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University Daily Kansan, March 1, 1982
Opinion
Just another week
Today is the first day of Higher Education Week.
It won't seem much different from the six weeks of classes that have gone before it or from the eight weeks of classes that will follow it.
In fact, the idea of setting aside a week to pay homage to this concept called higher education may sound silly to those whose lives are inextricably dominated by it.
Some are probably more excited by the prospect of escaping higher education for a week during spring break.
But in addition to providing the opportunity to attend banquets and forums, this week should also spur students to reflect on their motives for being here.
Are we here out of a love of learning? The idealists are.
Are we here to make ourselves more
attractive in a competitive job market and economy? For many, yes.
economy I 1.4 talk about.
Are we here for lack of anything better to do with our time and our parents' money? Unfortunately, some are.
So, attend the banquets and forums or continue through the normal weekly routine.
These questions will become increasingly important in the face of the skyrocketing cost of education and threatening cuts to student financial aid.
Does higher education provide a convenient life postponement? It can, if we let it.
But take some time this week to think about the opportunities made available to those who pursue higher education and, in between cramming for midterms, take advantage of them.
High cost of producing skits limits participation in show
In 1949, students at the University of Kansas realized there was a need for a campus variety show that would attract participation by a variety of student groups.
an response, a KU business student modeled a show after Kansas State University's Y-Orpheme. Like K-State's production, the show consisted of individual men's and women's groups writing scripts and dramas. Right groups were selected to perform their skirts. In fact, the show was modeled so much after K-State that it even had the same name.
This brought bitter criticism from the producer of K-State's show. In response, the University Daily Kansas sponsored a contest for students and awarded a $10 prize for the winning title.
Thus. "Rock Chalk Revue" was born.
Over the years, many aspects of Rock Chalk have changed. The production now consists of
BREN ABBOTT
four coed groups, as well as short variety acts between the main productions to provide con-
This year, 10 groups wrote scripts with the hopes of being selected as one of the final four. However, this number represents a sharp decline compared to recent years. The explanation of this is simple, considering the amount of time and total cost it takes to produce a show compared to the money the sponsors channel back to the participating groups.
The time commitment can be easily understood after realizing that all interested groups start writing the $^{12}$ scripts in September. After what seems like an endless amount of time and effort, a production notebook is turned in for judging. This notebook contains a detailed script with all the stage instructions, drawings of actors, music, special effects well as tapes of all the music. All the groups try to be as professional as possible for fear someone else might have the edge if they are not.
From these notebooks, the judges choose four groups to perform their productions. This is where the work really begins. The groups take the drawings of the sets and costumes and build or make them. They choreograph all their dance routines. But more important, they practice long hours until a professional-looking production is achieved.
What makes the production even more amazing is that it is done by full-time students who are generally amateur actors, writers, singers and producers.
However, the cost of the production is making a smaller and smaller segment of the student class.
In addition to the time and effort, it cost each production almost $2,000 to participate this year. This is a sad fact, considering that in the past, with the exception of last year, the show has raised more than $8,000 a year. This year, the show's producers are hoping to collect more than $10,000 profit while reimbursing the four performing acts a mere $300 each.
The rest of the money goes to the organization who has sponsored the Rock Chalk Revue for the past 32 years—KU-Y. According to records filed in the Student Senate office in the past and past testimony on the Student Senate floor, this money pays the salary of the KU-Y coordinator.
The coordinator and the KU-Y executive board select a producer and a business manager for the show. These two and their staff are responsible for the production of the show. In other words, KU-Y's involvement in Rock Chalk has been limited, if not nonexistent, in the recent past.
This is grossly unfair to the groups in Rock Chalk who put in so much time and effort and receive only $300 to help cover the cost of their productions, while KU-Y reaps most of the
Perhaps a more controversial and less understood problem is that the high cost prohibits most student groups from participating in the show. Fraternities and sororities, by the nature of their living system, find it much easier to collect the needed $2,000 that would be for other student groups. In fact no one took a loan from the show since Hashinger Hall won first place in 1978, and non-Greek scripts were submitted for this year's show.
There are at least two steps that need to take place to correct these problems. The first and easiest one would be to set a spending limit. This would help ensure equal access to the production.
The next step would be to channel more of Rock Chalk's profits back to the participating groups. It's logical that the four groups that spend their time, effort and money on the show should not be expected to lose $2,000 so a student organization can make $10,000.
