4A - THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
OPINION
WEDNESDAY, JAN. 30, 2002
POINT-COUNTERPOINT
Paying the price for education
Pro: Teachers are the experts, the choice is up to them
Con: Requiring one's own books perpetuates one viewpoint
Many University of Kansas professors use textbooks that they either wrote or were involved in writing to teach their classes.
According to University regulations, faculty members who receive royalties on educational materials and make them required reading in courses they teach must donate the proceeds, either to their departments or schools, or to scholarship funds or other non-profit entities.
Some faculty and staff may not be aware of this policy, so each department should make sure that its faculty members are aware of the regulations. Professors should not make money by requiring students to buy books that they wrote, though they should be allowed to donate the profits.
At issue is not only whether professors donate profits from the sale of their books. Some students are concerned that they are not receiving well-rounded views of the subjects that are essential to having a strong liberal arts education. Some professors, such as David Holmes, professor of psychology, have incredible credentials and are considered experts in their field. Holmes uses books he wrote for his general psychology and abnormal psychology classes. He uses his text along with research he conducted himself to teach the class. The book most often follows the lecture, which allows the student the chance to gain a much deeper understanding of the material.
David Guth, associate professor of journalism, co-wrote a book for public
relations courses in the School of Journalism. Guth said that because it was a general textbook, it was written to encompass a wide range of perspectives.
Guth said that his book was easier to read than most other books on the subject and cost half as much as the book that was previously used in the course.
Professors should be allowed to use their own textbooks to teach their classes. However, they should not profit from book sales to their own students. The money should go back into a scholarship fund or back into the department. The faculty or staff member, along with the department, should have the final say as to how the profit will be donated.
Katie Hackett for the editorial board.
KU instructors should not require students to buy books that they've written.
The negative aspects of allowing faculty members to require their own books outweigh the positives.
First and foremost, it is simply way too self-serving for an instructor to write a book on a specific subject, require every student to purchase the book and then proceed to lecture for an entire semester on a certain set of ideologies related to the subject with only his or her own textbook to back up the ideas.
By doing so, an instructor provides a one-sided approach to the information and hinders students from studying different outlooks. The instructors are using their own judgment to decide how the information all fits together as a cohesive whole.
side author has published the book
One may argue that most instructors would teach students only out of textbooks that presented their own viewpoints regardless. But at least when an out-
you're reading, it allows you to relate it to the instructor's lectures and fit the information together yourself—a vital part of the learning process.
Secondly, many students feel that they are being taken advantage of when they go to purchase the required textbook at the bookstore, only to find that the book is a stack of 300 sheets of unbound typing paper shrink-wrapped in plastic with a price tag of $80.
With a professional presentation, such as a cover, the textbooks at least present the image that the information inside is valuable and pertinent, but some of these creations seem to be little more than a set of notes from the previous semester. Other instructors have a tendency to require their own textbooks and make other books recommended purchases. Let's be honest. Most students would rather save the money and not buy the recommended textbooks because they come with the implication that there is no information included in them that will be presented on tests.
A possible solution would be to reverse the situation and require a textbook not written by the instructor, while making the instructor's textbook a recommended purchase. Regardless, the current system is not the best way to go, and that until instructors find a different way to promote their textbooks, students will be presented with a one-sided approach to learning.
Blake Shuart for the editorial board.
PERSPECTIVE
Satirists' work ripens toward 'Onion"-like perfection
"KIHK plays eight hours of static."
"Oread" sex column fails to excite faculty, staff.
"Baby Jay in MIP melodrama."
Thursday's University Daily Kansan contained some interesting articles. The headlines quoted above tell the story. These weren't articles based on months of meticulous reporting. These weren't articles uncovering horrific scandals deep within the University of Kansas.
They were made-up articles that were meant to make you laugh.
The Kansan has started printing a weekly satire page. Overseen by campus editor Matt Merkel-Hess and written by a motley assortment of student volunteers, the page aims to amuse by lampooning campus personalities, issues and sacred cows.
"it's mostly just a place to have fun,"
Merkel-Hess said, "I hope it turns into something people will look forward to."
Kansan editor Leita Walker first considered the concept last year, when a provocative April Fool's Day satire page sparked comment around campus (sample headline: "Woman beaten with ugly stick").
