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Thursday, September 8, 1977
University Daily Kansan
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Comment
Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the Kansan editorial staff. Signed column represent only the views of the writer.
K-State whines again
They're crying again at Kansas State University.
Again, the tears are over the University of Kansas' supposed preferential treatment from the Kansas Legislature and the Board of Regents.
of Regetts:
This time, the issue—really, the "non-sis" is the funding difference between the planned $6.7 million addition to KU's Robinson Gymnasium, paid for by the state, and the student-funded $3 million recreation complex at K-State.
Again, the bawler is State Sen. Donn Everett, R-Manhattan, with the help of the K-State student newspaper, the Collegian.
Again, although more subtle this time, the notion is raised that a Regent's alma mater can present a possible conflict of interest—a silly idea that is an unethical, unsubstantiated slur against the Regents and, sadly, could turn the Board of Regents into a provincialistic Little Legislature.
IN A FRONT-PAGE story and an accompanying editorial in Friday's Collegian, Everett and the Collegian staff moaned KU has the upper edge in Topeka because the state is paying for Robinson.
space.
The Collegian noted that of the 80,000 sq. ft. Robinson addition, only 8,800 sq. ft. will be classroom and office space.
The Collegeian quoted Everett as saying he was told last spring when the projects went through the legislature that the Robinson addition was state-funded while the K-State center was not "because KU put some classrooms in theirs.
"I didn't think it was fair, but this is the first time anyone has asked me about it . . .
"KU HAS historically received better treatment with their physical facilities and has such a better endowment association that they were able to give this a high enough priority to get this through, whereas K-State would have to wait five or 10 years to get this through.
"The luxuries available at KU are simply not available here."
So, the Collegian editorial deduced, the "small amount" of classroom space cinched state funding of the Robinson addition for KU, and K-State could have got state funding "by just adding classrooms and offices 'o a small fraction of the building.'"
Although facts may blur the Collegian's
and Everett's complaints, at least a few are in order.
in order:
• STUDENT FUNDING of such buildings as student unions and recreational facilities is not new. This year, KU students began paying for the planned satellite union. If K-State students want to pay for a recreation center—and there is no reference to any classes being taught there—then let them.
- KState escaped the trend a few years back of having students pay for classroom buildings, KU students each pay $9 a year toward the costs of Wescow Hall, surely a classroom building in the traditional sense. And Fort Hays State University students each pay $105 a year for their physical education building, Wichita State University students pay $24 a year each for their science building and power plant.
- In the Department of Health, Physical Education and Recreation (HPER), a gym or handball court IS a classroom, and classroom space for HPER courses has been desperately shortened. Enough with the new high KCU will be 30 per cent short of physical education teaching space recommended by accreditation association guidelines.
FINALLY, YOU will remember Everett is the senator who last winter began complaining that too many Regents—seven of the nine at that time—were KU graduates.
the time at the gymnasium.
The story of Robinson gymnasium and the K-State recreational center is simply a variation of that theme. The Collegian quoted Regents chairman Glee Smith's explanation of why KU got state funding for Robinson—but not before first identifying him as a KU graduate.
The Regents are above Everett's insinuations of conflict of interest. They realize the tremendous responsibility and cost of higher education in Kansas transcend alma mater loyalties.
UNFORTUNATELY, Gov. Robert Bennett helped politize the政组 of Regents in February when he replaced two KU alumni with two K-State alumni.
The Collegian editorial ended thusly:
The Citigroup, "when it comes time for students to dip back into their pockets, the Board of Regents and the legislature should feel obligated to lend a help hand."
For Topeka to continue listening to unfounded allegations and complaints from upstream would be to hide the real needs of the Regent system, show disrespect for Regents who perform their duties without bias and perhaps entangle the Board of Regents in selfish squabbles which would weaken the system as a whole.
Hell has frozen over. West Point is changing for the better. The United States Military Academy, training grounds for the elite of our army's officers, is changing profoundly.
West Point pressure slackens
Maybe you did not know, maybe you did not care, but you should. Today's West Point cadets will be running on land and water for the next years. Your sons and daughters may have to serve under them. Even you may have to serve under them. It is very possible that your son even the one of our country will depend on these cadets.
ADMITTING WOMEN alone will adapt the cadets' conceptions of themselves and their experiences in a special boot camp) and plabe (freshman) year at West Point (1974 to 1975) so I have an idea of the West Point environment that goes through a cadet's mind.
West Point was forged into shape by Sylvanus Thayer, one of its early superintendents. Thayer, the principle force behind the Academy's development, modeled it after the Prussian army and used it without change significantly until it admitted women last year. Most cadets thought it would never change.
Many cadets go because they or their families want the social prestige.
