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Wednesday, October 5, 1988 / University Daily Kansan
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Drop in enrollment is great, but how it came about isn't
Opinion
Survivors of the past few years who have watched class sizes bulge, courses close and professors grew frustrated and leaves feeling overwhelmed.
What a relief to have enrollment down at the University of Kansas.
Whew
It means hope that administrators can start worrying about the quality of classes instead of merely making sure there are warm bodies to teach them. It means breathing room in the residence halls. It means there might be money for equipment and programs to ensure that KU doesn't slip further toward medicoity.
university planners who implemented the stringent new application deadlines deserve praise for taming the growing enrollment monster. They might have saved the school.
There is a dark cloud inside this silver lining, however. In order to keep enrollment down, standards for out-of-state students had to be raised. They now must have a 3.0 grade point average and composite of 23, or have met the course curriculum.
The efforts that have been made to make sure those resources aren't pushed to their limits again are a good start. But Regents members and teachers don't bring students from out of state brings relief, the same should be done for in-state students.
Many public schools make it harder for out-of-state students to gain admission. That's fair. When a state is paying for a university, it should make things easier for its own residents. And with that standard, most universities have minimal standards for all students, even in state ones.
Those standards are hardy tough. The problem is that no restrictions are placed on in-state students.
KU's ability to attract top-quality students from out of state is jeopardized when the University follows a double standard that says it wants quality students from elsewhere but allows any riffraff from the state to coast through the minimal
Out-of-state students shouldn't be the only ones responsible for keeping enrollment down. Until that responsibility is shared, the apparent victory over enrollment problems will be a temporary one.
repair issues.
If the state had unlimited money, then accepting an unlimited number of students would make sense. But as the crowds at KU have seen, the University's resources are limited.
Michael Merschel for the editorial board
Sept. 29, 1888, was a day marked with anxiety, eagerness, hesitation and excitement. It was a day the United States had looked forward to, worked for and wondered about for more than two years.
And on that day at 10:37 a.m., the U.S. people saw America soar back into space. ...
Mission end a great start
With mixed emotions of apprehension and joy, millions of eyes watched the long-expected liftoff and felt the tinge of uneasiness dissolve as the Discovery throttled up and surpassed the disastrous 73-second mark of the mission before
The country then sighed in relief as the space shuttle made a perfect landing Monday at the Edwards Air Force Base in California.
But the end of that mission is only a beginning for the shuttle program. The United States is beginning to see NASA in a better light, and we are putting the Challenger explosion behind us.
With memories of the tragic explosion in mind, a feeling that the United States had risen above the Challenger disaster was difficult to suppress.
The U.S. citizens who cheered the Discovery so strongly must not stop here. Support for the shuttle program should continue from the Discovery to the next flight of the Atlantis and to launches after that.
but NASA must not forget the mistakes made that led to the Challenger explosion. And when shuttle flights become routine, the care and precision taken in the examination of every bolt of the Discovery should be taken with every mission.
True, America is back in space. But without meticulous attention and monochrome of the space shuttle and constant vigilance, America would not be able to operate.
The mistakes made with the Challenger were unforgettable, but a second such mistake would be unforgivable.
Julie Adam for the editorial board
News staff
Todd Cohen Editor
Michael Horak Managing office
Julie Adam Associate office
Stephen Wade News editor
Michael Merschel Editorial office
Noel Gendes Campus editor
Cryg Anferson Sports editor
Scott Carpenter Photo editor
Dave Eames Graphics editor
Jill Jaeffery Art&Features editor
Tom Eblen General manager, news adviser
Business staff
Greg Knipp ... Business manager
Debra Cole ... Retail sales manager
Carr Company ... Sales manager
Linda Prokop ... National sales manager
Kurt Messardsmith ... Promotion manager
Park Hutton ... Marketing manager
Brad Lenhart ... Production manager
Mike Greenfield ... Asset management
Meleigh Leonhart ... Classified manager
Sales and marketing ... Sales manager
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Options decrease as status grows
Senior right on target for broadcast degree . . . or else
Room 111 of Strong Hall is much quieter now; no room by the wall early in the morning; no pop cans or paper streen along the hallway, no lines that extend to the opposite wing, no more anxious faces pacing at the list of courses that will continue to give students nightmares when they
Having been relegated to the status of a senior citizen at the University of Kansas this fall, I am spared the trauma, and the danger of running all over campus beging for green cards. What worries me is as my daughter of switching the schools with her hope of swinging males, or even sequences, grow dimmer.
My heated up enthusiasm fizzled, and my confidence was ripped to pieces when I realized there was more than a fine line between aspiration and realism.
I don't regret choosing broadcast journalism as my major. My all life, or nearly all of it, have set my sights on this career. I bulldozed through the requirements as fast as my brain could endure, and then I managed to develop applications. I was crashed into the School of Journalism. I was admitted. Yahoo. and boo-boo-hoo.
