4A = THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN OPINION FRIDAY,APRIL 18,2003 TALK TO US Kristi Henderson 864-4854 or khenderson@kansan.com Jenna Goepert and Justin Henning managing editors 864-4854 or jgoepert@kansan.com and ihenning@kansan.com Leah Shaffer readers' representative 864-4810 or leahshaffer@kansan.com Amanda Sears and Lindsay Hanson opinion editors 864-4924 or opinion@kansan.com Malcolm Gibson Eric Kelting business manager 864-4358 or adsales.kansan.com Matt Fisher Malcolm Gibson general manager and news advise 864-7667 or mgibson@kansan.com Sarah Jantz retail sales manager 864-4358 or adsales@kanan.com Matt Fisher sales and marketing adviser 864-7666 or mfisher@kansan.com Enrollment needs work It may have been less of a hassle for students to stand in line at Strong Hall than to go online for enrollment this year. EDITORIAL BOARD Confusion replaced convenience in this seemingly stress-free process as students fought slowed and crowded servers to get into needed classes. Several things prevented online enrollment from running smoothly. First of all, the University is relying too much on technology. Last semester, students were deprived of hard copies of the timetable to alleviate budget cuts. The online timetable was supposed to be better because opened classes were updated every five minutes. This was not the case this semester. The open classes Web site was inaccurate and only added to the enrollment-induced headache. Without the cost of employing people to enroll students in Strong Hall, the University should be able to afford to print at least a few dozen copies of the timetable to put on reserve at libraries and computer labs for student use. Secondly, computers become bogged down with the timetable course catalog and enrollment all online. Students often needed up to three running Internet windows running at once to complete the process. Thirdly, students should not be able to do add/drop until all students have had the opportunity to enroll. It just added to the congested servers. Fourthly, online enrollment may also be overly confusing to underclassmen — especially freshmen and transfer students. The online enrollment process is confusing for experienced students, let alone those who have much less of an idea of what they're doing. Finally, the old-fashioned stand-in-line method was easier. Students simply had to hand their enrollment sheets to a trained person in the enrollment office and wait while he entered the information. If a class was full, the computer would pull up similar classes. Through enroll-and-pay searches, students ended up searching entire departments for appropriate classes. It is unacceptable that it took some students more than an hour to enroll. True, standing in line is not the most desirable thing to do at the University, but that method of enrollment usually took less than five minutes after you got in the door. Students should still have had the option of enrolling with the aid of trained personnel at Strong Hall while the glitches and imperfections of going online were worked out. Going online should have been more efficient than standing in line in Strong Hall. The University needs to make adjustments to the process before enrollment for Spring 2004 begins to make the system more user-friendly. Amanda O'Toole for the editorial board RERUNS OF OURLIVES Niel Muika and Emily Elmore for The University Daily Kansen PERSPECTIVE Online enrollment not quite ready COMMENTARY Online enrollment is a reality, but whether it's ready is another issue. As my enrollment appointment loomed near, I grew increasingly frustrated that the enrollment Web site consistently turned up an error page. It was only the day before I enrolled that I figured out how to make it work by minimizing my usual Web browser (AOL, which I do not recommend) so the modem remained active, and opening Netscape Navigator 7.0. Only then was I able to access my information and realize that I had a hold. By its writing it sounded as though I hadn't paid any of my tuition bill. Rushing to Carruth-O'Leary Hall to get the details, I was thinking I would have to make an emergency trip home and have a long chat with my mother. But it turned out to be just 90 cents. While I paid the cashier, she related to me that when enrollment started she could clear financial holds the minute the student paid, but recently they only cleared overnight. Sam Lane opinion@hansan.com My point in subjecting you to that rant is that the system still has a few kinks to work out. The Web browser incompatibility has since been worked out, but had I not figured out the 'Netscape trick', I would have missed my appointment by quite a bit. A more persistent issue is that fall enrollment largely takes place before summer enrollment, meaning it will take some effort to get into a class in the fall if you intend to take its prerequisite in the summer. Last year a major selling point for KUnited, which went on to win the student body presidency, was that students would not have to stand in long enrollment lines again. The pressure must have been great on those attempting to get the system up and running far before they estimated, especially considering our lean budget year. This kind of rushing is exactly the environment that breeds problems and mistakes. Given all that, it was no surprise that the date to begin enrollment was pushed back, or that we had the problems we had. The system is essentially untested. In fact, it's surprising that we didn't have worse problems. What would happen if in place of all these minor bugs were a few very large problems? With tens of thousands of students trying to enroll. I don't want to think about the problems it would cause and expenses it would incur if the system failed. The people who created this system should be commended for doing as well as they did, especially way ahead of schedule. Rushing online enrollment was a chance—the system is clearly