Opinion
Page 4 University Daily Kansan, April 23, 1981
Salaries make news
Today, starting on page 5, the Kansas is publishing the salaries of all unclassified state employees at the University of Kansas. And On Monday, the Kansas will publish the salaries of all classified employees.
These salaries take up a lot of room in the newspaper. They were a lot of trouble to retype, proofread and typeset—and most important, the salaries could cause a lot of trouble among KU employees.
So why publish it?
On a cold afternoon more than a month ago, the editor, managing editor and the four campus editors of the Kansan met to think out their reasons for wanting to publish the salaries.
The salaries are, of course, a matter of public record. It is legal for the Kanan to publish them. But the editors and the general manager agreed that no newspaper should publish sensitive information simply because it can.
that kind of follow-the-leader decision-
making can lead to dark places.
But the editors did not decide to publish the salaries simply because other newspapers had.
We begin with the knowledge that even though the publication of government salaries is unprecedented at KU, it is a tradition at newspapers such as the Des Moines Register and the Junction City Daily Union.
Put simply, the Kansan is publishing the salaries to stimulate discussion of a problem—that of chronically low salaries. And hopefully, that discussion will lead to an improvement.
Over the years, the subject of salaries is something like the weather—everybody talks about it, but no one knows much about it.
And this semester, legislators, Regents, administrators and professors have spoken of percentages, indexes, peer institution means and competitive salary increases in describing the salary problem that is forcing many faculty members from the University.
But one good way to get a clear picture of the salary problem is to publish the salaries themselves.
salaries themselves. The mechanical side of publishing the salaries was as sticky as the philosophical side.
The salaries are included in KU's 1981-82 budget. It was the managing editor's job to retype them—all 373 pages. After that, teams of reporters and editors proofread the list, then sent it to KU Printing Services, where it was typeset and proofread twice more.
The amount of time involved was compounded by staff members working from five to 12 hours a day simply producing the newspaper. They worked on the salaries list late at night and on weekends.
This helps explain why the salaries appear in the last days of the semester—much later than editors originally intended.
The salaries list certainly will cause turmoil in some departments at KU. Some Kansan staff members already are comparing their salaries (unfavorably) with those of other Kansan staff members.
We apologize in advance for causing any disturbances. But we also maintain that some of the most important functions of a newspaper are to supply information, to stimulate discussion and to stimulate changes for the better.
We are confident that after the shouting is over, the result of publication of salaries will be positive.
Recognizing society's limits strengthens male feminism
Without invitation, a man came into my apartment this week and taught me a small lesson on what it might feel like to be a woman. Afterwards, I was more glad than ever that I'd learned.
I was alone in the middle of the afternoon on Tuesday, the only weekday I can leave campus before 5 p.m., in my weekly pose: slouching on the couch with iceed tea in hand, feet propped on the coffee table, skimming my hometown newspaper.
Just as I began reading the latest on the county's government-as-soap-opera, the telephone rang. Of course, no peace for the student. Between this and the fact good woods never being able to close the door and hide under the bed again. We evidently grow up in college.
"Is Jeff there," a young man's low voice asked. The man sounded like someone about my
JEFF THOMAS
age, but I didn't recognize him. Probably someone to fill me in on another side of a column I'd written, I thought. Fine, of course.
"This is Jeff," I answered.
"Jeff, you're a dead S.O.B. you communist fagot." Pause, click and buzz.
Seconds passed as my hand and the receiver drifted down from my ears, while I stared at the
My mind replayed the voice; his words had been quick and clear, almost chopped-off as they shot out the receiver, hot and callous against my ears.
My thoughts and emotions tumbled over each other, every set air jacquion in confusion. The man had just invaded my home, insulted me, threatened me—and then skipped back into his daily routine, all without showing even a shadow of his face. Looking at the receiver, I knew I could never catch him unless he wanted to call me.
Apparently the man expected the call to make him feel better.
I didn't. I felt cheated, violated and open to another call. My hands rushed forward, hung-up the receiver and jerked the unit off the wall, having it on the floor.
Back on the couch, I sat stone-headed, trying to figure out what I could have told to Mr. Noa also forget to go to work this afternoon and people simply do not "forgot" to go to
Name that would ride him enough to hurt his cruelest accusations. But, of course, that wasn't my question to ask. I hadn't done anything to ask for trouble.
