XII
University Daily Kansan, January 18, 1985
OPINION
Page 4
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
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Easing tension
After months of controversy that sometimes turned ugly and always seemed tarnished with tones of hatred and bigotry, cooler heads seem to have prevailed on the issue of Student Senate financing of Gay and Lesbian Services of Kansas.
Steve Imber, who called for a referendum on financing GLSOK, and Ruth Lichtwardt, GLSOK president, yesterday released a joint statement condemning "any further harassments and prejudices of both sides on these issues."
Their ability to set differences aside for the good of the University community shows both character and compassion. The statement is remarkable when viewed against the backdrop of "Fagbuster" T-shirts, hostile incidents and months of misunderstanding on both sides.
Both sides admit making mistakes. This is the first step in resolving any conflict. Many more steps remain before the issue of GLSOK financing will be resolved.
Earlier this month, a University Judicial Board hearing panel returned Imber's petition for a referendum on GLSOK financing to the Student Senate Elections Committee. In October, that committee declared the petition invalid, but Imber appealed to the judicial board.
Imber hasn't said whether he intends to continue seeking a campus election on GLSOK financing. If he does, the battle lines will be drawn again. But perhaps this time the issue can be discussed and settled without threats and harassment.
The remaining question is whether other students will follow the example of Imber and Lichtwardt. The two have shown that opposing factions can act rationally to ease tension and help settle conflicts.
The statement is the first step in a direction that should have been taken long ago, before the issue and the controversy grew ugly.
Brazil's election
Brazil has taken the first step in the long process of restoring functioning democratic institutions in the country, and it is to be congratulated.
The election of Tancredo Neves by Brazil's electoral college not only ends 21 years of military rule but leaves Chile and Paraguay as the only South American countries under military rule.
Neves said he would reinstate direct elections,renegotiate the foreign debt and increase employment.
These tasks will prove difficult indeed. However, the biggest danger facing the new government when it takes over on March 15 will be one of unrealistic expectations.
Not only will the civilian government have to deal with the $100 billion foreign debt contracted by the military government, it will have to be aware that many people will be expecting economic and social miracles.
As Bolivia, Argentina, Peru and Ecuador have discovered, the return to democracy seldom resolves the economic and political morass left behind by generals.
In addition, after 21 years of military domination, it is inevitable that a period of social chaos will follow as different power groups struggle for their place in the political spectrum. It is like suddenly lifting the top off a pressure cooker. There is likely to be an explosion.
The United States will have a great deal to do with the success or failure of the democratic experiment in Brazil. Through the International Monetary Fund it can offer the new government realistic terms on renegotiating its debt. It can also resist protectionism sentiment and keep its markets open to Brazilian goods.
It will be difficult for the United States, as a major lender, to resist the temptation to impose solutions on Brazil that may work in the United States. But Brazil must be allowed to seek its own path that corresponds to its history and culture.
But perhaps the most important thing the United States can do is allow the Brazil's new government to work out its own solutions to its complex social and economic problems.
As one opposition leader said, the current move toward democracy represents "the first time that Brazilian history is being written by the people and not by the elites. This is like the birth of a child, a miracle of nature."
As with all new-born babies, the democratic experiment must be given great care and nourishment if it is to survive.
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GUEST COLUMNS
Humanities need more emphasis
The inherent nature and flexibility of the humanities makes the study of such material important not only to a group of people, but also anyone interested in being educated.
The study of the humanities remains important because it embodies mankind's age-old effort to ask the questions central to human existence. But a recent report by William J. Bennett, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, clearly shows that the study of humanities need to be embedded in colleges and universities. The report should be read not only by educators, but also by students interested in selecting a university or defining a course of study.
"The humanities are not an educational luxury, and they are not just for majors," he says. "They are a body of knowledge and a means of convey serious truths; defensible judgments and significant ideas."
paying jobs upon graduating should students seek a broad exposure to areas outside their field of study?
But really, why should a broad, liberal arts education matter? Why, when students with degrees in engineering work on campus or vocation-oriented fields take high
The aim of the College of Liberal
Sciences and Sciences is to provide
student opportunities.
How, in this age, are the humanities relevant?
DAVE
MORRISON
Staff Columnist
21st century, no more and no less, said Robert Lineberry, dean of the college.
What constitutes a 21st century, basic education remains a matter of vast interpretation. However, it seems to me that our colleges and universities are turning out a preponderance of technocrats and specialists. And they are unprepared to deal with a world that defines civic competence in ways ignored in biology or law classes.
an appreciation of the ways in which we gain knowledge and understanding — of the universe, of society and of ourselves.
All too often, students expect a university education to provide a "quick fix" for jobs and careers. They tend to overspecialize and will not take courses that don't have an immediate bearing on their careers.
This policy, contrary to popular opinion, may prove to be exceptionally risky for a number of reasons. For one thing, entire professions may be born, grow old and die in a single generation. People who are ill-suited to change will not successfully survive.
Likewise, people who do not communicate effectively in their own and other languages will not be among the most successful. Similarly, those who do not understand their own history cannot understand the ways in which events shape people's lives. Those who are mathematically illiterate will face increasing difficulties in an age when analytic skills will be required in every walk of life.
Students preparing for lives in this century and beyond face some mighty challenges. Four of them seem paramount. First, we must be capable of taking in and mastering a wide array of visual and verbal skills that will make today's so-called "knowledge explosion" pale in comparison.