not ready to be used for full enrollment. It could have gone well or it could have collapsed, and if it had collapsed, we would be in deep trouble now. Before taking the chance that the bulk of the student body could be thrown into confusion and chaos by their enrollments not processing, at least one semester should have been used as a trial period. A small number of students could have used online enrollment, such as a school other than College of Liberal Arts and Science or students enrolling in summer classes; if the system collapsed, only a manageable quantity would be left out. They then could efficiently be enrolled the old fashioned way. Online enrollment is convenient when it works. But it is a gamble and I would rather spend just one more semester in those enrollment lines than take a chance on an overly hurried system. Lane is a Leavenworth senior in psychology. PERSPECTIVE Opinions about war need evaluation While watching CNN's coverage from a beach in Florida during my alternative spring break, I was shocked to see that people were fighting in a far away place that didn't seem so sunny. Being from Japan, I had never lived in a country involved in war. I had to really think about how to handle myself until the war subsides. The longer the war lasts, the more society forces us, against our wills, to have a specific opinion of war. Ideas are not only imposed on society, but also our position is subject to influence from the media, the Bush administration and personal experience. We should place ourselves appropriately so we can fully express our opinions for or against the present war. Several countries, such as France, have resolved not to participate in the war My country, Japan, is now a U.S. ally — against the wishes of the majority of Japanese citizens. Saddam Hussein did not withdraw from Iraq within President Bush's deadline of 48 hours. The United States' war initiative shows us that governmental decisions do not always reflect the will of the people. So, everyone needs to decide how he or she wants to react to the war. People should continue to evaluate their priorities — that's most important. COMMENTARY Kengo Terada omnion@hansan.com In order to be human shields, some Japanese people are applying for Iraqi visas. These people plan to lie down around power plants or oil fields to protest the war. But after seeing the battlefields, some of these enraged people quickly gave up their statuses as human shields and returned to their hotels with regrets of going to Iraq. Their presence could interfere with the American allies' military progress. Even the Iraqi government opposed their movement, telling them to go home if they weren't going to be real shields. Now the Japanese government is discouraging their applications for Iraqi visas. Activists are not the only ones headed to Iraq. Average people, such as office workers and housewives, are also becoming human shields. These volunteers have not put themselves in the right place to do their best against the war. Personal experience, background and knowledge help to put myself in the right place. Anna Clovis, Fairfax, Okla., sophomore, and Stacy Fagan, Wellington junior, have specific reasons for their war views. Clovis said that when she heard of the war, she thought immediately of Desert Storm when her father worked as an Air Force strategist in the Pentagon. She said she was surprised to find out that the situation had not been resolved in 1991. "I have felt like this situation is out of our hands, like the government is going to do what they what do regardless of public opinion," she said. Fagan is a member of the Air National Guard. She said that when she learned of the U.S. attack on Iraq, she had confidence in the country's move. "I back up our president and support his decision 100 percent," Fagan said. Their specific attitudes toward the war could be based on their different experiences throughout life. The media present a vast coverage of the war, which is hard to fathom for the American public. As the fighting gets complicated, we need to be firm in what we stand for. - Terada is a Kashiwa, Japan, sophomore in journalism. Free for All Call 864-0500 Free for All callers have 20 seconds to speak about any topic they wish. Kansan editors reserve 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 10 - Hey, this is for Jeff and Brian who saw my wreck on Ousdahl last week. If you could bring those pictures by my house, that would save me and my insurance company about $3,000. I'm really pissed off at people who call into the Free For All with jokes that aren't theirs. If you can't be funny on your own, shut the hell up and don't touch your phone. 图 So I thought online enrollment would be great, until I spent three hours doing it. Why does KUJH have such bad reception? I mean, I live on campus, for God's sake. 器 It's a sick, sad day when you get home at 1 in the morning and all you have to eat in the fridge is half a can of jellied cranberry sauce that you stole from the Kansan. - Does anybody else think that Kimberly Caldwell from American Idol looks like she has a really long blonde mullet? I'm 21 years old and I just spent seven hours watching Anne of Green Gables and I'd just like to say that it's the best movie ever. It wouldn't be a full day at McColum unless the police showed up. 图 I respect that jazz evolved, but how can you have a jazz show that doesn't play Duke Ellington, or Louis Armstrong, or Count Basie or Ella Fitzgerald? What respectable jazz show doesn't play any classic jazz? 图 I work at a delivery restaurant and I just wanted everyone to know that the closer to close you order food, the more we mess with it. 图 Why is it when Saddam Hussein addresses Iraqi people, dozens of U.S. experts can't figure out if it's actually him on the tape, but when a decades-old gay porno surfaces, everyone immediately accepts that it's Saddam? Am I the only one who sees something strange going on here?