4
Wednesday, October 25, 1989 / University Daily Kansan
.
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Core curriculum needed to broaden understanding
Universities have been inundated by the results of a recent Gallup Poll, commissioned by the National Endowment for the Humanities, showing college seniors' lack of basic knowledge of history and literature. For example, only one in five seniors in the survey understood that the Emancipation Proclamation declared slaves to be free only in areas of Confederate states not held by the Union. More than one-third could not place the Civil War in the correct half-century. More than one-fourth could not identify Joseph Stalin as the leader of the Soviet Union during World War II.
Instead of simply pointing out a problem, Lynne Cheney, chairman of the endowment, has proposed a worthwhile solution to ameliorate the deficiency.
The statistics speak for themselves. Many students are graduating from universities without a grasp of the fundamentals of Western culture. One of the goals of a university is to provide a broad liberal education for all students - both artists and scientists.
Cheney's proposal calls for all students to take 50 hours of a core curriculum to create a firm base in Western and other civilizations, foreign language, mathematics, natural and social sciences.
The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences has a nine-course core, but each professional school has its own requirements. The University needs a comprehensive core curriculum similar to the one recommended by Chenev.
More than preparing students for careers, the University should be broadening their vision of the world. A core curriculum would provide the necessary background students need to think critically and have an understanding of humanity.
Daniel Niemi for the editorial board
Bush makes right choice for next Surgeon General
The Bush Administration reflected good judgment by selecting Antonia Novello as the nominee for Surgeon General of the United States on Oct. 17. Novello, if confirmed, would be the first woman and first Hispanic to hold the high office of the nation's head doctor.
Although Novello's experience and medical knowledge is extremely impressive, perhaps what is most encouraging is her opportunity to influence the medical field. Like her predecessor, C. Everett Koop, Novello will be challenged to lead the Public Health Service's 6,500 employees through controversial health issues, such as AIDS and abortion.
As a pediatrician, Novello is an expert on kidney disease in children. During her tenure at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, one of the National Institutes of Health, Novello focused on pediatric Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome and is an accredited expert in this field.
Koop, who alienated some conservative support by advocating sex education and condom use to fight AIDS, was considered an adamant supporter of public health regardless of governmental policy. Rep, Ted Weiss, D-New York, said Novello had the potential to be an equally "strong independent advocate for public health."
We have every reason to believe President Bush made an outstanding decision by nominating Novello as the next Surgeon General. She will be challenged, however, to successfully defend the continued financing of controversial health issues as our federal government continues to scrutinize the federal budget and its allocations.
With abortion and AIDS developments dominating national, as well as medical, news, we hope Novello's influence will guide governmental policy as she strives to be a strong, "independent" voice for public health. Troon Clark for the editorial board
Members of the editorial board are David Stewart, Stan Diel, Brett Brenner, Ric Brack, Daniel Niemi, Craig Welch, Kathy Walsh, Thom Clark, Tiffany Harness and Scott Patty.
News staff
David Stewart ... Editor
Ric Brack ... Managing editor
Daniel Niemi ... New editor
Candy Niemann ... Planning editor
Anne Dillin ... Editing editor
Jennifer Coreer ... Campus editor
Elaine Sung ... Sports editor
Laure Husar ... Photo editor
Christina Winner ... Art/Features editor
Tom Ellis ... General manager
Business staff
Linda Prokop...Business manager
Debra Martin...Local advertising sales director
Jerre Medford...National/regional sales director
Jill Lowe...Marketing director
Tami Rank...Production manager
Carrie Slaninka...Assistant production manager
Margaret Towhesend...Co-op manager
Britt Haugier...Creative manager
Chrielt Dool...Classified manager
Jeff Meesey...Tearsares management
Jeanne Hines...Sales and marketing adviser
**Letters** should be typed, double-spaced and less than 200 words and must include the writer's signature, name, address and telephone number. If the writer is affiliated with the University of Kansas, please include class and hometown, or faculty or staff position.
Guest columns should be typed, double-spaced and less than 700 words. The writer will be photographed.
