Opinion
page 4 University Daily Kansan, February 4, 1981
Revenue Code boost
Tonight the Student Senate will decide whether to increase the funding for Revenue Code groups. Certainly, it will be a tough decision; a raise in the funding means a raise in the activity fee, probably by about $3.50 a semester. A decision not to increase the funding would put a number of organizations which serve most, if not all, of the University in extremely tight financial shape.
A decision to increase the funding would mean the Concert and Chamber Music Series would be able to keep bringing more and better entertainment to campus. It would also help KJHK send its alternative format into the woofers and tweeters of KU students.
University Theatre. And it would help the University Daily Kansan—which you're reading now—keep KU informed about itself and the world.
It would help KU lands and the
Nobody likes to see fees go up. But the student activity fee hasn't increased in five years, and many of the Revenue Code groups are finding that the same activity fee that was adequate five years ago is now not enough.
Although it would mean an increase in the activity fee, Senate would be wise to increase the Revenue Code funding. After all, the increase wouldn't be for the sake of the Kansan or the other groups themselves. It would be for the students, who are the beneficiaries of these groups in the first place.
Basic liberal arts education yielding to professional push
"I saw a kid with no smile on his face today.
"There is my place in this bright future."
"I helped me."
Manfred Mann
The english professor was againt. "You mean," she repeated to the red-faced student, "that you're a senior in college and you have never studied literature before?"
The student nodded slowly yes. The professor sat back in disbelief.
Tragic indeed, but true. Liberal education in America's institutions of higher learning is dying, succumbing to the pressures imposed by a world buried in inflation, unemployment and a constant threat of war, which add up to one horrific sum: insecurity.
Today's student wants no part of Plato's dialogues or of Thoreau's journals, of ar-
AMY
HOLLOWELL
cithectural history or the history of Western civilization. Today's student wants only a clearcut, four-year path to $70,000 times 45 years. And there isn't time on this pre-fab road to professionalism for those "wasteful" humanities.
Colleges and universities, as well as high schools, are encouraging students to pursue the "security" of a professional, a "practical", education. There is an incessant cry ringing among them who do with an English degree? (or History or anatomy for that matter.) Teach? There are no jobs!
Jobs. Insecure students and pragmatic parents and educational systems are creating a rush on business schools, engineering schools, even journalism schools, where the student learns a trade, a skill, which will ensure him employment upon graduation. Meanwhile, the numbers of students pursuing degrees in the liberal arts and sciences are decreasing.
But it's not our fault. As children, technology dominated our lives, as did war and protest and violence. We saw men walk on the moon, we saw women fly in space, we metallic-looking American flag they planted so proudly in the dust. As Norman Mailer has observed, we saw all this, but we never felt any of it; there was never an artistic interpretation of it, or something supposed to unprecedented in the history of man.
The absence of art was joined by an absence of encouragement to explore. There was a kind of Auntie Em "mothing's over the rainbow" sentiment that pervaded our youth, an American backyard superiority complex. The only reason we went Vietnam, Cambodia, Cuba and the Suez Canal.
Any challenges to the work-a-day world of our pragmatic parents were met with quelching
rebuttals from bruiser police, tear gas and snarling German shepherds. So that's what happens to thinkers, idealists and non-conformists. huh. Mom and Dad?
As the war ended, the '60s ended, Nixon ended, our grammar school ended, and we were well on our way into a highly technological age of practicality in both education and life. Teachers swept us into business law, accounting and computer science, while sweeping Latin, American literature and humanities under the carpet with the Renaissance man and woman.
When it came time for college, the scholarships and grants went to students pursuing careers in engineering and business administration, money donated by private firms and large corporations hoping to mold engineers and executives for tomorrow.
So, given a free ride and a near-promise for post-graduation employment, students are zooming into the professional schools with the understanding that their ability is siderably out of proportion in comparison to those in liberal arts areas. And the private contributors, like the University of Kansas Endowment Association, continue to support the students in their professional schools disproportionately.
True, in a progressive world, there must necessarily be progressive education. But what is progressive education? It seems it should be a liberal education, based on history, for perspective, mixed with language and culture studies, complemented by the natural, physical environment of the progressive process of exploration and discovery, introduction and familiarization.
Unfortunately, the ever-expanding professional schools in our colleges and universities are not encouraging this process. For example, KU business students are not required to study a foreign language or Western engineering students. Journalism and architecture students are penalized for compiling more than the allotted hours outside of the school.
"It really is pittiful that many of those students in journalism or business or wherever aren't discovering the literature of their language, the history of their culture or the literature and culture of their language," professor in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences said. "It's just a shame."
He says he reflects the sentiments of many educators in liberal arts spheres, educators who are watching enrolment in their courses slowly and with funding for their programs and research.
