Opinion
Kansan
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4A
Friday, Feb. 6, 1998
SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS
Editorials
Be thankful Commerce Bank has deeper pockets than Legislature
We applaud the University of Kansas's effort in creating smart cards. The cards, which have been in the works for some time, will allow students, faculty and staff to use their KUID as a debit card and to make small purchases from a stored-value purse. In addition to its banking features, the smart cards could someday be used for personal data like medical and enrollment information. Students will replace their old KUIDs at enrollment this semester and on their way, as President Clinton might say, to the 21st century.
The University should be bullish on technology. Yet it is disappointing that the University is so antiquated in other areas. For instance, enrollment is to advanced technology what tin and string is to modern communication. Computers are antediluvian. And as we have mentioned before, there aren't even pencil sharpeners in most classrooms.
We know why smart cards got pushed
Too often corporations provide the University with things the Legislature should.
through. It's certainly not because of a University-wide commitment to technology. It's because of a profit motive. Commerce Bank, along with other banks, saw an opportunity to make a few bucks, so they bid on the smart-card contract. In the process of providing a service to students, the bank hopes to create lifetime customers. It is, to be sure, a wise business move that benefits the bank and students.
Businesses, however, cannot be called upon every time the University needs something financed. Coca-Coca gave us new vending machines and Commerce gave us smart cards. Who is going to offer computers? IBM? Are University officials counting on GM to just decide to
donate a fleet of new buses?
What students need is a Legislature that cares about the Board of Regents institutions. The governor cares and his new budget reflects that. And KU administrators, to be fair, do the best they can with what they have. But we get the shaft from the Legislature every year. The investment the state has made in the Regents Institutions is poorly maintained. Anything above and beyond basic operation seems to be what the University can wheedle from vendors. Students should be thankful for Commerce Bank, Nike, and Coca-Cola. Maybe we should vote for them instead of our tight-fisted state representatives.
Smart cards are great, but we couldn't have given them from the Legislature.
As one legislator noted, the Kansas Legislature services the state like a bull services a cow.
At least Commerce Bank will buy us dinner first.
Andy Obermueller for the editorial board
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Paul Eakins, co-opinion page editor
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Perspectives
Dissection is necessary learning tool in biology
I passed geography without leaving my home state, and geology without seeing planets collide. It's insulting to argue that students can't understand
L"
anatomy unless they stick scissors into a frog's brain."
Melissa
Robinson
opinion@kanasan.com
sessors in our school. On Jan. 21 Student Senate passed a bill allowing students that had ethical problems with dissecting animals in the classroom to not only voice their objections but to utilize a viable alternative to that dissection. These alternatives include watching a video or performing CD-ROM or internet based virtual dissections. The bill encompasses all dissection courses in any field of study.
This bill is a bad idea. The quote above, found on a website promoting abolition of dissection in all classrooms, reflects the ideas of the bill.
However, there are many misconceptions in it. Most everyone can pass geology without looking up from a book, but few if any geology majors would leave college without going on at least one dig. A student taking a course in geography probably would fare better by seeing the world. So too must a biology student have hands-on experience to get the most out of his or her education.
A student majoring in English may take Biology 10ito get the lab science requirement out of the way. He or she may feel that dissecting vertebrate animals conflicts with his or her moral values.
A biology student with the intent to become a medical doctor may take another lab class, such as mammalian physiology, in which dissection is required. He or she may have always thought that dissection was kind oficky and prefer not to do it.
Should both of these students be allowed to voice their opinion? Yes, of course. With the help of this bill, will either have to dissect? Probably not. While the first student likely would never need the knowledge of dissection, most would agree that the second would. And while all of us may have experienced the ickfactor of dissection at one time, it shouldn't be a reason to avoid crucial knowledge.
How many of you would go to a surgeon who had never before dissected? I posed the same question at a recent Student Senate Student Rights Committee meeting. Most of them had no problem going to that surgeon. The rest of us probably would choose another doctor.
The sponsors of this bill cite many sources supporting virtual biology. I decided to check these internet sites out for myself. They range from inadequate at best, to completely ludicrous. Thumbnail pictures show the dissection process, frame by frame. Most are grainy. Most are ambiguous as to what they are showing. A particular site testing knowledge about the frog shows an open frog carcass and asks the student to click on the heart. A click anywhere near the general area gives a whole-hearted "Correct!"