Second, we must become more able to think for ourselves. We must detect and resist mental manipulation and the increasingly more sophisticated means of propaganda, disinformation and advertising.
Third, we will be asked to identify standards of ethics and morality for ourselves that will no longer be completely by our social institutions.
And if ideas are important, it surely follows that learning and life are poorer without them. Thus, we will need to live, rather than just observe, define so as to achieve some semblance of contentment and self-worth.
The first two points deal with process — of knowing how. The final matters, are matters, of knowing with the humanities, and the humanities alone, can teach both.
White House door revolving again
With top staffers bowing out four years at the White House, several new faces will rule the roost in the West Wing and the East Wing.
Within a few months the top aides Reagan brought with him from California will be going to Cabinet posts or leaving government, and Treasury Secretary Donald Regan will be taking over.
Many of the aides who worked under outgoing chief of staff James Baker, soon to replace Regan at Treasury — counselor Edwin Meese, soon to be attorney general, and then Michael Daver, heading for the literaturer clime of public relations — also will be leaving the White House.
There is no question that Regan is coming into his job with a new broom. He is, by his own testimony, a buoyant personality; but beneath the ebulence, he's a tough administrator who is demanding but has a
"short fuse," according to those who have worked for him.
He also evokes strong loyalty among his aides.
Regan will be a powerful chief of staff in the tradition of past presidencies before Reagan introduced the
HELEN THOMAS
United Press International
concept of a "troika," with three top aides sharing power. It did not work, and the inevitable turf wars resulted causing a drain on human resources and much back biting.
To this day, former Secretary of State Alexander Haig feels he was done in by the behind-the-scenes maneuvering.
Nancy Reagan still says that people should make no mistake about it. Her husband is in control. She is provoked over the persistent reports
that Reagan is a laid back leader who does not make decisions until he has to and who gives his staff free rein
The first lady is losing top-nop press secretary Sheila Tile, much admired by reporters for her professional approach to dispensing information. She is articulate and wore the two hats that good press officers wear, she was the first lady. All when need he, she did so protectively. She also understood the interest of the public in White House doings.
Nancy Reagan's chief of staff, James Rosebush, says he has a few candidates in mind for Tate's replacement, but no decision will be made until after the inauguration. Tate is staying on until a successor is named.
Deputy press secretary Larry Speaks expects to remain on the job as the president's chief spokesman as do the other deputies, Peter
Roussel, Marlin Fitzwater and Bob Sims.
Baker, who is leaving the premises, has put in a good word for the press staff. But much depends on the president and Regan, who is now studying the White House operation Regan undoubtedly will bring in some of his trusted treasury operatives for some of the key White House positions that will be vacated by spring.
Aides say that Nancy Reagan is "more comfortable" in the White House these days and "happy."
She has more self-confidence, is more assertive and understands the role she wants to play during the next four years.
Asked if she will do anything differently in a second term, she said: "Oh I'm sure anyone would."
But she emphasized that she hopes to continue her anti-drug-abuse crusade among youth and expand it. But the problems are beating young people.
Some possibilities for Super Bowl XX
"They're jamming us again,
Coach," the tight end complained. He had just returned to the bench after
pacing up. "I couldn't hear the snap count."
Jamming, I predict, will be only one of the electronic capabilities football teams will develop if the rules are changed to authorize helmets wired for sound.
Each squad also eventually will hire a high-tech coordinator. There will be repairmasters, as well as trainers and doctors, along the sidelines, and the students will be empowered to impose a couple of new penalties for interference.
There would be two types of infractions, as I see it. Accidentally grabbing a face mike would only carry a five-yard penalty. But if a side's huddle was deliberately tuned into the other side's huddle, his team could be set
back 15 yards for unnecessary radioactivity.
“Intent” be the cliche word in the broadcast booth. The referee would have to decide whether a blitzing linebacker intended to steal
DICK WEST
United Press International
the other team's signals or whether he picked up the cadence incidentally while trying to bring in a Top 40 station.
The idea behind the proposed rules change, as I understand it, would be to enable offensive players, particularly wide receivers, to hear the quarterback's voice over crowd noises.
I cannot help but think, however, that electronic technology could be
used to improve communications all over the stadium.
Coaches, for example, must send in plays by substitutes or by wig-wagging from the sidelines. Why not use telegraph keys?
That way, dots and dashes would replace the X's and O's coaches now draw on the sidelines to illustrate offensive and defensive patterns.
The only additional staff member I can foresee an immediate need for would be a wireless operator. But as
I mean, the offensive branstrict employs the Morse Code to indicate whether they want a pass or a run. Meanwhile, across the field, defensive coaches could be tapping out similar instructions — sending word to the secondary to line up in a zone or man-to-man coverage and designating the players they want to red-dog.
And by the way, will each side be given additional times-out for equipment checks? And what happens if a player's earphones go dead after all the times-out have been used?
soon as some team added a decoder, all sorts of cryptographers and decipherment specialists would be hired.
And what about the first time the coaching staff hooks up a line to a computer sequestered in the dressing room or high in the grandstand where some of the assistant coaches normally sit?
These are questions the rulemakers must address as time goes, by along with the one arising the next day. The bench to play "As Time Goes By."
One thing about it, though — the rules change would lend new meaning to the terms "hi. fi," "stereo" and "commercial time out."