The Kansan reserves the right to reject or edit letters, guest columns and cartoons. They can be mailed or brought to the Kansan newswarer, 111 Stuaffer-Flint Hall, Letters, columns and cartoons are the opinion of the writer or cartoonist and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University Daily Kansan. Editorials, which appear in the left-hand column, are the opinion of the Kansan editorial board.
The University Dally Kansan (USPS 650-40) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Stairwater Flint Hall, Lawrence, Kan. 68045, daily during the regular school year, excluding Saturday, Sunday, holidays and final periods, and Wednesday during the summer session. Second-class postage is paid in Lawrence, Kan. 68044. Annual subscriptions by mail are $50. Student subscriptions are $3 and are paid through the student activity fee.
Postmaster: Send address changes to the University Daily Kansas, 118 Stauffer-Flint Hall, Lawrence, KC 68045.
Changes aren't always for the best
Children grow up without learning from neighborhood's real-life businesses
Some business took me back to my hometown recently, and I got to pass through the old neighborhood several times day and evening. No, it hadn't changed much, not nearly as much as my present neighborhood has in the same span of time. The houses looked exactly the same; what change there was had come to the local businesses. The neighborhood became smaller but somehow to augur the future. And something requires noting here so that at least the present might be momentarily seen.
A generation ago, the neighborhood's life was pretty much concentrated around a two-block stretch of storefront concerns. There were two grocery stores a block apart. Our family traded at Saylor's Market. Saylor was a butcher, as was virtually every proprietor of a neighborhood grocery. Meat cutting was the aspect of that business that approached a skilled trade, and custom cutting for individual customers was a given, not an extravagance. So while hired help could rotate stock shelf and bag groceries and the sole cash register, only Saylor, like his counterparts in other "Mom and Pop" groceries, could cut and fillet a steak or chop.
There was a refrigerated display case in front of the meat department. Behind the case, the floor was covered in a thick layer of sawdust, and the butcher block stood prominently in front of the freezer. Here, Saylor cut and wrapped the cats or meat or sausage; the customer watched the entire process, the interest, and certainly more appreciation, than any U.S.D.A. inspection will ever bring to that job.
Frozen items such as orange juice and ice cream were stocked in open-topped freezers; many a kid got a kind of describable intoxication just by sticking his or her head down into one of these and deeply inhaling the sweet, rolling fog, just as many left the skin from their fingertips on the deeply frozen eskimo pies and pints of sherbert tightly packed at the bottom.
Saylor's let the regular customers purchase on credit by signing the cash register receipt. This was convenient when many people still used ice boxes, and the relatively few refrigerators were small by today's measure; perishables had to be purchased and consumed every few days, even when the paycheck came only at the end of the month. Some families were carried for considerably longer periods; I know this because Saylor gave me my first job as a stock boy.
My next experience in free enterprise frequently took me to Shuler's drug store, the real lincinch of the neighborhood. There I purchased the precious and pungent cinnamon oil in which I marinated toothpicks for sale to classmates, "Pop" Shuler had run the corner store since before anyone could remember, and although his son Fred took over most of the operation "out front," Pop still admitted me to the sanctum in back where, like a latter-day alchemist, he drew and mixed concoctions from stoppered bottles in a warren of wooden shelves.
A collection of mortars and pestles of every size and configuration ran just below the ceiling, in and
Stuart Beals
Staff columnist
out of crannies and alcoves and above the door, around the entire place. Four shelves deep, they were painstakingly assembled and displayed; none was crowded upon another, yet there must have been hundreds of them arranged so carefully throughout a space no larger than one of today's convenience stores. It was a profoundly personal yet public gesture and as meaningful for that to a kid as to an adult.
