FRIDAY JANUARY 19 2003
4A = THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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OPINION
FRIDAY, JANUARY 17.2003
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Kristi Henderson
editor
editor
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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.
I'm glad I'm paying $16,000 a year to risk my life in the snow on the first day of classes. Who's with me?
B
Hey, Zeta Tau Alpha, just looked at your ad in the UDK. You better be careful, it looks like you let a few brunettes slip in there.
图
Yeah, this is the rest' Bob Barker. The other Bob Barker was an impostor. Don't spay or neuter your pet. Let them go rampant, like my dog Blondie.
I think all the college kids should go back to where they came from.
Rub-a-dub-dub, I am a scrub. A-a-a-a-ment!
would love to have a Yukon Denali -a huge massive ton of steel fancied up with automatic windows, locks and a compact disc player.
Congratulations to the KU Crimson Girls on their successful trip to nationals in Orlando, Fla.
would love to have a Yukon Denali -a huge massive ton of steel fancied up with automatic windows, locks and a compact disc player.
Aw, yeah, welcome back, Free For All,
We've missed ya, buddy!
Call the Free for All and tell us about your New Year's resolutions. Have you kept them? Have you crashed and burned?
We will print your responses next Friday
WADE'S VIEW
Jennifer Wade for The University Daily Kansan
An SUV does not a terrorist make
PERSPECTIVI
yet, according to The Detroit Project, wanting a sport utility vehicle the size of a small house — or, even worse, owning an SUV — makes me just as much a terrorist as the pilots who flew those planes into the World Trade Center. The Detroit Project, a part of Americans for Fuel Efficient Cars, is a group of people dedicated to promoting the "much more credible link between driving SUVs and our national security."
Maybe you have seen their commercials. Groups of people talk about all the benefits of their SUVs, ranging from "My kids think it's cool" to "I helped blow up a nightclub."
Well, first of all, one less nightclub in this world would make it a better place, but I don't think putting a down payment on a Chevrolet Blazer means you mixed the bomb that sent the future Justin Timberlakes and Britney Spearses of the world sailing into the night in a fiery mass.
What?
In an entirely ridiculous roundabout sort of way, The Detroit Project is playing a twisted Six Degrees of Foreign Oil game. This is the simplest way I can think of explaining it. You start with an SUV,
COMMENTARY
Meagan Kelleher
opinion@kansan.com
best described with the overused term of "gas guzzlers." Apparently, because your SUV sucks up enough gas to light a log cabin for five years, the United States needs to use oil from Middle Eastern countries. So your gas money, your tax money and your first born all go to these Middle Eastern countries, and of course, all these Middle Eastern countries are run by terrorists who despise us for even having SUVs in the first place.
If I am reading this commercial correctly, and I like to think that I am, all Americans with an SUV should just paint a target on the Sears Tower and write a check to Terrorist No.1.
This is the most ludicrous piece of advertising and pseudo-logic that I have ever seen. The Detroit Project's Web site says that it just wants to decrease America's dependency on foreign oil and use our own instead.
That's all fine and good, but why don't we go ahead and put up a huge electric fence around our borders and hide in
bed the next time the Security Advisory System goes from blue to the far more terrorizing yellow.
The Detroit Project says it doesn't want to demonize SUVs. No,it just wants to demonize the consumers by making them question every foreign piece of merchandise that helps our nation's economy and creates a greater world economy.
We shouldn't be suckered into these cheap tactics of supposed patriotism. These commercials are trying to pass their message off as a good deed, trying to get the consumer to think that they are standing up against terrorism.
In reality, all this is doing is convincing more people that, no matter what they spend their money on, they are financing terrorism, especially if you are buying something even remotely and abstractly related to the Middle East.
The Detroit Project needs to get a few things straight.
Buying an SUV does not make one a patron for the dark arts. It is possible that I may never get my Yukon Denali, and I will just have to be happy with my Plymouth Sundance. At least with my Sundance I won't be a menace to society, just a menace to good taste.
Kelleher is an Omaha, Neb., sophomore in journalism.
PERSPECTIVE
Grad students meet goal with limited resources
The academic year of 2002 presented a challenge to the graduate and professional community at the University of Kansas.
Chancellor Robert Hemenway made it a priority for KU to become a top-25 university. Developing this prestigious reputation will be done mainly through research and publications. The bulk of this responsibility will be placed on the 7,000 post-undergraduate students working in the laboratories and research libraries across campus.
These students must contribute to this goal with limited University resources because of budget cuts. At the same time, they must worry about tuition increases cutting into their financial autonomy that is necessary in higher-level academics. Despite having some of the best and the brightest minds from all over the world, these problems will make reaching KU's goal an uphill battle.
