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Opinion
University Daily Kansan, October 20, 1981
Sixth time's a charm
Breathe a sigh of relief, everyone. The new IDs are finally here.
You know, the ones you've been waiting two years to get, and yes, the ones that will take the place of those tattered pieces of paper you've been carrying around and have washed at least three times apiece with your jeans.
Well, the IDs will truly be better late than never if we've gotten it right this time.
Let's see, we've got the official KU insignia—that's important for making the whole thing believable. And we've got the student name, although there has been a big discussion over whether to put a comma between the last name and the first name. Of course there should be one. Someone named Pat Christopher, or Christopher Pat, doesn't need the added headache of explaining which order the names are supposed to go in to anyone who might get confused, which would be most people.
Then we've got the computerized type so that a special scanning machine in the library can "wand the ID number" and transfer it to a computer. That should put a little magic, and therefore a little excitement, into the usually dreary process of checking out books.
And above all, we've got the picture, an item left off the last credit-card IDs, but subsequently found to be extremely important.
Professors complained that students in large classes could cheat on exams far too easily, and no self-respecting business out in the real world wanted to accept a piece of identification without a picture. So now we have that covered.
So far, it sounds like a winner. May this sixth in a series of ID experiments be the answer to everyone's prayers, and may the $2,490 worth of new equipment last more than two years without becoming obsolete.
'Dykes Library' latest winner in name-a-building contest
Chancellor Gene A. Budig has been here for only 2% months, but it looks as though he has quickly picked up the keys to administrative success at the University of Kansas.
Actually, I had hoped it might take him a little longer.
As it turns out, Budig has already discovered that diplomacy among Kansas legislators and the state's political elite is far more profitable than among students and faculty at the University.
Besides continuing the pattern of frequent road trips established this summer, the chancellor has added a new tactic to his diversity of programs, naming (or renaming) of University edifices.
Budig announced Friday his intention to recommend to the Kansas Board of Regents that
REBECCA CHANEY
the new library at the University of Kansas Medical Center be named the Archie Dykes Library of Health Sciences, in honor of your predecessor's predecessor. KU's 18th chancellor.
Later that day the Board of Regents approved Budie's recommendation.
On the surface, this may not seem like a bad move. After all, most former KU chancellors have been good leaders.
On further inspection, however, the naming of the library must be seen as a political move on Budig's part, especially after considering the few good reasons for naming the building after Dykes and the many good reasons for not doing so.
As a political move, naming the library after Dykes is perfect. One of Dykes' sons, Tom, is now a student at the College of Health Sciences, a fact that could lend a real "family-affair" atmosphere to any dedication ceremonies in the near future.
Far more important, Dykes was well-known as a PR man who was very friendly with state legislators and other people important to the University's budget and general well-being. Budig, by aligning himself with Dykes' public relations person and attitudes about education, could expect the acceptance of former Chancellor Dykes to rub off on his administration.
From this perspective, a recommendation by Budig that the Med Center library be named for Dykes is a smart move. And indeed, of Dykes 12 (downtown salamanderers) does not now have a building in his name.
Robert Oliver has his residence hall; Frank Strong has his administrative offices; Franklin Murphy has his School of Fine Arts; Raymond Murphy is a graduate student in his year) has his Space Technology Center, and so on.
However, most of these buildings were named some time after those chancellors left office.
In the case of KU's fourth chancellor, Joshua
Holmes, a century passage before Old
Green Hall was issued.
In any case, despite the good things Dykes was able to do for the University, it seems a bit hasty to be naming—indeed, renaming—a library for the university. The business world a little more than a year ago.
Perhaps universities ought to adopt rules similar to those followed by various halls of fame that one must have been out of the field or have been dead for a certain number of years before being elected to take a place among the memorialized. After all, naming a building for someone is a lot like electing him to a hall of fame.
If we really want to be fair about getting buildings named for all former KU chancellors, why not name the library for Laurence Chalmers instead? Surely he did not perform so terribly as to be singled out and ostracized as the only KU chancellor who has no building named after him.
When the Visual Arts Building was constructed, students petitioned to have it named after Chalmers, who has gone on to become director of the Chicago Art Institute. Administrators decided to leave the building unnamed rather than risk bad press for designing a building in honor of a man linked to the campus and community unrest of the early 1970s.
