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Wednesday, March 9, 1994
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
4.10
VIEWPOINT
Kansas should adopt tiered Regents system
Last week, the latest attempt to bring qualified admissions to Board of Regents schools failed in the Kansas Legislature. This bill would have set minimum standards for admission into the state's six public universities. The Regents should take a more progressive approach and establish a multi-level Regents system, with the University of Kansas as the flagship school.
This is not a new, nor a novel idea. Other states, such as Michigan, have had multi-level systems for years, with a single flagship institution. The University of Michigan has higher entrance requirements than the other state schools, such as Michigan State. Although enrollment is lower at Michigan, the level of education is considered much higher than at MSU. The University of North Carolina, the University of Virginia and the University of California-Berkeley are other examples of flagship institutions.
The system is simple. KU would set up a competitive admissions program. Admission would be based on test scores, high school grade point average, essays and any other chosen criteria. Kansas State and perhaps Wichita State then would have minimum qualified admission standards, such as the ones proposed by the Legislature this session. The state's remaining schools, Fort Hays State, Pittsburg State and Emporia State, would continue their open admissions policies.
This system would help establish a formal educational plan for the state's schools, replacing the current lack of planning. For far too long, the politicians and the Board of Regents have made incremental changes all the while trying to keep the schools on equal ground.
KU would stand to gain in many ways. First of all, KU would be perceived better nationally. Many college selection guides downgrade KU simply because of the open admissions policy. KU would be on more equal footing with its peer institutions, such as North Carolina with a tiered system.
However, these schools are not on equal ground. Few would argue the fact that Kansas and Kansas State are the state's two best schools. On a regional and national level, KU is perceived to be the leading public institution in Kansas, much like Michigan and North Carolina are in those states.
The plan would allow the University to raise the level of education by eliminating the time and money spent on remedial or "weed-out" classes for unprepared students. KU could focus on high quality education, instead of remedial education for the masses.
Others would gain as well. The remaining schools would gain the students who could not qualify for KU, but could qualify at other schools. These schools also could become more focused and specialized. Rather than trying to compete directly with KU in many different areas of study, KSU could further emphasize agricultural and veterinary disciplines, among others, that KU does not offer.
The state of Kansas also would benefit from the educational magnetism that KU would create. As Michigan and North Carolina attract some of the brightest minds to their respective areas, so too would KU help raise the level of educational affluence in the Midwest.
Unfortunately, the other schools refuse to look at and accept the big picture. As a result, the Board of Regents is bound to continue its current policies.
The admissions policy the state legislators considered is on the right track, yet the state can do even better. To maximize the quality of higher education at the Regents universities, the state needs to bring a multilevel competitive admissions system to Kansas.
RICHARD BOYD AND J.J. ANDRE FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
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Sister's pilgrimage to Caribbean won't slow 'real world' advance
I talked to my mom the other day. This is always an interesting experience.
She's so subtle.
"Anyway, now that I know you're OK I can sleep soundly. That's all I wanted," she said.
That was the signal for me to say,
"Oh no Mom — don't hang up! I'm so,
so sorry that I haven't called you laterly.
Will you please forgive me?" So I did.
Talking to my mom is funny. She always fills me in on the dirt—she loves gossip. Especially when it's about my family.
After we got over the initial "you haven't called me in so long" hump, the conversation went really well.
You see, my family happens to be really weird. There's always someone, somewhere in my family who is doing something really bizarre.
COLUMNIST
So, the other night my mom was filling me in on all the family current events. The more she told me, the
more I realized that there is a distinct possibility that I am the only one in my family with a sane head on her shoulders. It seems that I am the only one thinking rationally anymore.
My mother told me that my older sister wants to move to an island. That's right — a little piece of land out somewhere in the middle of the ocean.
"Well," my mom explained, "she wants to take a vacation to Jamaica or the Bahamas and check out what the living possibilities might be for her down there. Then she wants to get a job at the place she best and move there. Only for a year though."
Let me give you a little background about my older sister. Nicole is 23 years old. She graduated with honors
from the University of Illinois two years ago with degrees in both political science and history. She only got one question wrong on her graduate school entrance exams. To put it bluntly—my sister is a genius.
"Why?" was the obvious question.
So I asked.
Since graduation, she has been working 50 hours a week as a waitress — by choice. She hasn't been looking for another job because she says she "can't work in an office behind some desk." It's suffocating or something.
Anyway, she wants to teach at the college level someday. But first she wants to get her doctorate. This means more school. This also means more money to pay for school — which she doesn't have and my parents won't give her.
So here she is, working her butt off in a restaurant for two years, living with my father. You would imagine that she would have saved up some cash toward school, right?
Wrong.
She kept putting school off, making excuses about money and various other reasons that really didn't hold water. So now she wants to hawk frozen drinks with little umbrellas on some tropical island for a year.
Apparently, Nicole told my mother that she "wasn't ready to deal with the
'real world' yet.' She said that she needed some more time to "reevahate her future" or something like that.
Nicole cracks me up. What does she think the "real world" is going to be like when she gets back from paradise? Will the money she needs to go back to school magically appear from the sunny tropical skies in the Caribbean or something? I think not.
One thing I do have to compliment my sister on, though, is her ability to justify every outrageous scheme she thinks up. I'm sure that in her mind, a year-long stint on an island seems like the perfect thing to do. It's not a vacation — it's a working vacation.