In fact, neither private nor public funding are encouraging liberal education, either. High-technology education is costly. The state meets the need as best it can and private sources come under the patronage for the professional schools. So what of the humanities and the liberal arts and sciences?
As Norris Lacy, chairman of the department of French and Italian, noted when asked if his department could function without private contact, he already do. Not very comfortably, but we do."
The University Daily KANSAN
(USPS 650-940) Published at the University of Kansas daily August through May and Monday and Thursday during June and July except Saturday, Sunday and holidays. Second-class postage paid at Lawrence, Kansas 66045. Subscriptions by mail are $15 for six months or $27 a year in Douglas County and $15 for six months or $35 a year outside the county. Student subscriptions are $2 a semester, paid through the student activity fee.
Postmaster: Send changes of address to the University Daily Kansan, Flint Hall,
The University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS. 68045.
David Lewis
Managing Editor Ellen Iwamura
Editorial Editor Don Munday
Art Director Bob Schaudt
Campus Editor Bob Faust
Associate Campus Editor Gene Myers
Assistant Campus Editors Ray Formanek, Sunil Choksharani
Assignment Editor Kruthie Brunner
Sports Editor Kevin Bertelba
Associate Sports Editor Tracey Hamilton
Editor
David Lewis
Business Manager
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Kanan Adviser...Chuck Chowina
Finally, a living doll for a first lady
"Mrs. Reagan?"
"Yes. Sheila?"
"Mrs. Reagan, it's about time for you to go and press conference with the White House corpse."
"Yes, I know. I'm just about ready. I tell you, Shela, I'm nervous."
"You'll do fine, Mrs. Reagan. You always do.
Brianna press secretary, I should tell you less.
"You mean, they might even ask about how behind and overstaffed my transition decorating team is?"
"I'm afraid so, Mrs. Reagan."
"Well, the White House press corps has some of the toughest reporters around. They might get rough. There is no limit to what they might ask."
"Why, I can't imagine they would do such a thing. It's not my fault. At least Ronnie had a couple of months to put his cabin together. What do they expect from me? Those nasty animals are usually very nice little sooner. I have enough to see the press, and they don't even like me."
"No they do, she's cool."
"No they don't Sheila, they think I'm a Barbie doll or something . . . how does my makeup look?"
"Now they do too, Mrs. Reagan."
"Well, some of them say that you are not a good role model for women."
"Fine, Mrs. Reagan, but tell me, why don't your lins move when you talk?"
"Because I can't move them dear. A special lipstick. You apply it once every six months. Anyway Sheila, why does the press have it against me? What have I done wrong?"
"Why is that? Why, all I've done is served and obeyed my husband, who has given me a
wonderful family and a wonderful life. What's wrong with that?"
"Some want to know what happened to your
own life and happened to your own dreams
and ambitions."
"They became Ronnie's, and I still don't see what's wrong with that."
"I guess what they're getting at is that most women are making the values anymore. Women are making the values anymore."
DAN
TORCHIA
"You look a little stiff, Mrs. Reagan . . . you might want to move your left arm just a little bit. And tilt your head. Say, didn't I see you in 'te window at Bloomingdale's last season?'
addition to their family, and some of the press reporting that women go back to a subordinate role.
"No, dear. Tell me, Sheila, does anyone in the press think that I'm a nice person?"
"Well, Mrs. Reagan, I'm sure there is
well, Take Eilen Goodman. She called her
to me."
"That's nonsense, I don't even know what I meanients means. Now how is this pose, Sheila?"
"Some compliment. She named me after one of thoseicky acid rock groups. What a comparison. At least Ronnie has Franklin Sinaatra, and she's like to play rough games. Oh my, my eyebrows just don't look right. Do you think Aida Grey could fly in from California to touch them up?"
It would only take a few hours more if he took the next flight and . . ."
"No, Mrs. Reagan, the reporters have their deadlines. But I have a pair of tweezers
"No, that won't work. Aida is the only person that works on my eyebrows. Besides, tweezers wouldn't work. I had my eyebrows removed 12 times. They're plastic now. How does this look!"
"Well, Mrs. Reagan, I don't think you should talk to me out of it with the camera lights, and you start swirl your lights,"
"Don't be silly dear, you know I don't sweat. Does my gun show?"
"Good. Yes, this is a nice outfit for being cheap. I only paid $800 for it."
"That's more than my month's salary. A lot of people's month's salaries. Don't you think, ma'am, that the American people might resent you for taking their money, especially because the economy is so bad?"
"Nonsense, dear. I'm setting an example for other women. In America you can do anything, and I typify that. If other women want to have the good life, all they have to do is marry an aging actor. Well, I think I'm set. How do I look Sheila? Is it my hair OK?"
"I can turn the knob in my back to make it a bit shorter, you know."
"No, it's fine. Do you want me to ring for a dolly so the Secret Service can cart you out?"
