University Daily Kansan, February 10, 1983
Page 5
Chemical
From page 1
Rose, who supervise the chemistry, supply storeroom, said the reductions had forced him to cut down on the supply and chemical inventories in the storeroom.
The chemistry department's supply budget was reduced by $75,105, a 42 percent cut from the original $180,000 budget.
He said the department was running out of items such as variable transformers, used to regulate heating devices in experiments, multiple outlet devices, and lab jacks.
STUDENTS AND professors who need these items now are forced to borrow them from their colleagues or hunt for them instead of checking them out from the storeroom. Best said
In addition, scales in laboratories, which are usually serviced annually, have not been serviced this year. Rose said only four scales were working now, down from the normal 10 or 12.
The department has also reduced its inventories of dry ice, which is frequently used in experiments. The department sometimes runs out of it before it is delivered, he said.
Chemistry students no longer receive hand-outs for their problem sets, he said. Instead, professors post one copy on the bulletin board and students must copy it by hand.
NOT ALL THE reductions have been in supplies. The department allocated only $5,000 in wages for students hourly employed this year, which is one-third as much as last year, Rose said.
To save additional money, the chemistry office is shut down in the afternoon, so students are not able to talk to their professors.
Rose said the department would not run out of basic chemicals, but would not be able to replace them.
Akagi said that the microbiology department had been forced to cancel its honors program, which gave undergraduates a chance to do work in DNA, genetic engineering and cloning.
The department also cannot afford to buy as much microbiological food, Akagi said, used to grow viruses and micro-organisms.
AKAGI SAID several important microbiology classes had to be canceled for the semester, including one that he was to teach on applied microbiology. He said he would re-schedule the
"If the budget is too low, I'll cancel it again," he said.
The microbiology department no longer can operate its electron microscope because it lacks a large, fast-energizing camera.
Akagi and Cobb said the budget reductions had dampened the spirit of some professors and students.
Not only are some professors upset about the cuts, Cobb said, but they are also worried about the possibility of future reductions, which would hurt the University's programs more.
Because they were so abrupt, some people really hurt, "Cobb said. 'No one we feel is right.'"
From page 1
The United States should not have to model its educational system after other countries, he said.
Education
But some University officials disagree
the inference there are countries that do a better job than we do."
"The preparation of math and science of students preparing for college is perhaps the worst now than at any other time in the 20th century. Richard Schoten, KX professor of chemistry."
"There is no doubt that American science and technology has been rendered far less competitive with Western European and Japanese universities in the interior preparation of American students."
DALE SCANNELL, dean of the School of Education, said that compared to students from Japan and Western Europe, U.S. students were at significantly lower academic levels.
Schoen said a stronger emphasis on scholarship of all kinds was needed.
"We do not put enough emphasis on all basic disciplines," he said. "A return to more rigorous requirements in social science, English, science, math and the arts would be a step in the right direction."
But instead, the loosening has lowered the standard of students' competency in areas of
NOW AMERICAN efforts in science and technology are suffering because of 10 to 15 years of low financing and neglect in academic and industrial fields, he said.
math and science, and has confused students with a glut of course offerings, he said.
In the United States football heroes have more prestige than scholars. Bell said.
A survey done in 1980 indicated that only nine states required two years of math for high school graduation, Bell said, and only one state required three years.
THE STUDY said that about 5 percent of high school seniors had not taken any math and about 8 percent had taken no science. Bell said.
Bell said in his speech that in the 1970s most U.S. students had concentrated on fields unrelated to computer technology, but now most people needed this knowledge in every facet of
taylor said that in other countries, students are singled out and put into special diplomatic groups.
Unlike the United States, local communities in other countries do not have a say in the courses offered.
taught by the school, Taylor said.
He said he did not want community school districts to lose their voice in what courses were offered.
offered. In Japan students get a better math and science background, he said, but they attend school for longer hours and for more days a year. Some information from this story was provided by United Press International.
Competency testing bill stirs debate among profs
By DAVID POWLS
Staff Reporter
Officials in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences disagreed this week on the importance of a Kansas House bill that would require college-bound students to take a competency test.
test.
The bill calls for the Board of Regents to form a committee of representatives from each of the six state universities to design the test.
Michael Johnson, KU director of the freshman and sophomore English program, agreed that a high school competency test would eliminate many remedial programs at the college level.
STATE REP, Keith Farrar, R-Hugleton, said when he introduced the bill last week that the need for remedial programs on the college level would be reduced, thereby saving tax dollars. He said the test was not designed to be a college admissions examination.
"I agree with the principles of a competency (est.) Johnson said. "It would change the task of
"We spend a lot of time correcting problems in non-remedial courses that should be taken care of by the instructor."
HE SAID a competency test would make high school teachers accountable for their students
school teachers. "However, high school teachers may only train their students for the test and not educate them adequately." he said.
Johnson said the Regents committee, high school teachers and parents should work together to set reasonable criteria for the exam.
