Opinion
Page 4 University Daily Kansan, April 16, 1982
Fiscal unfairness
The Student Senate's fiscal 1983 budget has been put on hold, while the student body president tries to come up with some after-the-fact guidelines for allocation of the student activity fee money.
the student.
This week, David Adkins, student body president, vetoed the Senate's budget for student organizations, saying that the Senate had allocated $20,000 more than it could spend.
Adkins is partially right. The Senate did allocate more than the $2,000 it will receive next year for student organizations.
But, the Senate also has the additional $28,000 and the power to spend it. It exercised that power when it approved the budget last week.
The additional money would come from the Senate's unallocated account—a surplus of activity fee money unspent in past years totalling almost $74,000.
It seems Adkins has some ideas about how that extra money should be spent, although he has yet to present any of those ideas to the Senate for consideration.
He has also decided that the criteria for allocating money to student organizations need revision.
The Senate reached the same conclusion when it approved the 1983 budget.
But the Senate also recognized the unfairness of changing the rules in the middle of the game.
Adkins has not.
When the budget process began this spring, groups asked for money with the understanding that their requests would be considered according to certain standards—the Senate's funding philosophy and a few sections in the Senate's rules and regulations.
After applying those standards to the requests, the Senate's budget subcommittee was only able to justify cutting the requests, which initially totaled $121,000, to about $78,000.
The Senate listened to the subcommittee's recommendation, and after tabling a few unclear requests, agreed that the recommendations were justified under its current standards for allocating money.
It approved the recommendations, but attached a rider to the total bill, calling for new standards to be developed for future budget hearings.
The Senate and Adkins both realized that with the present standards, the budget process can only deteriorate as requests increase and the money does not.
Letters to the Editor
Ignorance of history obvious
To the Editor:
Chris Cobler's column concerning the ignorance that some Americans (I would modify "Americans" with "educated," but that would probably be assume too much) express on such anurca and esoteric subjects as 30th century life is perhaps more revealing than he realizes.
I refer to his reference to "U-2 boats." U-2 boats? What are they? Are they, perhaps, long-wing, high-altitude submarines? Or are they airplanes with the uncanny ability to fly under water? Did not the Soviet Union shoot down (sink?) a "U-2 boat" piloted by Gary Powers?
After all, U-2 airplanes are still in use and became a household word in 1960 when one was shot down over the Soviet Union, and also for their role in the urban bombing crisis. Their role in American's next extinction can be about American ignorance of these two more recent episodes in history.
While ignorance of the world's second-bloodiest war is certainly pathetic, Cobler should "resolve to be different" and go to the library to learn the difference between a U-boat, which is the term commonly given to German submarines, and a U-2, which is the name of a Locked-held spy/reconnaissance aircraft, and refrain from confusion the two in the future.
Randel Messner, Shawnee law student
Allocation appalling
To the Editor:
An aspect of the KU Student Senate's funding institution is the nature of a group has no burden on its funding.
That means that students with a similar interest can form a group and submit a draft of their work. You may also penny
I was appalled last week when the Senate vote to allocate $338 to the KU Committee on South Africa. This group disperses information around the Israeli and American investments in South Africa.
was accounted for in that budget, then the Senate would have no grounds not to allocate the money requested. If that group was considered politically or socially extreme, according to social norms, it would be of no importance in the allocation of money.
Granted, if a group of people feel strongly about an issue they have every right to express their concern, but the Senate hasn't any right to give student money to a group which is dispensing information about a political activity outside the United States.
Randy Crow, Wichita freshman
It might be wise for the Senate to take a hard look at the type of groups they fund and their definition of political group, which is the supporting of a candidate or issue in any election or campaign. It is also important to define criteria to conserve money, yet still support activities pertinent to the University.
Surplus of experts
To the Editor:
The Kansan has everything! Where else may one be lectured by an assistant instructor in political science on the glories of Keynesian economics?