The academic year thus far has shown great advances for graduate and professional students. The Graduate Teaching Assistants Coalition successfully negotiated a new contract that will move GTA salaries toward a livable wage.
Can it be done? Can the graduate and professional students overcome circumstance to make KU a premier national institution? No sweat.
GUEST COMMENTARY
The University has recognized the need to centralize the Graduate School thanks to convincing evidence compiled
James Owen opinion@kansan.com
by the dean's office of the school. Coordinating these departments will help the University create a cohesive strategy in reaching the institution's overall goals and objectives.In responding to budget woes, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences actually moved a step forward in centralization by re-routing services from its graduate office to the dean's office of the college and Graduate School.
Finally, the chancellor's office pledged last week to make additional funding available for doctoral students by 2005. These are but a few examples of successes enjoyed at the graduate and professional level during such uncertain times.
An issue discussed vigorously this year is diversity. This is an extremely important topic, and not because of KU's need to look good on a brochure. The simple fact is that great ideas and
There's more to be accomplished, and much of it must occur at the student level.
Student Senate has already proposed plans aimed mainly at undergraduates, but graduate and professional students have additional needs that require specific attention. Addressing these needs is the purpose of the Graduate and Professional Association's Issues and Concerns Forum from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on March 8. Students are invited to discuss recruitment and retention with members of the administration.
innovations develop only when different people from different areas work together. No strong academic institution can survive without this dynamic.
The forum will also be a time to discuss ideas on increasing diversity, such as a Midwestern undergraduate outreach program or creating a graduate and professional ambassadors program.
Another way to strengthen KU is through organization. Many students may not realize it, but the association's main purpose is to assist the Graduate Student Organization through financing. The association helps to fund or seeks funding for graduate students in matters ranging from events here at the University to helping with costs of conferences and presentations.
By representing their programs at a local and national level, graduate and professional students raise awareness on two levels. First, they promote individual achievement while giving the student more experience and exposure for
later stages of their career. Second, an active graduate and professional community shows students and faculty from other institutions the talent and ideas that KU works to foster and develop. This creates a reputation that cannot be captured by publicity material or by a recruitment representative. This is how a strong, expansive reputation begins. And it can only be done at a student level with funds that are already available.
Remember when I said there was no sweat involved? This is what I'm talking about.
I encourage every graduate and professional student out there to learn more about these programs. The first Graduate Affairs Committee meeting is at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the International Room in the Kansas Union. The association is located at room 426 in the Union and can be reached at 864-4914 or at gpa@ku.edu. Also, we will be introducing a new improved Web site in February at www.kugpa.org.
Owen is a Springfield, Mo., law student and the executive director of the Graduate and Professional Association and chairmen of Student Senate's Graduate Affairs Committee.
SUBMITTING LETTERS AND GUEST COLUMNS
While these times are troubling, they also promise to be challenging and rewarding. The first steps for success are to get informed and then to get involved. I look forward to the possibilities.
The Kansas welcomes letters to the editors and guest columns submitted by readers.
The Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length, or reject all submissions. For any questions, call Amanda Sears or Lindsay Hanson at 864-4924 or e-mail at opinion@kansan.com. If you have general questions or comments, e-mail the readers' representative at readersrep@kansan.com.
The Kansan will run as many submissions as possible that conform to these guidelines.
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EDITORIAL BOARD
Potential scholars shafted by policy
One focus of Chancellor Robert Hemenway's program to make the University of Kansas a top-25 university has been to attract large numbers of National Merit Scholars.
This is not acceptable.
With next year's enrollment, the University may see a drop in merit-scholar enrollment when it stops granting automatic full scholarships to out-of-state merit scholars.
If KU wants to be a prestigious institution, the University must continue to grant full scholarships to out-of-state merit scholars.
Starting in Fall 2003, the University will shift its scholarship priority to recruit more in-state scholars, according to University Relations. The number of merit scholars each year has traditionally included 50 to 55 out-of-state students, but the cost of a full scholarship for an out-ofstate student is more than double that of a Kansas merit scholar.
Even with more aggressive recruiting of Kansas scholars, it is unlikely that KU will be able to recruit as many merit scholars as the past few years.
National Merit Scholars represent the top 1 percent of their graduating class, and the University needs these students to enhance its academic programs and research programs.
Instead of full scholarships, merit-scholar applicants from out of state will be entered into the regular scholarship competitions, Klinkenberg said. The promise of a full scholarship is usually the factor that makes an out-of-state scholar decide to bring his or her talents to KU.
The University should guarantee out-of-state merit scholars a full scholarship while attracting as many Kansas merit scholars as possible. The administration needs to find a way to save money without sacrificing its commitment.
Matt Pirotte for the Editorial Board