4
Wednesdav. July 14. 1993
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
IN OUR OPINION
Fifth-year fee increase shouldn't become norm
Oregon and Texas both are considering plans to financially prod students who do not graduate in the traditional four years. In these plans
in the traditional four years. in these plans those who do not get the degree in the eight semesters will pay for it with a tuition increase.
Even though KU officials are not impressed by the plans and have no intention of implementing one like them, the Oregon and Texas plans will set a bad precedent affecting colleges and universities throughout the nation.
An area legislator said only a small percentage of student would be affected, making implementing a policy more trouble than it is worth. Forrest Swall, D-Lawrence, said that if a policy was implemented, it would affect only one percent of the KU population.
Obviously, Swall has not checked the statistics for students who do not graduate in four years.
At KU, only 25 percent of students graduate in eight semesters (four years) and only 50 percent graduate after 10 semesters. The policy would affect more than one percent of students.
Not only did Swall get the statistics wrong, he did not rule the policy out. Swall said that Kansas legislators would be interested in the plan only if the Oregon and Texas plans generated substantially more revenue for these universities.
Swall's comment reflects what the real motivation for this policy is: money. If general tuition increases were not enough, a plan to penalize students for not swiftly moving through college would give higher institutions more revenue.
The plan is only camouflaging a revenue increase as a penalty for students who don't graduate in four years. The policy is particularly scary to students because statistics show that they are not graduating in four years. At KU the reasons for this range from changing majors to the inability to get into required courses. In other words, problems that stem from the University.
Any plan to financially punish students who don't graduate in four years is a bad idea. Students are not getting a degree in that time and it would only take advantage of fifth year seniors. At least a tuition increase affects all students equally and doesn't affect their ability to swiftly get a degree.
TERRILYN McCORMICK
EDITORIAL EDITOR
INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE
Tokyo summit may be last chance for leaders to save world trade
They will look like giants at the joint photo session in Tokyo, but politically they are all dwarves. Neither Bill Clinton, Helmut Kohl nor Kichi Miyazawa seem capable of hapking their responsibilities now. There is a leadership deficit in the world.
The leaders of the world's seven most powerful nations have so many problems that they will have difficulty in reaching an agreement on the most important issue: to save the world's free trade.
Consumers, managers and union leaders all over the world should be demonstrating on the streets today. The Tokyo summit could be the last chance to prevent a trade war that
would lead to global recession.
The threat has been heard before. But this time it is real. If the Seven in Japan cannot give the economic talks a push forward, new trade barriers will be erected between countries and trading blocs.
The problem with free trade is that it does not win votes for politicians. For weak, indecisive leaders it is easier to continue supporting inefficient sectors at home rather than the more ethereal, global advantages of free trade.
EXPRESSEN
SWEDEN
KANSAN STAFF
DAVID MITCHEL
DAVID MITCHELL
Editor
JAY WILLIAMS
Managing editor
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
BILL SKEET, Technology coordinator
JOHN CARLTON
Editors
Editorial . Terrilyn McCormick
Campus News . Will Lewis
Campus Planning . Jess Delavern
Copy chief . Tracy Ritchie
Photo . Mellissa Lacey
Graphics . John Paul Fogel
JOHN CARLTON
Business manager
JENNIFER BLOWEY
Retail sales manager
JEANNE HINES
Sales and marketing advise
Production manager ... Robin Kring
Creative director ... Brian Furco
Classified manager .. Brenda Daubert
Photographer ... Andrew Arnone
Retail Zone manager .. Kate Burgess
Cathy McWilliams
Regional Zone manager .. Dalia Vanicke
Promotions .. Josh Hahb
Letters should be typed, double-spaced and fewer than 200 words. They must include the writer's signature, name, address and telephone number. Writers affiliated with the University of Kansas must include class and homework, or faculty or staff position. Guest columns should be typed, double-spaced and fewer than 790 words. The writer will be the Kauai reserves the right to reject or edit letters, guest column and cartoons. They can be mailed or brought to the Kauai newsroom, 111 Staffler-Fint Hall.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Janitor Olympics for fun, not shame
Janitors should have attended
Mike Auchard is a vice president of the Classified Senate and it is his business to publicize complaints and concerns that are brought to his attention. We do not mean to criticize him personally. After all, we may at some point have need of his advocacy.
Nevertheless, his letter is in need of a reply. Jerry Kelch, who has been a janitor on this hill for three decades, tells us that the Custodial Olympics were the first organized attempt to recognize the contribution of the custodial staff to the University community since 1963. If it was not perfect in every way, it was a great deal better than nothing. Day shift and night shift shared the same space at the same time for the first time in recorded history with out the bloodshed we all so confidently expected. We were fed, we were entertained and we were given a chance to laugh with and at one another. If anyone present complained of a lack of eggs in their beer, I for one, didn't hear it.
No matter how spacey we might get – and it can get pretty bad up here at 2 a.m. – I think we can be trusted to distinguish between a human being and water the consistency, after all, is rather different. Aren't we letting our capacity for symbolic interpretation run away with our common sense? I would have to sit in a trash can an awfully long time before I began to confuse myself with trash.
If a person feels demeaned by the fact that he is a junitor, he should find some other line of work. That's simple enough. It might be asked, though, if junitors and economists were to disappear next Tuesday morning, which do you think would be missed first? If a person feels that it is demeaning to be pushed about in a mop bucket, let him attend anyway and watch the rest of us enjoy the fun and games. Even if he could not stoop to throw a wedge at one of his compatriots, he could at least add to the volume of laughter when one of his sad compatriots is truly and fairly hit.