One question: With 100,000 Ph.D.s running at 60 percent accuracy for the past 38 years, why is it that the average is so low?
Assistant professor of educational policies and administration
Navv Rowman
One New Yorker has found a seat worth more than his old racing saddle that was aimed for more than $1 million each year—a desk in a college classroom. That may sound like an obvious reason, but it's the swap Kenny Skinner, a 26-year-old jockey, made on his own about two years ago.
At the close of 1979, Skinner's future as a jockey looked clear: He'd earned $1,154,200.
Pot Shots
that year and was expected to continue spiraling on into the tiny elite of the country's top riders. You could say he wasn't standing in line for a guaranteed jockey loan.
But in September, 1979, Skinner broke his knee, keeping him off the tracks for three months. He spent most of his recuperation time with his girlfriend, even following her to classes at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y.
On April 7, this great-grandson of Slovak (as in Czechoslovak) immigrants read a statement by Francis Pym. Britain's new foreign minister. Regarding the British stand on the Falkland Islands affair, Mr. Pym said Britain "does not appease dictators."
"For the first time, there was a perspective for me, a sense of the world outside the track," Skinner said. "I wanted to know more." Last fall he entered Columbia University. After his education, he'll return to racing full-time.
Surely the wooden seat of a 15-year-old desk couldn't convince a high school dropout, a young millionaire, to yank the reigns toward a new direction in life.
To a hill of KU students, Skinner seems to be telling us to make our time here count, seriously. For at least one man, the real world was enough to make him want to go to school.
In 1838, the infamous German dictator Adolph Hitler stirred up disaffection among
the Sudeten Germans of western Czechoslovakia. He threatened military intervention if the Czech government did not accept it on Sudeten demands. The Czechs refused.
But Britain and France, not wanting to arrouse Hitler's wrath, went to the notorious German-sponsored Munich Conference in September 1938. Czech representatives were not invited to the partitioning of their own country, and hand was handed to Germany without a fight.
The apostle of appeasement, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, said the act promised "peace in our time." Even so, German troops invaded the remainder of Czechoslovakia in March 1939. The regions of Bohemia and Moravia were absorbed into the Reich. Slovaki became a German puppet state. Wold War II started that September.
I guess I should have seen it coming
KU has one good year in football, follows it up with another good recruiting year and immediately it becomes the target of charges against him. The coach Pardon me while I shake my head in wonder.
- a group to the point in college athletics every school that has a winning record must be
Learn Spanish. Quickly.
Now K-State and Missouri, two teams KU beat last year, are trying to nail the Jayhawks to the wall.
Give us a break. KU may be guilty, but the
man can be true of every other school in
the Big Eagle.
Here's one charge made against KU as reported by the Kansas City Times, not exactly a good friend of KU athletes: Jeff Hake, a Blue Springs running back, was offered a $50,000 annuity to attend KU. Hake signed with the University of Oklahoma.
Boy, I guess even $50,000 couldn't keep Hake from pursuing his lifelong dream of seeing the Norman, Okla., nightlife and be a highly respected Big Red education.
Pardon the redundancy, but tell me anotherike about college athletics.
If KU, a perennial also ran in Big Eight school, guilty then, so is every other school in the city.
Consider that Oklahoma and Nebraska—two college football powers that year in, year out, sign the top players in the country—are about as appealing as the Russian front.
Many share blame for athletic programs' sins
Now that the University of Kansas may be the target of an NCAA investigation, it's time for that catch-all phrase to ring out from across the campus and state.
The phrase goes something like this: "Well, everyone else cheats too, it's just that we got caught."
However, there's a problem with that line of thinking.
It shows that violations of NCAA regulations have an accepted part of the college athletic system.
Any justification made on the basis that "the
DAN BOWERS
But let's face reality. Does any school, under the present system of college athletics, really have an alternative to hedging on the rules now and then?
To put it bluntly, in order to keep up with the Oklahomaans and Nebraskas, schools may have little choice but to offer their scholarship athletes some under-the-table support.
other guy does it" hardly holds water from an ethical point.
