fall, Peter Anderson, undergraduate programs, said recently.
A change in the admission policy requires the completion of 60 hours college course, eight new distribution courses and a 2.0 minimum grade point average in all courses taken by the student.
The minimum grade point average will increase to a 2.2 in the fall of 1882 and change again in the fall of 1883 to 2.5, Lorenz said.
The changes were made primarily because the old requirements were so vague and general that many students were not completing required course sequences quickly enough, Lorenzi said.
The new distribution courses include eight hours or three courses in the humanities, eight hours or two courses in the natural sciences, Psychology 104, Psychology 280 and an additional social science elective.
PRIOR TO THE changes, students were required to complete 50 hours of college credit with a minimum grade point average of 2.48 or complete 60 hours of credit with a minimum 2.0 grade point average.
“It’s primarily an attempt to be more precise on our admission standards, and I think its best use is as an advising tool,” he said.
Lorenzi said the new requirements will not only act as a tool for advice, but also provide more stringent rules for behavior, passing through school the best way possible.
Also, the new requirements will allow the school a better basis for comparison among students because of the eight common courses, Lorenzi said.
it tougher to be admitted to the school, Lorenzi said the new requirements will not hurt many students' chances for admission.
"We will not set up barriers to someone making progress in the school. But before we devote some very expensive resources to a student, we have to be sure they are prepared to be here."
EVEN THOUGH THE changes make
Although the new requirements affect a large number of students, Lorenzi said he felt the changes would benefit the students in the school's enrollment figures.
Nearly 1,000 juniors and seniors are already in the school, and Lorenzi have been to 1,000 freshmen. prehomores and juniors are declared sophomore business majors.
Many of the students thought too tough standards would heighten the school's reputation and thus their ownability after graduation, Lorenzi said.
Lorenzi said the stricter requirements have met the approval of faculty, students and even parents.
Johnene Beason, Lawrence senior, agreed that the new requirements are a step in the right direction.
"I think the business school is overcrowded with people who don't have a good grade point average, and I do, so it's a good idea," she said.
However, Craig Waggy, El Dorado graduate student, isn't quite as pleased with the idea.
"TO BE TRUTHFUL, I don't think it will make any difference," he said.
On the contrary, Lorenzi said, in incoming freshmen and their parents informed of the changes during this semester, that the program have expressed their approval.
Lorenzi said many of the parents thought the change would provide better guidelines for their children's education and would also give the parents an idea of what their children would be doing.
'WHY DO THE HEATHEN RAGE?'
Psalm 2:1 and Acts 4:25
Recently we advised a friend who wrote us to "HAVE A DIALOGUE WITH GOD ALMIGHTY!" (if dialogue is a strange word to some of our readers it might be a bad thing, but one can do that). We read a number of times in God’s Book, The Bible. We hope and trust you are not a member of the dwelling’s family; if so, IFSO, have a dialogue with the Almighty about cutting your bonds and setting your free. If you do not want to be set free, then consider “your latter end and the latter day” to change your appetites and desires and put “The Fear of The Lord” in place where you will “delay not, but make us ferry” The Wrath “to come.”
FAITH is essential and necessary to have a dialogue with God—"The fear and tremble!" Hebraus 11:18 tells us—"FOR HE THAT COMETH TO COMETHE" (Hebrews 11:34) "REWARDER OF THEM THAT DILIGENTLY SEEK HIM." And Romans 10:17 tells us "SO THEN FAITH COMETH BY HEATH, AND HEARING BY THE COMETH. What is the reason that this Column urges that one read all of God's Word, that it is much as possible, asking God and His Holy Script to be your TEACHER."
"UNBELIEF" will prevent or cut off a "dialogue with God!" in both the touch chapters of Matthew and Luke we have the account of Christ's tempest, but instead we are told Scripture, misspelling it in order totempt Christ. Church quickly cut out THE TREE HENCE, SATAN; FOR IT IS WRITTEN, THOU SHALT WORKSHIP THE TREE HENCE, SATAN; FOR IT IS WRITTEN, THOU SHALT THOU SERVE." And in note to THE TREE BEHIND ME, SATAN; for THE TREE BEHIND Me, CHRIST hought the Devil what with the Bible, said it, "It is written."
Without Faith you cannot have a dialogue with God. However, the Devil will tell you he also but also put his hook in your nose and lead you where he wants you to go.
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