"Essentially, the test would say that only those who pass could go to college," he said.
AS WRITTEN, the competency test bill says that if more than 10 percent of prospective students from a school district fail the examination, the district would lose a quarter of a percent of its operating expenses budget for the next school year.
But Robert Lineberry, dean of the college, said he thought putting so much weight on one test was risky.
"No one in the college has made a careful study of the test yet," he said. "But KU has a long tradition of being an open university."
"In the mathematics department we have highly paid professors teaching high school algebra to a large number of students," he said. "That's not an efficient use of tax dollars."
JIM BREWER, professor of mathematics, said that he would support a competency test, and that other states such as Florida and California already had similar tests.
Michael Gaines, director of the undergraduate program of biology, said he opposed the test.
"I do not think you can adequately determine, on one test, whether a student is prepared for college," he said. "I do not think such a test could be designed to meet my approval.
"The only way you can eliminate remedial programs is to restrict admission. And restricting admissions seems to be the end result of such a test."
currently, students who graduate from accredited Kansas high schools must be accepted into Regents schools.
Vietnamese refugees enraged by debates at war conference
By United Press International
Following a discussion of the Vietnam War's effects on the Vietnamese, refugees in the audience lashed out at panelists who suggested the Vietnamese would benefit from a normalization of relations between the United States and the Communist nation.
LOS ANGELES — A debate over normalization of relations with Vietnam provoked an emotional exchange of insults and profanities between Vietnamese refugees yesterday at a conference re-examining the Southeast Asian war.
One woman dressed in traditional Vietnamese garb screamed at the panelists in Vietnamese and claimed she had five sons still living in Vietnam, and said most of the verbal exchanges were in Vietnamese.
EARLIER IN the day Nguyen Cao Ky, former South Vietnamese vice president and air force chief, abruptly dropped out of the conference. Organizers offered no explanation, but panelist Michael Huynh said Ky told him Ky "couldn't see there was a balance" in the conference.
The tone of the conference — the largest gathering of Vietnam experts assembled, since the end of the war — has been generally critical of U.S. actions and of the Saigon government.
Ky was one of several former Saigon leaders scheduled to discuss the war's consequences. Many in the audience of several hundred applauded when it was announced Ky would not
At a later panel, discussing the war's aftermath in Indochina, Nguyen Ngoc Dung, deputy permanent representative of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, to the United Nations,
sharply end a debate with a refugee who was critical of the Communist regime.
"Useless, useless," Mrs. Dung muttered as a special satellite connection from New York clicked dead. The State Department had refused Mrs. Dung permission to travel to California to participate in person.
ABOUT 100 refugees, many wearing traditional black pajamas and carrying flags of South Vietnam, picteted the conference at the University of Southern California and carried signs denouncing communism.
KU speaker tells blacks to know selves and past
By ANNE FITZGERALD
Staff Reporter
Tony Brown has been called television's civil rights crusader.
Brown brought his crusade to the University of Kansas last night, and by the time he finished speaking, he had brought the crowd of converts to their feet.
Brown focused on Black History Month as a celebration of human history.
He spoke to more than 150 people in Alderson Auditorium in the Kansas Union. His talk was sponsored by the office of minority affairs and Student Union Activities.
BROWN. A noted educator, writer and television producer, said because America was a pluralistic society, no group could advance without understanding its historical contributions. He said that applied to all groups, not just blacks.
"When you know who you are, you are formidable."
jumped up. "If you don't know where you've been," Brown said, "you don't know where you're going."
he said that people without self-knowledge would not respect themselves, and that in turn they would not be respected as individuals.
they would not BROWN SAID that understanding their history was especially crucial to blacks. He said blacks would never be respected as a group as long as individuals remained ignorant of their past.
past.
"In America, we take history for granted. But every group immigrated and brought with it its past — every group except the descendants of Africans." Brown said. "I use that word because blacks and Negroes are African Americans."
but not neglected.
Brown said changes in civil rights policy under President Reagan's administration had been inevitable.
nivebate. But some policies, such as busing, that often have been promoted by blacks are not always successful, he said.
Blacks have been taught that to learn, they have to associate with whites, Brown said. But blacks can learn from themselves as well as from other races.
"Whenever you make gains as a people, you've got to take what you've got," he said. "You've got to consolidate, and we haven't consolidated."
"It's time to get smart and not mad. The realization of power is just not happening now."
BROWN IS a pioneer in the television industry. He was the executive producer and host of "Black Journal" for seven years. The first and longest-running black public affairs program, Brown's nationally televised "Journal" was nominated for an Emmy Award.
He now is the host and executive producer of "Tony Brown's Journal," a similar public
Brown founded Howard University's School of Communication and was its dean until 1974.
Brown was recognized in 1977 by the National Urban League, which gave him its Distinguished Service Award.
Brian Raleigh, SUA forums chairman, said that Brown captured the crowd's mood.
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