Coaches and athletic directors are under tremendous pressure to produce winning programs. If they show signs of failure, they need to use scanning the help wanted ads in Sunday papers.
The college athletic system carries with it certain generally accepted practices that are
essentially requirements for producing a winning program.
In the process of following these practices, a myriad of NCAA rules and regulations are
The individual program is caught in a system where it either "plays the game" and adds to the snowballing tendency to ignore NCAA tenets, or it stagnates in a state of mediaicity.
Since 1952, when the NCAA began an enforcement program, 253 probations have been slapped on its member schools for various reasons. A noble effort, but barely the tip of the iceberg.
Consider the loyal alumni, probably the biggest source of pressure for a coach in either of the two major revenue-producing sports. By way of contributions to wavering athletic budgets, these benefactors take on the attitude that they have bought into the operation.
When a probation or reprimand is handed down to a school, fingers start to point at the coach or athletic director who allowed the violations to occur.
But do they alone, bear the guilt?
Through this pressure to produce a winner and their own independent actions to aid athletes and entice recruits, alumni at countless universities have gotten programs into trouble over the
Too many athletic departments operate with a free rein, reporting only to their university presidents and a representative board at periodic meetings.
The collective university administrations the country must shoulder some of the blame also.
American departments are a unique part of a university, with their goals geared toward turning a profit. Winners draw in profits, and too often the rest of the University turns its head
away from the practices that develop a winning program, choosing instead to bask in the glory and attention that a successful athletic team can bring to a school.
Certainly an institution that allows a team to bear its name should be able to exert a considerable degree of influence on its athletic program. At least it should offer some encouragement to uphold the department's integrity, much the same way that an academic program strives to uphold its academic reputation.
The problem is, that with a bullying surplus of shady athletic programs operating around the country, it appears that the NCAA has failed to meet this responsibility effectively.
Now we turn to the body that is responsible for policing the entire spector of college athletics.
Sure, the body has levened nearly 260 probabilities have been distributed over a period of 30 years.
an fact is, a token probation issued to a few schools is not an effective means of deterring the widespread violations in recruiting and supporting athletes.
For example, the NCAA recently signed a contract with CBS and ABC that will bring in $263 million in television royalties the next three years.
Not only is the NCAA failing to effectively curb these violations, but in a sense, it is fostering
RAA member schools salivate at the sight of such suma, and immediately the cycle in-
In the race to sing a share of such lucrative figures, schools begin a violent competition to win the coveted title.
A general formula seems to fall into line: Talented, well-paid recruits build winning programs, which lead to TV appearances and
increased alumni contributions, which mean more money.
Nearly everybody plays that game, and random probabilities are not going to bring an end to it. Too often, these probabilities only serve to harm the already exploited student-athlete, the regular military departments, call together their forces and devise new ways to adapt the NCAA regulations.
So what does the NCAA do? Maybe its time to wipe the clean and get a fresh start toward collegiate athletics. Such a step would take a lot of work, but it could help coaches and administrators across the country.
Simplification of the NCAA's complicated regulations may be a good place to start. The NCAA Manual, every coach's bible of regulations to abide by and break, consists of 187 pages of rules and regulations with an additional 114 pages of cases and their interpretations.
A Rhodes Scholar would be hard-pressed to make sense of the muddled names.
Surely there is room for adaptation of the rules to apply to the college athletic department, as we did today.
In addition, the spiraling increase of violations may be pointing toward the inadequacies in services provided by the NCAA to its member schools.
But for now, KU may have to sweat out an NCA investigation, while the press and rivals bid for the university's approval.
If a probation is in the offing, tears are sure to fall from the chalk of Mount Oread.
With a large source of income on its way from the networks, maybe its time for the NCAA to develop some programs that will help aid them. Of course, the individual student-athletes in their programs.
Meanwhile, unblemished teams will continue to rise to the top of the polls, while their players have lost ground.
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