Perhaps there is something contorted about the chancellors that chancellors must have buildings named for them.
Although Dykes was a talented fundraiser, he was perceived as somewhat cold in his dealings with students. Why not name the building for someone such as Del Shankel, who appeared to be much closer to students and who contributed both academically and administratively?
Blake, Bailey, Dyche, Haworth and other buildings were named for outstanding and beloved professors rather than for chancellors who were still without buildings.
Finally, one must wonder why a name is even needed for the new medical library building. The library already has a name: the Logan Clendening Library. Certainly the name of the Kansas City physician and medical columnist is appropriate for a medical library than Dykes.
Besides, the former chancellor already has one KU monument with his name—Archie's
The University Daily Kansan welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typewritten, double-spaced and not exceed 500 words. They should include the writer's name, address and phone number. If the letter is written in English, the letter should include the class and home town or faculty or staff position. The Kansan reserves the right to edit or reject letters.
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S. African police 'just follow orders'
Rv OSBORN ELLIOTT
New York Times Special Feature
NEW YORK—The police in South Africa are so polite, so gentlemanly, so civilized, when they arrest you.
"Excuse me, sir, may I ask what you are doing here?" Oh, just looking around, you say, as your eyes roam over the smouldering ruins of a shantyton that was brutally bulldozed and burned out by the police they stand before. A man clawed at his phone while stained stunned and motionless at what had been their homes—flimsy shacks of plastic sheeting, corrugated tin and bits of wood.
These are the squatters of Crossroads in the black township of Nyanga, tucked away out of sight near the airport of Cape Town: hundreds of black women and children who have travelled many miles from their assigned "homelands," where they live. They are both husbands and fathers, who are allowed to live outside the "homelands" because they have jobs.
The squatters have been turned out into the chill and rains of the winter because, according to the cruel tangle of aparteid laws, they are here illegally. Some sympathetic whites have brought food and blankets and some have collected vanloads of children, taking them home to feed and bathe, then returning them to the fifth of the squatters' camp. The police soon stopped all that, confiscating the blankets and prohibiting further visits.
But with us the police are all politesse.
"You cannot be here without a permit," the preamble says. And where might you get a permit?
Now a tweaked civilian official leans in the car window. "I know this must look like Gastapo to you," he says, through a bushy beard, in an Afrikan accent. "Try to remember that not all of us approve of what is going on. But we have a job to do."
We cruise slowly by the entrance to
Crossroads, my photojournalist wife snapping pictures of the now-homeless residents. The people seem numb. A police van overtakes our car and stops. Another pull up behind. They escort us to headquarters, and there, at the head of a t-shaped table, is the tweedy, bearded civilian. It turns out that the security police have been called.
"There are certain questions they want answers to," a policeman says ominously. In that case, I say, we'd better call the American consul general. Permission granted, but the call never goes through. First, they cannot find the number. Then they say that the telephone line is blocked or cut off, so most instances of innocence . . . much dropping of titles and names, preferably Afrikaan names.
I am thinking about some articles that have been appearing of late in South Africa's English-language press. An article about a liberal white student, the son of a prominent opposition politician, who was picked up and jailed without charges for an indefinite "cooling off" period. Lists of books and people newly "banned," and the story of one black woman "unbanned" after 17 years, meaning that for the first time since 1964 she can legally meet with more than one other person at a time—but not with her journalist son, who is in an unidentified prison, or with her husband in prison, or with another man raiding on squares—these are what have piqued our journalistic curiosity and brought us to Crossroads. I am also thinking of the absurd intellectual exercise, so popular in President Reagan's Washington, of trying to draw a line between totalitarian regimes and the merely authoritarian—good guys like Argentina and South Africa.
Surrounded by the police, I am thinking how lucky it is we are American. Lucky we are white. Lucky my wife is so expert at playing the dumb tourist with her road maps spread over the table and repeated requests for directions to Cape Point. "Should we take N3 or N9 from here?" She passes around gum drops. "You can't do that," I tell her, striking a rather leaden light note.
"That's bribery." The policemen accept the gumdrops.
The police captain re-enters. If he is worried about the pictures, we say, he can have the film from the camera. (What we do not say is that we are not afraid to expose it.) I tossed the original and the glove compartment.