I came face to face with my major courses and
struggled with everything from writing in broadcast style to carrying five pieces of shooting equipment on the same body. As the rays of the light bulbs scorched my skin, as the camera continued to produce greely-looking pictures. As my calendar brimmed with deadlines, and as my journal ripped up correction, I began to wonder why I am where I am.
Janet Neo
Guest columnist
The only comfort is that I am not alone. Each semester, I have heard of people having an "undecided" as their major. And even if one has a minor in mathematics and some other uncommon. The fear of making a major mistake in deciding a major has prompted many to a "wait-and-see" attitude. By taking general courses with other majors, students are more poised for recognition that many requirements have not been fulfilled is often coupled with the frustration of not
getting the required courses when the mind is made up and time is up for mass enrollment.
Often, the reasons for not getting the courses one wanted are attributed to the infamous line at the Emu International School to shop around for easy instruction. I feel that the indecisiveness and fear of regret in declaring a major also has contributed to the problem of getting required courses marked down.
Well, at least I got some radio production problems nailed down without blowing up the station. And according to the instructor of the Missouri, I can almost hear the rattle of my graduation gown, feel the tilt of the cap on my head, and see the faint lines of the diploma I tooled for years. I am too new to see it.
I guess I will just have to practice shooting better pictures now, the star later. And for everybody's sake, I hope I don't miss the target, or somebody knows who or what. I will shot at them.
Janet Neo is a Johor Bahru, Malaysia, senior major in broadcast journalism.
K·A·N·S·A·N
MAILBOX
Poetry in Mason
Professors Banks (Mailbox, Sept. 28), is concerned that Coach Mason should return to his players as "these suckers." In all fairness, we should avoid playing against the rural and urban societies for the word "sucker."
The former, a rhyming euphemism, merely signifies "something with which I am having difficulties." Thus, referring to a defective windshield wiper on one's pickup truck, one might lament, "This sucker won't wipe," or, "This sucker isn't going to hurt." Used so, the term is mild restrained.
The latter, used by Gary Larson in a recent "Far Side" cartoon and probably the sense in which Professor Banks read it, signifies "a person who is easy to exploit."
The question, then, is whether Coach Mason intended to be wryly said or accurate.
Anthul E. Thomson
Distinquished Professor of Business. Enteritus
Arthur L. Thomas
Proud of Mason
In response to the article "Violent coaching moulded to be an ingredient for success" by Mark
Get off Glen Mason's back. He is trying to rebuild the proud tradition of Kansas football.
against him. Do you think football practice at Oklahoma or Nebraska is a pique? I would bet against it. Look how hard former basketball coach Larry Brown was on his players, and also
Because of the few who couldn't take the punishment that goes along with college football, Mason looks like the bad guy in this fairy tale. The majority of players that stayed to represent KU have come out in defense of Mason. Athletic director Bob Frederick also has come out in support, and he is the most famous player, and he is Mason's boss. He has the last word concerning athletics at KU. Apparently the people who are writing against Mason have never played organized football.
Football is as much a mental game as it is physical, and you must be mentally tough. What do you think Mason is trying to do? Do you really think that slapping a player on the side of the helmet to motivate him is a crime? If it were, would you want to get high to the professional level would be guilty?
Former player Kevin Verdugo has admitted that it was his fault for getting slapped on the helmet for throwing a pass several times in practice that was causing distress. The team was accused of Mason of being abusive left without telling anyone. It takes a cowardly person to turn back on his fellow players, coaches and friends and then accuse them of being all but because he will not excuse to save face.
Rebuilding one of the wolf college football teams in the country will be a tough task indeed, but it will be worth it.
I'm sure that if the football team were 30 instead of 0,3, nobody would bring up the subject. Those complaining are probably the same people who are only KU fans as long as KU
proud to attend KU, and I am equally proud to have a football team that works so hard to represent KU and to have a football coach of Mason's caliber.
Douglas Meyer Garden City sophomore
Motives wrong
Michael Horak's editorial on the drug RU 486 and its implications on the abortion issue are misguided and loaded with subtle anti-abortion bias.
Horak maintains that easy access to RU 488 would make abortions an instant solution to pregnancy with "no time for thought about the ramifications of such a decision."
The editorial board is correct that abortion is a monumental decision. If a woman decides to have an abortion though, such questions as continuation of pregnancy and adoption are irrelevant. They are nothing more than sugar-cooked intentions in repetitive acts as diffident and costly as abortion.
The majority of time spent in the abortion process is waiting for an appointment, raising money and driving to the clinic, not making the choice. Horka's belief that an easier procedure makes for a harsh decision is unfounded. A woman wants to have a baby with her doctor, but she decides a decision. Yet for those deciding to have an abortion, why make the process more difficult or dangerous than necessary?
As for easy access to the drug, our government would do women a better service by making access to the birth control pill and other medications rather than making access to RU 486 difficult.
William Bryan Swan Lawrence junior
BLOOM COUNTY
by Berke Breathed
5 WITH ANY PROPER SMU-
GING OPERATION. A CLEAN
DIVISION OF REASONABILITIES
WAS ESSENTIAL...
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