Opinion
Page 4 University Daily Kansan, October 19, 1981
KU's traveling man
The picture, both mental and physical, of Chancellor Gene A. Budig hitting the road to talk up the University of Kansas brings a smile to one's face—for a couple of reasons.
Certainly, it is amusing to hear anecdotes about administrators and realize that they are as human as the rest of us. For instance, during last Tuesday's jaunt to Jola and Emporia, Budig revealed his pentchant for Dairy Queen ice cream and demonstrated that even powerful people like chancellors can get temporarily lost in downtown Emporia (he thought it far too "tourism" to ask directions to the Emporia Gazette).
But aside from this opportunity to catch a personal glimpse of Budig, it is hard not to admire the dedication and persistence of the man.
In anticipation of the upcoming session of the Kansas Legislature, where KU and other Regents schools are sure to fight the battle of the shrinking state budget, Budig has been traversing the state to preach the gospel of higher education.
givers might His message: Now is the time for all good Kansans to come to the aid of their state universities.
So far, Budig has visited more than 70 counties and plans to make it to all 105. That's an ambitious plan, any way you look at it. Having a chancellor who's on the road three or four nights a week is unheard of around here.
On most of his trips, Budig is accompanied by Duane Acker, Kansas State University president. The Budig and Acker show plays to all sorts of community and civic groups; sometimes it is taped for radio broadcasts. The questions must get awfully old. How will falling enrolments affect the universities? Is there life after federal budget cuts? Will there really be job opportunities for college graduates?
But the speakers patiently answer those questions, because they know they may be the only link their audience has to the college campus.
"There are many miles to be traveled . . . there are many points to be made in support of the University of Kansas," Budig concludes dramatically. We kind of expect to see him riding off into the sunset with a white hat perched on his head. A little meodramatic, perhaps, but not a bad picture.
Senate needs true leadership in order to reach full potential
Imagine this scenario for a moment: you are a well-intentioned, but completely inexperienced, aspiring journalist. You consider yourself a competent writer filled with fresh ideas for your story. You learn that the lack of experience, you nevertheless apply for editor of the paper and somehow get the job.
The rest of the story is easy to finish. You may work like crazy to learn the ropes of running the paper, but it's no avail. Without the necessary background, you quickly lose control of day-to-day activities, and the newspaper's quality decreases. Your new innovations are never realized.
It's hard to believe such a scenario could occur on this campus.
But if we move from the imaginary editor to Bert Coleman, student body president, we realize that dreams can influence come true. The more we experience Coleman, along with his "running mate,"
DAVID HENRY
Bren Abbott, was the clear choice of voters last November.
Coleman's term as student body president has been judged as extremely disappointing by many administrators and students with whom I spoke last week. In nearly every instance, they emphasized Coleman's lack of experience as the key to his lack-luster performance.
"Bert was totally at a disadvantage," said Loren Busy, Finance and Auditing chairman of the Senate. "He possesses the ability, but he lost his time learning rather than doing things."
Coleman's lack of experience has prevented him from taking an active leadership role in both societies.
Caryl Smith, dean of student life, amplified Busby's comments. Any student leader has to know where the buttons are to push, she said, in order to get done things.
"Furthermore," said Smith, "he has to know that the buttons even exist. This is gained from previous experience. It's hard on the system and the individual when the 'assistant scrapbook
chairman' becomes president of an organization in six months."
The job of student body president requires exposure to University and student governance, to the Regents system and to the state legislative process. Clearly, Coleman lacked the proper background for the job and, as a result, we have strong voice for student concerns this past year.
The very fact that Coleman was elected, and not thrown into office by a coup, points out an even more discouraging problem. Where are the potential leaders who are qualified and interested in helping to be elected to the body president be filled by those who lack the experience to get anything accomplished?
The source of the problem (and the solution as well) lies in Student Senate itself. Traditionally, presidents and vice presidents first pay their salary to the university men and as members of University committees.
But in recent years, Senate has been plagued by disorganization, poor attendance and boring meetings. Many highly qualified people have made the mistake of consense around them, have dropped out of Senate.
The way to stronger leadership, then, is through a strong Senate.
Senate's reduction in size, to approximately 60 people, was a positive step. A senator can no longer attend meetings and hide in the corner. He must become involved. Further, the recently passed budget bill will make budget hearings far less tedious and easier for everyone to understand.
Lastly, Senate desperately needs some effective form of public relations to get its concerns and accomplishments out to the University community. Very few people understand Senate's makeup, its responsibilities or its power to change things on this campus. An organization that is involved for its inability to communicate with the students and administration of the University.
Despite these positive reforms, Senators are still many times ill-informed. In order to prevent the constant confusion at every meeting, they should be clear and fully explained prior to the meeting.
Student Senate can be a viable organization, and a strong Senate can change things. As soon as Senate realizes its own importance and makes it a more qualified and qualified and dynamic leadership will emerge.
Parking rules leave heads spinning
For all the money they make, you would think they could afford to remodel the place.
The foyer in Hoch Auditorium isn't pretentious. KU Parking Services doesn't flaunt its wealth. Although it looks in nearly half a million dollars a year, the floors aren't all metal and the final chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. In fact, tacky metal hats cover the ticket windows.