Mike Richardson and Phil Endacott deserve a lot of credit for initiating this unprecedented show of appreciation. The only real defect to the Janitor's Ball was that not EVERYONE attended. Come next year, 'yall - if only to laugh at the rest of you. You missed a fine party.
dinner, it is bad manners to complain of the cooking, it is surely worse to quarrel with a dinner that one did not deign to honor with one's presence.
A great deal of work, imagination,
time and expense went into the
organization of the Custodial
Olympics. If, when one is invited to
Thomas Kenogg Crested Warner
F&O Housekeeping Services
The following people, with the consent of Thomas Kellogg, wish to show their support and agreement to his letter by adding their names to it. These people are F&K Housekeeping Services employees.
Jerry J. Kelch
Ron Johnson
Dale G. Dundap
Steilie Willel
Helen Wiggins
Dana Evans
Randy Killingsworth
John Kruzel
Zelma Bowman
J. Atwood
Bill Furman
Willel E. Oatis
Chris Wallace
Peggy K. Parker
Margie I. Wilks
Rose Ball
Homer Barkley
David E. Lally
Rosie Little
Karen A. Paasch
Absent janitors miss paid leave
As I write this, I am still trying to grasp the full intent of Mike Auchard's letter. Since I and about 100 other people attended the Appreciation Day, I feel that I'm a little more qualified to speak of the day's activities than Auchard and the people he has so poorly represented in his letter.
Unlike Auchard, prior to this response, I went to the trouble of checking the facts. Source: Phil Endacott and Mary Alexander, KU housekeeping.
I discovered the following:
1. We have 158 employees in housekeeping
2. One hundred KU employees attended
3. We had 65 guests from: The University of Florida
a The University of Iowa b Kansas State University
b. Kansas State University
c. Wichita State University
c. Wichita State University
e. Butler County Community College
f. Representatives from local janitorial services.
4. We had 63 active participants with many others involved in timing, scoring, etc.
Auchard states, "it is curious that the people who chose not to participate were not allowed to go and listen to the 'guest speaker.' This is pure and simple HOGWASH!
From the very beginning it was made clear to all of us custodians that even though we were encouraged to participate in one or more events, if we didn't want to or couldn't, that was OK too.
In spite of this directive from Auchard and Phil Endacott, a number of employees who seemed to be suspicious took the day off as a vacation in order to avoid participating in the Custodial Olympics. Another small percentage chose not to use their vacation time and said they would rather work than participate. Because these people were so adamant, both Phil and Mike allowed them to work.
Needless to say, when I heard of this development, it damn near blew my hat off! I'm not used to hear people call down free food, fun and the opportunity to loaf paid for by the boss!
I strongly suspect that the people who worked are grieving for not receiving the 1 1/2 hours paid administrative leave. They must have felt kind of stupid for not attending. Complaining is the only way they can compensate for this stupidity. You can sure bet there were a number of these people who expressed this thought when it was discovered that people would rather work than play.
Richard Jump Custodial worker
COMMENTARY
'Grandfather recounts era when trees grew in wild
The year is 2015, I just retired from my job, and I'm taking my grandson on a learning experience. We're going to the Natural History museum.
Then we come to a large arboreum.
Al, my grandson, gaps with wonder
and fright as he peers into a large biological mass of leaves and bark.
First we visited the dinosaurs — wondrous beasts that raided the planet for millions of years. The museum's "Arena of the Giants" is a classic Park's a 1900s dinosaur thriller.
"What is it, Grandpa?" he asks in a barely audible voice.
"That." I pause for drama, "is a tree Back when I was a kid these things used to grow all over the place."
"You mean they grew outside" Al asked.
"Of course they did," I said. "That is, up until about 30 years ago. Loggers got what they wanted. Or got what they thought they wanted."
"What do you mean, Grandpa? What are loggers?"
I began to explain the situation that presented itself in the late 1900s. I told him how loggers, the people who cut down trees for use in industry, wanted to cut down as many trees as they could. They wanted unlimited access to the forests. But I told him the logic wasn't there.
"You see. Al the loggers put themselves out of business. They cut so many trees, that none were left, and the destruction they left behind was too much for new trees to handle.
"The loggers didn't realize that. They figured that since they learned their trade from their grandparents... Well, they didn't realize that it couldn't go on forever."
"You see, trees were always touted as renewable resources, but people forget that it takes 80 to 100 years for a tree to mature."
"So these loggers kept cutting until everything was gone?" Alasked.
"Yep. They just wanted their old way of life back and didn't realize that the retraining that the government was offering was better than what the future held for them. Times changed around them, but they just stood still and kept cutting."
"But Grandpa, I remember something from history class that about that same time the United States was asking countries around the equator to stop slashing and burning. Are these what they were slashing and burning?"
"Yes Al the U.S. was intent on other countries saving trees while it cut its own trees into extinction.
"However, early in President Clinton's term, that would be in the early 1990s, the president decided to make it law to save 80 percent of the nation's old growth forests. That was met with protests from the loggers and environmentalists because jobs and trees would be lost.
"Not only did the loggers lose their jobs, but the nation was devoid of trees. It's only in museums, such as this one, that trees can thrive."
Al questioned me about trees all the way home. What lived in them? Why was it that we cut them all down?
All I could do was recount history,
all the time wondering to myself why
and how it had happened.
Doug Hesse is a Ballwin, Mo. senior majoring in Journalism and environmental studies.
by Jeff Fitzpatrick
For the Birds