For most of us, a major reason for going to the Academy was the distinction, either social or personal. I went because it thought it would have no impact could do it. It was a challenge.
his prestige, some cadets felt, was threatened by the admittance of women. Raised in very traditional homes, cadets thought the worth and prestige of their accomplishment—they often made no effort to be lessened if women were admitted and proved they could make it at West Point.
IN 1874, about a year before women were admitted, about two thirds of the cadets felt their macho status threatened by the admission of women or held very traditional views of women's abilities. Most cadets opposed their admission.
Ross McIlvain Editorial Writer
A second major change, instituted when the cadets started school just a few days ago, is really a series of minor changes designed to ease the murderous competition between cadets and the incredible pressure put on them. This pressure caused environment and personnel for year's scandal in which 123 cadets allegedly cheated on an electrical engineering take-home exam and were booted out by quasi-judicial cadet honor boards.
PERHAPS THE major change is that cadets will spend less time in class and have more time to think and study on their own. During the year I spent there, I never had enough
tume to sleep, let alone study.
Sleeping in class was harshly punished, but the need for sleep was common, so it was customary to stand up in class to keep from falling asleep. Twice I fell asleep standing up and hit the floor before waking. When I left the room my feet and would have fallen backward out of a sixth story window if two other cadets had not caught him.
Given a choice between getting enough sleep and studying, studying would usually suffer.
The grading system has also been changed. Cadets now will be rated on the standard A to F scale instead of a 0 to 3.0 scale in which anything below 2.0 was failing. They will no longer feel the pressure of being ranked by grade averages. In the past, cadet rank and privileges — such as the rare weekend leave — were
awarded through ratings such as these.
CADETS ALSO will spend less time on make-work menial jobs and administrative paperwork. Much of a cadet's study time in the past was taken up by jobs like sorting and mailing letters for the whole company, filling out myriad useless forms and mounting ceremonial guard duty.
According to Academy spokesman, plbes (freshmen) will get less psychological harassment. This has been said before, but if it is true, it will be a good thing for all the cadets in the program, and their harassers are demeaned as human beings by that behavior.
linese and other changes will draw moans and shrieks from most graduates of West Point and other defense hard-liners, but the changes will improve the education and training of
the cadets. It will not solve the problem of trying to produce a group consisting entirely of honorable men, but it will produce better educated men. Without time for study and contemplation, a college education is worthless.
The reduction of mental pressure is also necessary. Good steel must be tempered in the fire, but if you put too much heat on the steel, it will warp and crack.
That happens to a lot of people at West Point. Many cadets — one of my roommates during beacar brackes, for example — become neurologic or just plain crazy. Some of them don't then abuse some of them. Some of them become high ranking officers.
The new system should be healthier. With a little luck, the officers running our army in the future will not only be better educated but also more human and sane.
By JAMES J. KILPATRICK Washington Star Syndicate
WASHINGTON - Congress has some rough ones coming
Curious man cannot be bound by laws
up; taxes, health, care, energy,
health care, the Panama Canal
and electoral reform. But one
problem, little noticed, was
No sympathy, relief for allergy victims
Bleary eyes, shortness of breath, a nose that looks like a Christmas decoration. Feeling awfully out of shape you never had the night before.
Brandishing tissues, swallowing antihistamines and counting the hours left on your tiny time pills.
These are the symptoms— you know because you have them every year, August through November.
And you know that time and again the following scenario will be played:
No, you murmur bravely
You arrive at class, work, a party looking like what mother calls "death warmed over." A well-meaning friend rushes up to you and says, "What's that thing? What's the matter? It looks like a terrible cold."
Editorial Writer
Lynn Kirkman
from behind your Kleenex, "it's hay fever."
on, (the tone is the disappointment), "just hay fever."
And there goes your sympathetic ear, your concerned friend, your shoulder to cry on.
It's a hard lesson, but that's the way life is out in that cruel world we live in. Unless you've got something contagious, people are doing things you're not, of course, unless you've had a skiing accident or have been
And why not? After all, it's just hay fever.
the victim of a shark attack. But that's someone else's story.
Hay fever victims number in the millions. Countless people spend at least part of every year sniffing and gasping through picnics and ballgames, or taking so much medication that they are likely to drown off as they touch the whole thing anyway.
THERE AREN'T any telephones for hay fever. Give people a warm, cozy crowd. We get precious little sympathy from non-sufferers and so we band together, to lend support and to exchange knowledge.
Treatying haw fever is a little like playing medicinal roulette. It's an interesting aliment. It can be easily offended. Oh, you may find
something that works beautifully—for a while. But you can be sure it won't last. There'll come an August when you whip out your trusty prescription—only to find that your allergy is something that this particular remedy is something it can thrive on.
The popular myth seems to be that hay fever is something almost psychosomatic, that we could all get along just fine if we wanted to. And, of course, we really feel that bad anyway.