The whole thing is pretty amusing. It's nice to have a sister who has no common sense — that way even the stupid things I do from time to time seem perfectly sane.
What did my mother have to say about all this?
"Well," she sighed, "if she does go down to that island, all I can say is that she can take your little sister with her. But that's another story — I'll tell you next week."
Danielle Raymond is a Willmette, Ill., junior in Journalism.
I can't wait
COLLEGE ISN'T INTENDED TO BE JUST A PLEASURE CRUISE Love for parents is hard to express
I have never told my parents I love them.
I'm kind of withdrawn. I have trouble showing my emotions, especially when it comes to showing affection.
I know I'm not the only one who hasn't told his or her parents this. But something scares me.
My uncle just had open-heart surgery. Quadruple bypass. He survived. But now he is having complications.
What if something happened to my parents?
I remember a time two summers ago, when my dad and I were hiking in the mountains. We were climbing a sheer cliff at the time. I looked for some footing and bypassed a tempting, large rock about the size of a super-sized truck tire at the last second. I made it up the ledge and waited.
My dad got his footing on the cliff and reached for the rock. It fell as soon as his fingers grazed its surface, missing him by inches. We braced ourselves. The rock whistled through the thousand foot drop. Something like the sound of a large bomb echoed through the mountains and our eardrums. Shale shot up through our nostrils and bathed us in dust.
COLUMNIST
What if I had grabbed the rock first?
The answer still haunts me:
I would have had the weight of the love for my dad strapped to my soul.
I have never told my dad how much I admire him.
He works hard. He has done well in his company. He has taught me how to be a leader. How to treat people. And how to be unselfish.
Or the times he offered to make the hour drive up to Lawrence because I was stressing out. Somehow that offer was enough to make me persevere.
I can't count how many times he took precious time out of his weekend to drive me to the arcade when I was vouger or he met he fix my car.
He taught me right from wrong, laid a foundation of morals for me to follow and showed me how to be a good
person.
But I've never said it to him.
And he did this without pushing his ideals on me. He never forced me to follow a religion. One phrase can best express my gratitude for this.
But I've never said it to him.
If I am half as good a person and hard worker as my dad, I will be happy with myself.
And my mom is the nicest, most caring person I have ever met.
Of course.I'm biased
My mom shatters the stereotype of women who don't know about sports. She loves sports. I love to talk sports with her more than anyone.
In fact, I can talk about anything with her. Nothing shocks her. She has never passed judgment on me. I could tell her things that I had done that I wasn't proud of or was confused about. She listened.
I now know how valuable that was to me growing up. In this age of awkwardness, there isn't much that can embarrass me or make me feel uncomfortable in front of a crowd or a stranger.
She never pinched my cheeks. I was her baby, her first born, and yet she never treated me like it. I know I can bring a girl home to her. Only one phrase can best express my gratitude
I love my parents,very much. (Despite the fact that they are University of Missouri alumni.)
But I guess I was waiting for something bad to happen before I could tell them. The hiking episode wasn't enough. My uncle's situation is.
Both of them have showed me how to combat prejudice, how to politely ask questions and, how to be an individual. Tools that I feel fortunate to have.
Many of us have people who we care about, and yet we don't tell them this until it's time to say goodbye.
But I've never said it to her.
And then it's too late.
Our parents do everything for us. They support us financially and emotionally.
the sad thing is, we probably don't tell them how grateful we are because their support always is there. We get used to it. We don't know how much they do for us until we are adults ourselves and that support is gone.
No, I have never told my parents I love them.
Until now.
Dan England is a Lenaxa senior In Journalism.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Writer misses the point in free speech editorial
I am writing to correct several mistakes contained within Donella Hearne's Feb. 28 editorial entitled, "Town's fight is futile; law is unconstitutional." Hearne claims that
"The Supreme Court has ruled in countless cases that free speech can only be restricted under circumstances presenting a clear and present danger to the security of the nation and its people." Hearne fails to realize that the "clear and present danger" standard, first applied by Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1919, was effectively buried in a later case,
Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969). Furthermore, several other categories of speech exist which are not protected by the First Amendment. These include libelous and obscene speech, speech that is designed to cause imminent lawless action, and the so-called "fighting words"-words that would cause the ordinary person to fight. The question in the Ladue case is not whether the sign causes a "clear and present danger," as Hearne believes, but whether the community of Ladue has a compelling interest in preserving its "unique aesthetic character."
Westwood senior
Fans, fickle or not, all are part of basketball
Consider the "incentives" for attending Saturday's game: 1. Classes were having midterm exams. 2. The Jahayhaws had been eliminated from the Big Eight race. 3. We were playing Colorado — an easy win.
I am writing on behalf of Jayhawk fans who may be offended by recent fair-weather-fan bashing that arose over the poor attendance during the Colorado game. We are adults who either choose to spend our time being entertained by the basketball team or do something else with our obviously less important life.
I am not a sports cynic. My life is immersed in sports, and I love the 'Hawks. I could not buy tickets this year because of student teaching responsibilities, yet I see no reason for bashing those adults who enjoy the thrill of KU basketball for not attending an unthrilling game.
Allen Field House is the toughest place to play in the Midwest, largely because of the fans, and there will always be two kinds of fans: loyal and "fair-weather."
I am a true blue Jayhawk, loyal to the core, but can we all just relax a little bit?
Educite Cropper Garden City graduate student
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