Furthermore, the sponsors of Rock Chalk need to guarantee each production at least $1,500. If this is done, KU-Y would still make a profit of at least $4,000, and a wider variety of student groups would participate because the financial burden would not be as great.
The simple fact remains that Rock Chalk cannot survive if the cost of participating
KANSAN
If KU-Y refuses to channel more money back into Rock Chalk, then the participating groups need to give serious consideration to forming a committee and starting a separate production.
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Sales and Marketing Adviser...General Manager and News Adviser
John Oberzan
Rick Minniss
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US.ADVISER WITH M-16 RIFLE.
Innovator's dream runs out of fuel
John Z. DeLorean's sports car is spirit and
power on wheels, but it is struggling to stay
on the road.
The $2,000 machine fuses the best of art and science. It's a high-performance luxury sports car, but it gets 30 miles to the gallon on the road and it's important to protect its driver in a head-on crash at 80 mph.
More than that, it's one man's dream, the one that has darling break from the confines of big business.
The car's creator was in the fast lane to the presidency of General Motors Corp. about 10 years ago. The $6-year-old son of a Ford Motor Co. assembly man, he was earning $650,000 a year as a corporate vice president and general manager of GM's Chevrolet division.
Detroitran wore custom-tailored suits to work and talked costs and profits, production goals and deadlines, with the coteie of GM executives who wield their power from the 14th floor of headquarters in Detroit. When he traveled on business, it was by company planes and top-of-the-line GM cars to first-class hotel suites and VIP treatment.
Anyone that high in the line of potential GM presidents was someone to watch. Those watching Delorean were not expecting him to resign April 18, 1973.
There were no hard feelings, but an air of puzzelware wilthed through the auto industry.
DeLorean's superiors retained him for a while as a consultant and paid him to be president of the National Alliance of Businessmen for one year. DeLorean talked of plans to open a Cadillac dealership and later opened a consulting firm in Palm Beach, FL, and even himself running a company, he didn't like the constrictions of the corporate structure.
He had always been different from the rest.
sports coach.
GM was known as a staid conservative corporation whose executives were somber and tradition-bound, and their work dominated their lives. Even their leisure time was spent with GM people, talking business over dinner and drinks at exclusive Michigan country clubs and parties. GM was a way of life for the men who ran it.
Not, however, for DeLorean. He was a swinger in, '70s language. His dress was mod and his sideburns long. He drove an orange Corvette or a Maserati Ghibli. He ran with entertainment and sports celebrities, and at a time when corporate etiquette permitted one man to drive the DeLorean was working on his second. His wife knew DeLorean than the daughter of some of his colleagues.
Though he golfed at the same clubs as the rest of GM Corporate heads, DeLorean's avocations were diverse. He collected art and sculpted; he wrote a novel and a book on
politics and industry; he composed a rock ballad, which was sung at his second wedding. He pumped iron and ran, before fitness becameational obsession. And he designed cars for fun.
Three years after resigning, he started designing a car for real: the DMC-12 of the DeLorean Motor Car Co. He told potential investors, "Gentlemen, this is how I plan to spend the rest of my life. This is the reason I left GM."
Gathering the millions he needed to finance his venture was no longer a matter of appropriating a few hundred million from GM's wealth.
Delorean began with $19 million of his own money and recruited several hundred car dealers, who pledged to sell 150 cars in exchange for stock in the company. A friend at
LISA BOLTON
GM introduced DeliLeonor to Jack Nash, chairman of the board of Oppenheimer & Co. Nash put up $130,000 of his own in addition to his company's $18.7 million investment.
"dreamers create dreams," Nash said, "and out of dreams come realities."
Delorean finally found a plant site and a financing deal in Dumurry, Northern Ireland. The British government promised $120 million in grants and loans in exchange for creating 2,000 jobs in a place where one-third of the people needed work.
Though the finances were shaky, the car was sound. LeLorean had said he wanted to exhibit the ultimate of his art as an engineer, he's 's demonstration it throughout his career.
The Pontiac division of GM had hired DeLorean in 1965. He combined design skill and a flair for marketing to change Pontiac's image, which was then that of an eternely lady's vehicle. The Pontiacs were also the Bonneville and the Firebird, fast cars for the youth movement he sensed burgeoning.
In 1896, DeLorean became - at age 44 the youngest man to head GM's Chevrolet division. He developed the Monte Carlo, the Camaro and the Dodge, but he saw the inevitable trend toward smaller cars.
Delorean said later that since the demise of the Packard, he's been curious about what made some cars run while others just stood around and breathed hard.