Two large glass urns containing red and green colored water, respectively, flanked the marble counter at the soda fountain. There, one could order a Coke with cherry syrup added if desired, or a "cherry phosphate," or perhaps a drink called a Green River made by an independent manufacturer that supplied the vendor with a unique Green River syrup dispenser. To make a milkshake, Fred Shuler or his wife took a clear wide-mouth glass bottle of milk from the chiller and poured it into a tall stainless steel mixer cup, added a thick dollop of chocolate syrup and several scoops of ice cream and slowly, slowly worked the mixture under the beater of the milkshake machine. All this took about five minutes and always seemed that no matter method to the server but the concocting of the perfect, timeless milkshake. God, what a milkshake. Once, my uncle wrangled an unscheduled stop during a wartime cross-country transfer just to sit for a while at that counter and savor one of those milkshakes.
Of course there were no K marts around then, and regular department stores were neither conveniently close nor stocked with a useful assortment of articles necessary for daily life, such as cigarette lighters, razors or magazines. No problem, though; what one couldn't get at Sears, Sayler's or Olsen's hardware was available at Shuler's. Here, kids got rubber band-powered balsa wood airplanes, kits and, of course, comic books. These last were located in a display that, while facing the window and sidewalk outside, was hidden from view to the soda fountain and the pharmacy, where the proprietors usually stationed themselves. Every kid in the neighborhood stopped there and whiled away hours at a time reading; we only bought a fraction of what we read, and none of us can recall ever being interrupted there while we sat and read and daydreamed.
The streetcar and, later, the bus stopped outside Shuler's, and back then a dime could take a kid anywhere in the city with the right transfers. Bob, the barber, had his shop next door, and he usually came out to trade salutes with the bus drivers. On the other side of Bob's was a chili parlor frequented almost exclusively by grown-ups who
seemed always to drink black coffee and order Peggy Lee tunes from the individual juke box consoles at each table.
The bus still goes by, but now it doesn't stop often. There is no barber shop, no grocery store, no hardware store. The chili parlor is long gone, and there is a high-priced restaurant in a fancy but incongruous Victorian restoration of one of the larger houses on the block.
Shuler's has been gone for years, too. Pop Shuler died when I was still a little kid, and Fred was taken too young by cancer. I'm told. Now the place is an antique store, and it's not one of those dusty places where bargains in old ashtrays and beer mugs can be found. No, it's a fine antique store catering to the wealthy and refined collectors of authentic vintage furniture. It is not a place where one is made comfortable browsing, and it's sure not a place for kids. In fact, all of the places around it have been taken over by similar antique stores or art galleries.
During the day, makes of automobiles unknown to Pop Shuler's customers, with Teutonic names and cellular telephones, park in front of the shops. At night, the drustore's bright interior had invited nearby laundromat patrons to enjoy a soda between wash cycles; the stores are now black and barricaded behind steel grids. On occasional Friday evenings, a new show opens at one or another of the galleries, and the area is briefly populous with figures in cages and black hose; the women change to even more unconventional attire.
Inside the galleries, the objects d'art are as carefully and intentionally arranged along the walls as were Pop Shuler's mortars and pestles but there usually no intrinsic meaning, no self-conscious gesture to these arrangements. Whereas the shear idiosyncrasy of Shuler's shelves of useful but not-to-be used artifacts attained an eloquence reserved for truly authentic acts of creating, the gallery arrangements are the products of convention; they embody the orthodoxy of the salons.
The interiors of Saylor's and Shuler's were vital, if prosaic. The stores' contents were utilitarian and endlessly varying, redolent of farm produce, medicines and confections. The antique and art galleries are by comparison spatially austere and formally consistent
There is little evidence that many of the local residents, the local families anyway, patronize the current businesses. There is no evidence at all that the current businesses play any role in the lives of the local kids. And that's what needs to be noted: where are the kids' lives being lived around there? What do they see on their shopping malls, but what about the rest; I mean, the real kids?
Where do they learn about hard work and responsibility, to dust off a durable cliche? Where do they get to try on their selves for a part of the day and see that it's still OK. ? If real life flows somewhere out beyond the fine antiques and picture frames, can any art imitate it?
Stuart Beals is a Lawrence graduate student.
CAMP UHNEELY
BY SCOTT PATTY
4
)
A