"I didn't ask for it," I thought again. They were words I'd heard once from a woman talking about another kind of male intrusion. So maybe this was close to how she had felt, something near the feelings of vulnerability, helplessness and anger female feminists feel.
But after a few days of cooling down, my idea began to look like an awfully strong parallel to pull from one prank phone call. Sitting in my living room around soap opera time is a long, three-story throw away. Within an hour after the call, I'd remounted the phone; yet every night women move on campus according to sometimes unconscious combat strategies, planning where they can park under a street lamp and plotting their location for attack. All this eventually. Some people's habit of carrying a key chain in the right hand with a key or two extended between each finger is a woman's ready response.
My experiences and my body are the belongings of, not a generic person, but a specific man, and that circumstance will never change. If I would have been given a life in a woman's body in this society, my passions against male domination would be flaring more intensely now; if you could threaten me with our culture's sexist wrights as personal affronts, I'd probably erupt with the female feminist's fury, the lifelong kind only a woman can feel.
None of this should be taken as an excuse for men to quit working toward equal relations with women. Men should still lend the movement the best of their minds, hearts and actions. At the same time, men need to admit the limitations that our society and their bodies have placed on their passions, and women need to understand that though men may be giving their best, men's efforts are going to be of a different temperament than those of women.
KANSAN
To say that my anger against a sexually unequal society could be equally heartfelt with a woman's would be saying that I could shed 22 years of life—an insincere fantasy. And my future, only decades more in a male body, will only be able to perform for sympathizing equally with the female position.
No, when the closest experience I have to a woman's vulnerability is a crank call behind my locked door, I can't say that my feminism is as strong in my heart as it is in my mind. Curiously, a person's sex makes a difference in defining the feminist.
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OPEN SEASON
BARLING
Pot Shots
How many seniors have jobs? And how many don't care that they don't?
Such is the April paradox. The economy is bad, and we should be terrified at the prospect of working at McDonald's after four years of college. But there are only five days of classes left, and all those senior parties. Who has time?
According to a recent, unscientific Pot Shot
Survey, graduating seniors have the same attitude. Job or no job, seniors will wait to
Then there is my friend who is in advertisting. A professional drummer on weekends, he says, "I need a job" at the start of the situation Goodbye," a big number on the prom circuit.
My roommate landed a job in March. His attitude was bad to begin with, but now its worse. "I don't care about school, I have a laptop and I'm down to watch" Joanne Loves Chachi."
I turned this pot shot in late because I forgot
I had to write it.
Last week I got my first job offer. The personnel director of a paper called and said the paper had no writing jobs, but they had one in the circulation department.
There was plenty of opportunity, he said,
and I could set my own hours and be my own
I hung up when he told me I would be a paper boy.
No excuse. No reasons. I simply forgot.
This is the time of year for forgetting.
The sun is shining. A south wind blowing.
Birds are haggy gathering worms and all that
prosia spring stuff. Girls are sunbathing on porches and in the graveyard of Daisy Hill. Boys are playing baseball and Frisbee in the field beside the graves.
And finals approach. Hear that ominous music in the background? It's just like a film and I'm not the only one wandering to the campus and forgetting everything important
The agony is, of course, aggravated by the prospect of what lies beyond the seemingly
The end of spring semester is worse than the end of fall semester. Forbidding early winter weather is stern enough to put students in the mood to study.
Ah, now it begins—the mad rush to final exams. Time to study. Time to figure out a way to get a hold of the notes you weren't in class to take down. Time to clear the dust off your workbooks that lay unmolested the rest in the宴. And—Egad! time to think.
Spring weather tempts students from studying, housecleaning, grocery shopping, doing laundry, cooking and all the work they should be doing.
I plead guilty by reason of mental absence for not showing up to work and turning this pot shot in late. My body craved a quiet walk, sunshine and a slow sip of sun tea, so it put my mind and obligations on hold until my boss and editor called me back to reality.
insumurbound summit at semester's paradise, nirvana, the single, glittering jewel in the tawdry setting of college existence—in a word, summer.
These last weeks may be a metaphor in miniature for life itself. For what worthwhile rewards are not earned at great expense? What dependents are dependent upon the labors which breed them?