THIS FABLE IS perpetuated to a degree by the people who make the medications which keep us going. The manufacturers of the pills that double as hay fever and cold tablets are the worst. Take a look at their television commercials when
When that same pill is being hawked as a hay fever treatment, he says, "just one of these every four, eight, twelve hours," they say, "and no one has had it. We have unsightly hay fever."
If you're really lucky, you may find a doctor who is a fellow victim. Then you'll get sympathy, even if you don't. One physician keeps his patients away from locally grown fruits and vegetables and local dairy products during hay fever season. It means that he has a small price to pay for being able to breathe.
they promote their product as a cold remedy. They tell you to take that pill, get plenty of rest, drink plenty of fruit juice. You're sick, after all, so you deserve to be pampered.
We're not asking for your money or your time. All we want is a kind word to get us through winter.
FROM ALL OF us to whom the marigold represents a threat to health and well-being, to all of you to whom the pollen count means nothing—greetings.
And when you catch a cold, we promise to care-a lot.
prove more troublesome than all the rest. It involves, quite possibly, the manipulation of the human race.
Bills now pending in the House and Senate, taking different approaches to recombinant DNA research, deal with scientists who say fiction is wrought. Indeed, this was the stuff of science fiction nearly 50 years ago, but Aldons Huxley was a piker. In "Brave Words," he wrote that Hudex imagined the planned reproduction of test tube babies and set the time for it at 632 A.F. (After Ford). Hudex was scientists may be close to Hudex's fantasy now.
DNA is shorthand for deoxyribose nucleic acid. Back in 1944, an American biochemist, Oswald Avery, made the discovery of DNA production. A decade later, the secrets of life were further uncovered with identification of a double molecule. Another decade passed, and geneticists degree sequences and protein chains, according to one scientist quoted by Packard,
IN AN important autumn book, "The People Shapers." Vance Packard reviews the status not only of genetic research but also of research in the eerie field of behavioral engineering. Depending on one's point of view, the picture is either terrifying or exciting. The dreams the genetics are dreaming could result in great good or fantastic harm.
Kent site a blemish
To the editor:
Despite the fact that I am in virtual agreement with the opinion stated in last Friday's editorial, "Preserve Kent site," credited to the Kansas.edu staff, I am moved to comment, as one can, the thought and feeling behind this viewpoint.
No soap-operative "emotion" for the 'sake of the departed," no rightist rationale to try to "clearedasil" this old ingrown hair of public embarrassment—billions for cover-ups, not one prayer for cure--was in evidence.
ence.
What was presented was a
KANSAN Letters
"modern genetics is on the verge of some truly fantastic ways of improving the human race."
Such big, knobby hare really do reside in the American complexion and, while they are tired, as symptoms, point to a cure.
Liefer Palquisse
Facilities Operation custodian
On the other hand is the principle of the commonweal: the public's right to be freed from an undue risk of harm.
reverent, calm, plea, pragmatic plea to the public to recognize our errors as we truly committed them, perhaps even to celebrate our attempts to form this history as we wrote it.
THE LEGISLATIVE dilemma is apparent. On one hand is the principle of free speech in the mind. It is a principle deeply rooted in the First Amendment, which says that Congress shall make no law that restricts a person's right to publish.
Four years ago this month a group of leading scientists fashioned a public letter in Science magazine. The technical ability existed, they said, to join together DNA molecules from diverse sources. These molecules are hazardous to laboratory workers and to the public." In the name of prudence, they asked that the hazards be seriously considered.
That is about where we are now. The American Bar Association devoted a panel to regulate the season of men's month. The Senate Human Resources Committee in July reported a bill that would establish a new national supervise all recombinant DNA research. The House has a bill that would place such regulation under the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.
IN GRAPPLING with new visions, terrifying or otherwise, we ought to rely upon old prinacles.
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When it comes to suppressing the explorations of the human
mind, the devices of government are more fetters of straw. DNA research can be conducted anywhere in the world. If research could be done in high school laboratories.
No act of Congress can repeal the laws of human behavior. Curious man, at the risk of death, learns his curiosity when it takes him.
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the role of government therefore should be limited and the exercise of federal authority should especially be limited. Once the all-powerful national state begins to require a course of scientific inquiry, we are headed down the Soviet road.
A concerned public is entitled to reason over right; the power of the purse can be invoked by granting or withholding federal grants. Much can be done without risking fatal regimentation of applied research.
The problem is as old as the story of Prometheus, who stole fire from Zeus to endow man with life. The enraged god then created a woman named Pandora, whom he容纳 all the lilts that flesh is heir to, to be given to her husband when she married. Well, Pandora married Prometheus' brother, who opened the jar and let the evils escape. Prometheus hid in a mountain, where eagles picked at his liver all day long.
Today's geneticists have stolen nothing. They have followed their minds in dangerous explorations. The principles of freedom teach us not to stop them; and experience says we could not stop them if we tried.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
KANSAN
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