At the time, Walker served as the Kansan's readers' representative. She said she decided that a weekly satire page could have a place in the paper. A more regular publication schedule would make more sense, too.
READERS' REPRESENTATIVE
"It's out of line if you do it once a year," she said.
Merkel-Hess was also interested in putting together a satire page. After a semester of reporting at the Kansan, he saw the University community and newspaper style as ripe targets for parody.
Clay McCuistion cmccuistion@kansan.com
Walker and Merkel-Hess talked, and the page was born.
Humor publications at the University of Kansas boast a lengthy history. Merkel-Hess compiled a list of various funny papers that circulated around campus in the past 90 years. Sample names: The Sour Owl, The Bitter Bird, and Celery Bean's Mystery Magazine.
Yet the new satire page owes little to
any specific KU predecessor. The page pays a homegrown tribute to the style of The Onion, a Madison, Wis.-birthed satirical weekly.
"A lot of college kids, especially journalism students, read that," Merkel-Hess said. "Hopefully as we figure out what we're doing, we'll incorporate more original elements."
The Onion's distinctive style fuses bitter social satire with the crudest of jokes.
That makes the Kansan satire page's task tough. Humor of the Onion variety demands curse words, near-clinical descriptions of sexual acts and a truly twisted journalistic sensibility.
Out of necessity, the Kansan has to make the humor on its page different; not so much bad language, not so much sex and tightly edited, quality writing.
Last week's satire page didn't succeed
on all counts. But, as Walker said, "It was a good start." Articles showed promise, even if they didn't always follow through. I grinned several times as I read the page. And Merkel-Hess's staff is already creating material for future issues.
If you want to be a part of the page, contact Merkel-Hess at mmerkel-hess@kansan.com. You don't have to be in journalism. Just have a sense of humor and eniov writing.
I can't define "good satire" or "good humor." All I know is what makes me laugh. The satire page will try to make the thousands of KU students in Lawrence laugh.
It's a big job. I want to see what happens next.
McCusition is an El Dorado senior in journalism and English.
TALKTOUS
Leita Walker editor
864-4854 or
leita.walker@ansan.com
Jay Krall
Kyle Ramsey
managing editors
844-8544 or
jkramsey@sun.com
and kramsey.com
Clay McCuiston readers representative 864-8101 or cmecuiusion@anan.com
Kursten Phels Brooke Hesler opinion editors 864.4810 or khephelskanan.com khephelskanan.com bheslerskanan.com
Kate Mariani
retail sales manager
864-4824 or
retailsales@danan.com
Amber Agee
business manager
864-0414 or
adirective@kanan.com
Malcolm Gibson
general manager
and news adviser
864-7867 or
mgbacon@kananan.com
Matt Fisher
sales and marketing
adviser
864-7868 or
matthew@iansan.com
864-0500
freefor
Free for All callers have 20 seconds to speak about
any topic they wish. The Kansan reserves the right to omit comments. Slanderous and obscene statements will not be printed. Phone numbers of all incoming calls are recorded.
For more comments, go to www.kansan.com.
I think that the football coach's name would be funnier if it were Mangina. Manginas are cool.
Did anyone notice that yesterday's puzzle was the same as today's, and that the solutions in yesterday's puzzle are the solutions for the same puzzle as today's.
Our professor just showed frogs, bean bag frogs,
having sex. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Hey just so you know, if you're walking on campus and I tackle you, it's nothing personal. I just like to tackle people.
Did you know that you can't lick your elbow?
--it's 10 o'clock, I'm in the Dillons restroom wiping the blood from my nose, after I just got jumped in the parking lot. I have no one to call except for good old Free for All.
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I think the *Kansan* could really use some nudie pages.
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The next time you have somebody write a commentary that's representing the pro-life position, please try to find somebody that's pro-life. Thank you.
I bet you justtried to lick your elbow.
It's not just frat guys that can't give 100%. It's all guys.
My even stranger roommate is the one who started the conversation by talking about trapping a mouse out on the ledge and throwing shoes at the door while she hoped it would jump off the ledge and commit suicide.
it's 10 o'clock, I'm in the Dillons restroom wiping the blood from my nose, after I just got jumped in the parking lot. I have no one to call except for good old Free for All.