Indeed, can we ever separate work from rest, anxiety from peace, happiness from torment, the good from the bad, insumac as each stands in relation to its opposite?
Perhaps, when we all've left this place,
we'll come to realize that school never ended,
that everything we do forms a succession of
classes; but there's always the ease, of
final exams and summer vacations.
Then, maybe we'll be ready to graduate
Letters to the Editor
Student worried about McCollum's future
To the Editor:
I am writing to protest the article "McColm leader wants change", which appeared in the April 5 University Daily Kanran. The things Jim Lehmere wrote just are not true!
the most glaring discrepancy concerns the vote in the election for McColburn Hall president--432 votes voted in the elections. Nice Oropaela received 176 votes, approximately 40 percent of the total. This is a far cry from Lehner's claim that "more than 600 candidates voted for one of the six candidates, and that each was the presidency" by a margin of almost 2 to 1.1<sup>1</sup>.
Llehner has one long quote from Oropeza that I just can't believe is real.
"McColum has the reputation as the worst dorm on campus. Many people classify it as the International House because of its large influx of foreign students . . . This dorm has the most outdated material and worst facilities anywhere on campus."
It is common belief at McCollum that the words "reputation," "classify," "influx," "outdated" and "facilities" are not even part of Oropea's vocabulary. I trust that Lehner was paraphrasing—but one does not put paraphrased material inside quotes.
Lehner also interviewed Randle Messner for his article. He quotes Messner as saying that Oropeza has "been a hell-raiser in the past and the future—he'd done a lot to improve the dorm."
Messner is probably Oropeza's candidate for next year's hall justice. Recently, when Oropeza was brought to the hall court on charges of stealing kegs from McCallum's Valentine's Day Party and was later acquitted of the charges by the hall court—Messner was his defense attorney. Messner also lives on the same wing as Oropeza. Judging from Messner's ties to Oropeza, he doesn't sound like a very impartial source for quotes.
Well, Measner, I and about 600 other people would like to know just what improvements I made in my work.
Messner also states that this year's election was the most interesting in three years. With this I wholeheartedly agree. One never knew whose campaign posters would be torn down next.
Oropeza has had more security write-ups this year than anyone else in McColum. I can certainly understand how being president will make up for all the trouble he has caused in the past, but I don't understand why so many of the people who did not vote for him plan to live elsewhere next year.
Our only hope is that both the current and the in-coming Executive Board will stand up to him. Considering the fact that Orophea wants to take over the residence hall—get rid of the Executive Board and have a dictatorship—and has been heard to say that he will not work with the current board or some of the members of the new board, this could be quite a challenge.
Sabrina Bull,
Olathe junior
When so many people have so much confidence in Oropeza, I can certainly see that he will accomplish great things! Let's face facts! Nick Oropeza has a horrible record and, unless he changes drastically next year, McColum will just go to hell.
Insult unintentional
In a story April 5, a statement was reported that in its written text appeared to insinuate that foreign students caused the reputation that McColum Hall is the worst residence hall on campus. You see, the intent of this statement was to say that our poor reputation came from a
To the Editor:
I am pleased to find an active concerned university that takes an interest in the affairs that occur daily. (And particularly, I am pleased that when a statement, in written text, implies an insulting remark, you will point this out so that unnecessary and needless friction that can hurt others can be avoided.) Such is the case today.
weaker social activity structure. In fact, the large number of foreign students presents a unique possibility to expand our cultural knowledge so that all residents can benefit.
Secondly, some of McColm Hall's special rooms, such as the computer room, are under par, and need improvement. However, nothing is ever 100 percent perfect. As I have made clear, I will not cease in my efforts until I reach 99.9 percent, and even then I will try for 100 percent.
McCollum Hall has the potential to become known as the greatest residence hall at the University of Kansas. I am working toward that goal.
I thank everyone for their understanding and concern.
Nick Oropeza, McCollum Hall presiden
Letters Policy
The University Daily Kansas welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typewritten, double-spaced and should not exceed 500 words. They should include the writer's name, address and phone number. If the writer is affiliated with the University, the letter should include his class and home town or faculty or staff position. The Kansas reserves the right to edit or reject letters.