You sure wouldn't know you had walked into a thriving business. That is, unless you were on your way to pay one of Parking Service's nasty tickets. Then your heart would probably be filled with all the vile contempt you could muster at being caught up in a racket, or some sort of conspiracy at least.
Well, as Don Kearns, director of parking services, says, it all comes down to whether you want a parking system or not. Those rotten little yellow rectangles of paper are admittedly rotten and often excessive, in most cases they work. don't they?
Though ticketing may be effective, parking services has looked a little greedy lately. A clause allowing campus visitors to have tickets canceled for most violations was mysteriously left out of this year's parking regulations and taken off this year's parking tickets.
According to the new rule, visitors are not exempt from paying any type of fines. The old rule specified that the only fines visitors were not exempt from them were those given for parking or "no parking" zones, handicapped stalls or landing zones, or for overparking at meters.
Though neither the parking board nor Don Kearns can explain how, the section elaborating on the types of fines visitors must pay was deleted from the regulation, making it an absolute rule requiring tickets to pay all fines.
Maybe parking services is bucking for those crystal chandeliers.
Because of the mysterious omissions, there has been a great deal of confusion over
CINDY CAMPBELL
whether or not visitors are indeed liable for
their failure to Kearns, however
there should be no contempt.
"I don't understand why people don't understand that it all there," Kearns said. "The policy should have been clear even with them." He always been able to get out of theirickets.
That statement confuses those of us whose parents were told that there was a rule change and that they must pay their tickets. Clearly, the people in the parking service's office have been confused, and they're confusing me. My parents were even more
confused when they wrote out the check and sent it in.
The way it is now, visitors can supposedly get out of their tickets. That's interesting, considering visitors won't know that; it's no longer printed on the tickets.
For the time being, however, the cloud of confusion may be lifting. The University Senate executive committee says that because the new rule requiring visitors to pay all types of parking fines was never properly approved, the old rule is still valid.
Somehow, the visitor change had slipped by, and no one from last year's parking board remembered it. This is bureaucracy at its best.
Because I had to pay for several of my parents' parking tickets before I could enroll, I feel as if I got the run around. Nobody needs that much money, and the same day he has to pas enrollment fees.
Fortunately, members of the University Senate said a week ago that they would investigate whether any visitors had paid parking fines that they didn't have to.
"If they can track you down to pay a ticket, we can track them down to repay you," said Tom Berger, graduate student SenEx representative.
There's nothing I would love more than to get a rebate check from KU Parking Services. Anyone who has shellied out unpaid fees and had muddled operation deserves to be paid back.
And they thought they could pull one over on us.
Letters to the Editor
To the Editor:
Liberal arts education not always superior
We (the plural, not the royal, form) were provoked enough by the editorial concerning the popularity of professional schools of universities (Oct. 14 Kansan) to actually respond.
First off, it was surprising to us as engineers to learn that anyone with a liberal arts education could "quickly and easily" add technical skills to their program in order to graduate of a professional school. Be serious, BRIAN.
We suppose those with a 'broader base' would have the flexibility to adapt to various rewarding
The entire article deals with the money aspect. Let us briefly add that a small fraction of the professional population goes through such intensive study just for bucks.
professions such as passing out sweat socks at a gymnasium or repairing telephones. That's our job.
True, our lack of widely distributed courses could be a problem. Maybe we ought to take more liberal arts courses. Then we might come out better rounded, and definitely better rested.
We are given large starting salaries ($18,000-
$25,000, not quite the $25,000-$50,000 stated in the
editorial) because we accrue a powerful base
upon which a lot of responsibility can be placed.
As it is, four years is pushing the minimum time that our mentors feel we need.
Would you stand under a skywalk with only 35 hours of technical study behind it?
David Ranke
Stavanger, Norway, senior
David Leonard
Wichita senior
About that redecorating
To the Editor:
Dear Nan.
Your taste is exquisite. I really do think you ought to squander exorbitant amounts of money to redecorate that nasty little white shack to make it livable.
A letter to Nancy Reagan Dean Nor
After all, it hasn't been done in four years, and all that money just sits there and gathers dust, along with all those obsolete furnishings. You must have found it difficult to stand it there for those three days between well-deserved convalescences at Camp David.
But may I ask you a favor? I'd like to have one of your saucers. Why? Oh, I had a little trouble getting that Guaranteed Student Loan I was giving, and I need to fund my last semester of school.
I don't know how people expect you to have important guests over when the place is such a shambles and there are no decent dishes to eat and the quarter of a million dollars was well spent, dear
Love, Liz
Elizabeth A. Donaldson
Lawrenceville, NJ
awrence schol
Brentley Donaldson Lawrence resident and KU graduate
Judging by the cover
To the Editor
It would appear that those who think this way are much less interested in other people than in the accuracy of their judgments about other people. Adopting this logic, of course, does represent one means for coping with a complex world. But there are other, more humane, ways of dealing with human diversity—they just require some extra effort and thoughtfulness.
I find it amusing, and a little sad, that presp and non-presp ascribe to the same fallacious logic: "clothes make the person" (Letters to the Editor, Oct. 6, 12).
Who among us does not know a prop in wolf's clothing, or a non-pretend in cotton cloth? Enough
Edward K. Morris Associate professor of HDFI
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