My very strange roommate, who's also an English major, just asked me if I thought mice commit suicide.
it's 10 o'clock, I'm in the Dillons restroom wiping the blood from my nose, after I just got jumped in the parking lot. I have no one to call except for good old Free for All.
This is the guy who's getting accused of getting with his ex-girlfriend's best friend, and no he didn't. He missed his girlfriend, called her, and she broke it off. He talked to her best friend — never got on her.
it's 10 o'clock, I'm in the Dillons restroom wiping the blood from my nose, after I just got jumped in the parking lot. I have no one to call except for good old Free for All.
I just wanted to let everyone know that KU decided to dig up the field in front of the Visitor Center without consulting any of the students who like to play on it. Thanks a lot.
it's 10 o'clock, I'm in the Dillons restroom wiping the blood from my nose, after I just got jumped in the parking lot. I have no one to call except for good old Free for All.
I love how all pro-choice people use the argument of the mother's health in the abortion situation while if you ask any doctor, pregnancy never affects mother's health anymore.
We want to know what ever happened to the Dairy Queen ice cream baseball helmets.
it's 10 o'clock, I'm in the Dillons restroom wiping the blood from my nose, after I just got jumped in the parking lot. I have no one to call except for good old Free for All.
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it's 10 o'clock, I'm in the Dillons restroom wiping the blood from my nose, after I just got jumped in the parking lot. I have no one to call except for good old Free for All.
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They upped the dosage on my happy pills today, but no matter how high that dosage goes, boys still suck.
Yeah, I would just like the students to know that the football team is changing our school colors from royal blue to navy.
Hi, I just wanted to give a shout out to all my art history GTAs, because you guys rule. All right, I think that's enough for now. I'll call back later with some more fine compliments for my fellow art history colleagues.
It's great to be stoned and going to work for seven hours.
Hi, i would like to clarify the first attempt at giving a shout out. This is a shout out to all the art history TAs. Peace out homies.
it's 10 o'clock, I'm in the Dillons restroom wiping the blood from my nose, after I just got jumped in the parking lot. I have no one to call except for good old Free for All.
Yeah, uh, please get Meghan back on the sex column, because I know more about sex than the guys who are writing it.
it's 10 o'clock, I'm in the Dillons restroom wiping the blood from my nose, after I just got jumped in the parking lot. I have no one to call except for good old Free for All.
OK, first when it comes to abortion, let people choose, because when you tell people not to drink they're going to drink, so let people drink safely. right? Hello, let people do abortion safely, right? Number two, I'm going to go out and have a good super night because it's Friday, and it's going to be awesome. Number three, tip your Safe Ride driver.
it's 10 o'clock, I'm in the Dillons restroom wiping the blood from my nose, after I just got jumped in the parking lot. I have no one to call except for good old Free for All.
Yes, I just want to say that it's very difficult to be a KU student obsessed with Aaron Miles. Why can't I just meet the man?
it's 10 o'clock, I'm in the Dillons restroom wiping the blood from my nose, after I just got jumped in the parking lot. I have no one to call except for good old Free for All.
it's 10 o'clock, I'm in the Dillons restroom wiping the blood from my nose, after I just got jumped in the parking lot. I have no one to call except for good old Free for All.
Someone should really tell Fruit of the Loom to stop making tighty whites, because it is not a good look on a man.
Girls don't have to worry about premature ejaculations. They have it so easy.
I just want to say that KU basketball rules. All right? Right now, I'm painting myself red and blue, because I love KU.
Yeah for the hot girl who works at the KPL desk at Hy-Vee, be prepared, because the next time I come in there, I'm asking you out on a date.
Anybody see that new Shakira video? You better watch out Brittany, because you don't have those moves.
Eh, it's cold by the dumpste
(Singing) Do you know what it feels like for a girl?
Do you know what it feels like in this world?
Yeah I just wanted to say that the Fenix TX show is going to kick ass yeah, in March in the Uptown Theater. Be there.
Yeah, my fish is so excited about his new Nicole Kidman life-size body picture. "Mmm, damn that girl is fine," the fish says.
I just miss my friends
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All right, so I'm sitting on my couch, waiting for my friends to get here. I really bored.
I'm sick and hungry, but mainly just sick. That's it.
I withdrew from my class today so I realized that how much money I spent on the class when I could have been spending that money on beer.
Here's something new. You are something Gene Hockman, you, you, you, you.
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