"No, I'll try to walk by myself, even though it's difficult. One wrong step and my face could crack. Oh, Sheila, I don't think I'm the least bit presentable."
"Why Mrs. Reagan, you look like a doll!
'They'll love you. All you have to do is be
a good student.'
Letters to the Editor
All the world's not like modern America
Since the fall of 1979, when my pen, inked in British-oriented phraseology, pointed toward KU's School of Journalism with emphasis on editorial, I have learned from the style, grammar and opinions of writers: Kate Pound, Bob Pittman, Susana Namum and Brenton Schlender, who kept William Allen White's flag flying.
Recently, Susan Schoenmaker and Fred Markham joined the bandwagon. But greasy grammar shampeed with lobby for grade, and humor opinions have flooded the newspaper.
In Mon, Jan. 19's issue of the Kansan, Jimmy Carter's smile on Cynthia Currie's face captivated my attention. Her opinion is an essay-like editorial, which was ineredibly irreconcilable with her beauty, told me, if nothing else, that she is a beauty who visited Punta Plata, Dominican Republic.
One thing is sure. The opinions of those good writers I mentioned earlier and many more represented a class of people—a knowledgeable and articulate class. Cynthia is not an exempt member, but she clearly demonstrated that she represents the most popular class—“the stupid maturity.”
Knowing all men by their reasoning, the stupid majority would want to know how many leopardars asked for breakfast from my home in Nigeria. They would also want to know if there were bears and cars in Nigeria, when Japanese cars are, questionably, selling fast all over the world.
By the same token, Cynthia expected to walk through computer terminals on the streets of Dominican Republic, when that country is crawling out of imperialism. Cynthia does not know what it means to budget for Spanish harlem and ghetto. A knowledge from history courses (if she did not skip those to abridge her years in college) would have helped her to note how long it took her to travel to its present standard, perhaps not enough for her sophistication and her hunt for jewelry.
Anyway, Cynthia should be told that before I left Nigeria en route to the United States, stereotype had it that I was coming to walk on gold-painted sidewalks. My father almost objected to my coming to such a supernatural environment, which might seduce me to forget about my hometown. But what could I say when, on arrival, cockroaches lined up to watch me fix an American breakfast, and mice turned on my phone, and then the birds my surprises and keep my peace. Cynthia is certainly not the only American queen who went on a Caribbean cruise.
Under the affirmative action guidelines, all classes of people—knowledgeable, gay, handicapped and stupid majority—should be represented in any public office, thus the need for Cynthia to stay put on the Kan斯 staff. I will cast my ballot for her second term in office.
Don't be discouraged, Cynthia. Keep up your good work.
Apollo E. Dimbo Port Harcourt, Nigeria, senior
Repression continues
But 'Americans have concern for anything but their own arrogant pride and supposed superiority over the peoples of the rest of the world? All of us have felt indignation and guilt over our actions. We cannot afford to let an irresponsible desire for vengeance cripple our reason. It is easier to see
To the editor:
I am no longer more incredulous; instead, I am angry and scared at what seems to be an endless amount of hate-iran sentiment in our country. Mr. Obama's words of Pumphrey and Terri Maloney when interviewed in a Jan. 20 article—that America's hard feelings will not be forgiven and that if Iran wants its money, it should try to come and get it—belong to teachers, schoolcholders, not among mother, intellectual adults.
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why other countries that have been exploited by U.S. foreign policy mistrust the U.S. government when some Americans think the United States must be forced to return Iranian assets. That money is theirs.
Are we all going to fit into the mold the media have presented to us of a grand and glorious freedom-loving country suffering degradation at the hands of Third World barbarians? What of the motives of those who made this gesture against U.S. exploitation policy?
Maybe it is time we look at what our government has done to the rest of the world. The people of Iran lived for 25 years under a repressive, U.S.-backed government that fed on the money, freedom and lives of the Iranian people. The years of frustration led the Iranians to look at the power behind this dictatorial, corrupt and unwanted government, the United States.
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We can only expect more crises in the international scene as long as the United States continues to support governments that do not embody the will of the people. Have we forgotten the concept of government of the people, by the people and for the people? It should be the desire of all citizens to have a government of our government is being used to create a better and freer life for all the peoples of the world. How could a democratic government support the repressors of democracy?
The situation has reached such a desperate condition that our own University, which is supposed to be a center for the spreading of democratic ideas, is investing in the racist country of South Africa, and our democratic government is not being held accountable to government that is murdering its own citizens, as well as ours. The next victims of U.S. interventionist policy might be your brother or mine. It is not only our right, but our duty, as responsible citizens, to question the policies of our government that have not learned to love my country with my eyes, I bowed and my mouth shut." Chaadaea, 1836.
Lisa Gigstad Nortonville senior