That type of learning is not comparable to hand-on lab experience.
Michael Schmitt, president of Proponents of Animal Liberation, has said that students using dissection alternatives perform better on tests. But how hard could it be to look at a model frog, laid out for you on the screen, and point and click? My experiences in various biology labs have shown me the importance of dissection as part of the total learning experience. In the mammalian physiology lab I learned more about how the human body functions by studying animals in a one-hour lab than I learned in the four-hour lecture.
A conversation with Dean Stetler, head of the department of biology, provided some interesting insight. While he encouraged students to express ethical qualms with the biology curriculum, he said he had found that each person's objections differ so greatly that blanket legislation would only confuse matters more. He said that some students have ethical dilemmas with dissection of vertebrates. Another once had a problem dissecting flowers. Some students have conflicts with evolution. But when an instructor offered an alternative by teaching both creationism and evolution, other students protested.
Don't hesitate to voice your opinion if you like me, have a problem with this piece of legislation. Supporting dissection does not make you an animal hater or a bad person. A student on the student rights committee told me that he personally agreed that health professionals, at least, should be taught dissection in biology labs. But since he considered himself a liberal and a supporter of PAL, he went along with the legislation.
This legislation could be a jumping-off point for other ethical issues that may someday come up. Will people objecting to learning about socialism in a political science classroom be able to choose not to? Will students in religion classes be able to object to learning about Buddha if they are Christian? Let's hope not.
At the student rights meeting another student said that he's not a vegetarian, but that dissecting a frog made him pass out! Let's not confuse the issues here: I have been a vegetarian since I was six years old, but I dissected animals in my biology lab. Dissection is a learning tool.
Robinson is a Hill City junior in pharmacy.
Columnist responds to letters about Tibet crisis column
Feedback
Most Tibetans I have ever read about or heard about would rather return to a theocracy than live under China's rule.
Terrible things have certainly happened to the Chinese people during the last several centuries — the opium wars and mass hunger being just two. In no way do I wish the Chinese people harm and I sympathize with their past plight. But China had no right to use its own suffering as an excuse to invade Tibet.
As to the "good things" China and Tibet have shared, they are long past. The royal marriage between the princess of the Tang Dynasty and a Tibetan prince happened about 900 A.D.
Shaoshui Huang wrote that Tibetan culture has been aided by China. However, Tibetan culture is now forced to live in exile in India. Tibetan children in Tibet are taught Chinese and are isolated from their culture.
I am well aware of Tibet's past defects. It was an undemocratic, often feudal society. I think Tibet deserves the right of national self-determination and freedom from human rights violations.
The Freedom House, a human rights watch group, recently proclaimed Tibet to
be the worst case of human-rights violations among all the occupied territories of the world. The United Nations International Commission of Jurists found that 16 articles of U.N. human rights laws have been violated by China in Tibet. The U.S. State Department also deplores the severe human rights violations.
Until China invaded Tibet, it had never know famine. China's "charity" is in response to their own forced economic missteps. Also, if killing one-sixth of a country is "charity", I hope I never need help from China.
Eric Goodman,
Dayton, Ohio, sophomore
Buzz on the Boulevard
Which issue is more important for the media to focus on: possible war with Iraq or the alleged Clinton/Lewinsky affair?
Coc Van, Wichita sophomore in business and premed
Shane McDermott,
Lawrence junior in
business and
accounting
Qurat Mir, Leawood senior in biology
"Iqra is more important. People are so much into scandals. (The alleged affair) is more of a media hype, entertainment type affair. Iraq is more important because if we go to war it will affect peoples' lives."
"I don't think his affair is any of our business. More power to him. War is more important than whether he is getting any. I hope he did it."
Kelly McWhite,
Minneapolis,
Minn., freshman,
undecided
"Neither, I think we have a lot more issues of vital importance than the war and the affair. For example, the whole education system, like inner city schools, is something we need to do something about."
"Possible war with Iraq of course. I don't really care what Bill Clinton does. It's his personal life, not mine."