He started satisfying his curiosity when he
designed the DeLorean DMC-12. Built for speed and safety, the two-seat car has a fiberglass body molded around foam crush structures, mounted on a backbone frame and coated with stainless steel. Gull-wing doors, a sloped windshield and a front-mounted gas tank are to protect the driver in a crash. The engine is an aluminum-alloy V-6, and ton speed is 125 mph.
"We want the car to be lively, but not intimidating." DeLorean said.
It's a fabulous car. It just hasn't sold as DeLorean anticipated it would. The energy crisis, political trouble in Northern Ireland and a wilting economy descended on the car industry at a bad time. About 5,000 or 7,000 have driven an originally envisioned building 30,000 a year.
Three Kansas City dealerships, which have stocked DeLoreans since June, have sold about two dozen cars combined. All the dealers said sales were relatively good, compared to cars in the same league—Corvettes, Mercedes and Porsche.
Interest has stirred since the British government pronounced the company insolvent and transferred control of the Ireland operation to a receiver, Sir Kenneth Knox. Britain has invested $148 million in the company, and James Prior, Northern Ireland Secretary of State, says it just can't afford to invest any more.
Delorean officially calls the news good, because it wipes a $135 million debt to Britain's government off the books. He sent a lengthy telegram to all his dealers last week calling for confidence and saying that production, sales and service will continue. He even mentioned next year's models, a turbo-charged two-seater and a four-door sedan.
DeLorean is at corporate headquarters in New York City now, negotiating to save the company.
The man has spirit. He has buoyant smiles and confident words for the press and his shareholders, even as he negotiates with possible investors to keep the company afloat. He's providing jobs where they're needed and his product is beauty and brains on wheels.
DeLorean's public relations person didn't let me talk to DeLorean (he didn't let the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times, either). who is optimistically trying to persuade companies and monied individuals to help salvage his version of the American dream.
Meanwhile, DeLorean has started receiving modest checks and letters cheering him on from people who like to see the brave endeavor of an innovative defector from big business.
Whether DeLorean's enterprise folds or flourishes will reveal the sentiments of those who own it.
Letters to the Editor
To the Editor:
Apparently, Marc Kean, in a letter to the editors of *Successful* magazine, successful advice to check the safety of nuclear weapons is
Documents released recently confirm the explosion of the Idaho Falls breeder reactor in January 1961. This explosion killed three men working on the core, impaling one to the ceiling with a fuel rod. Their bodies were so contaminated that their heads and hands were amputated and buried in lead boxes in a waste dump.
Nuclear power's safety record tarnished
Also, we just learned of the March 1968 explosion of a Soviet wartime dump, obliterating 200 soldiers.
As this information is just now coming out, I wonder what else is being hidden in the interest of giving the industry a good name. It is not by accident that research groups that publish findings indicating adverse health effects suddenly lose their funding and staff, while groups finding favorable data are rewarded with more grants. The cover-ups that are beginning to come down from this are going to make Watergate look like a local picnic.
The government and utilities have violated a very basic rule: Never tell more lies than you
The plants themselves are accidents waiting to happen. Of the 72 plants licensed, one-third have been shut down for safety defects by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Three Mile Island that we were constantly assured could never happen, statistically.
The list includes Chalk River in 1822, Idaho Falls in 1953, Detroit Firms in 1966. Hardy a day goes by that the news doesn't report the release of radioactive gases or water into the environment, always at "no risk to the public." How many of these small accidents it does take before the effect is large? Included in this group is the Zion, Ill. plant, which holds the dubious record for rate and number of abnormal occurrences, according to the NRC.
Nuclear power plants' dismal performances have even the staid and stodgy Wall Street Journal maintaining that "their unreliability has become one of their most dependable factors."
Small wonder that no new domestic plants have been ordered since 1976, and 78 plants, planned or partially constructed, have been scrapped. Public opinion backs this up, as shown by the Associate Press poll published in the Lawrence Journal-World on Nov. 24, 1981. The poll found that on the question of whether new plants should be built, 56 percent polled said "no," 32 percent said "yes" and 12 percent were undecided.
Another poll showed that nuclear power finished eighth out of eight choices as a source of future energy, with conservation and solar energy leading the field.
In closing, I would like to quote Albert Einstein: "To the village square we must carry the facts of atomic energy ... from there must come the utilities and federal government have worked hard in the past and are working even harder now, to make sure that this event will never happen.
Ken Ward,
Lawrence senior