While the uniformed constabulary is out of the room, I ask Tweeds what this is all about. Why are we being held? The police captain, he says, is upset because his picture was taken; he does not want it to appear somewhere and perhaps expose him to reprisals as the senior officer at Crossroads. We ask Tweeds, irrelevant, whether he knows New York. No, he says, and we ask if he knows Yugoslavia on holiday. What we don't say is, "Or how beautiful the Dolgatian Coast is."
"is this going to take long?" I ask. "We have a plan to catch tomorrow. We will be in position."
After two hours, the captain announces that he has again talked with the security police; they suggest that we forget the whole incident. We wonder what it was that did the trick. The gum drops? The dumb housewife bit? The name-and title-dropping? The offer to hand over the film? The intended copitational imprint of the copiticated humanitarian he beats to, or is in the reality-as my wife suspects—an intelligence officer playing the role of the "good cop"?
"No one has said anything about prison," the captain savs.
"I've seen this done in bad television plays."
Treads says finally. "I now cannot你背 your pace."
We reach the door. "You're lucky" he says,
pointing to a car just pulling away. "There go the
cars."
Have a nice trip to Yugoslavia, we say. Enjoy your stay in South Africa, Tweeds says. And remember, we're just trying to do our job. 'Just keep it simple,' said gently, so civilized. Just follow orders.
(Obsorb Elliott is of Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.)
Letters to the Editor
Full story on Coleman's absences not told
To the Editor:
The Oct. 9 story, "Coleman absences irritate
Mrs. Johnson," gained a great deal of
irresponsible reportage.
The story begins by stating that Coleman is in the Senate office on the average of 20 minutes wide.
If Mike Robinson, who wrote the story, would have attempted to investigate this statement, he would have found it grossly incorrect. If Loren Busby, who made the statement, was in the Senate office more than 20 minutes a week, he would not have made such an ignorant remark.
Next, the story slamms Coleman for missing an "important" meeting. Coleman received notification of the meeting the day after it actually occurred. Blame campus mail, not Bert Coleman. Coleman happened to be driving to Wichita State University and then on to Kansas State, meeting with their respective ASK representatives concerning problems with that lobbying group. He was representing the student body of the University of Kansas.
The story was journalistic trash, considering the Kansan is supposedly one of the top university publications in the nation. Might I suggest that if the Kansan attempts to do investigative reporting that it does, indeed, investigate first.
Chris Mehl
President, Class of 1982
Busby explains stand
To the Editor:
Twice during the past week I have been quoted in this newspaper as criticizing our student body president, Bert Coleman. I am certain that many students have questioned my actions. The purpose of this letter is to explain and, I hope, to answer those questions.
I believe it is very important to point out that my remarks are not directed toward Coleman personally, nor are they the result of our perceptions. I am aware of the duties of his position as student body president.
If the job in question were that of a committee chairman, who was elected by the committee and was non-salaried, then it would be a totally private matter. In this instance, however, we are dealing with our student body president, who is elected by the student body to represent all of the students and who is paid $250 a month from the student activity fee (paid through tuition fees).
Realizing these points, if someone thinks the president is not performing his duties as he should, then I think that person has not only the capacity to perform his duties but also concerns to the student body. I am a student senator and I felt obligated to raise questions and to inform students that people had concerns about the job Coleman had been doing. Also, take into account that only one of a number of students who spoke out.
Even though, in the end result, all I may have accomplished was beating my head against a wall and bringing personal attacks upon myself to me, I do not regret anything that I have said.
In all fairness to Coleman, he is enrolled in 22 class hours this semester and has a very busy schedule to maintain, outside of leading his own private life. I agree with Coleman that he is indeed a student first. But I also think that when he asked all of you to support him for president, he was making a commitment to the student body to execute the responsibilities of the office to his utmost capabilities. It's my impression, and it's important that we agree with me, that the president is not, and cannot be, a "normal student"; he has to adjust his academic calendar accordingly.
Maybe I am too idealistic, but in my opinion the situation bowled down to doing one of two things: 1) I could have taken the actions that I did, taking the responsibility of letting anybody who cared know that I didn't think Coleman was performing his job up to or; or, 2) I could have taken no action, with the thought in mind being that nothing would change, so who do anything.
I hope most students will feel that I pursued the proper course.
Loren Busby
Chairman, Student Senate
Finance and Auditing Committee
No limiting nuke war
This letter concerns several articles on nuclear arms that have appeared recently in the
To the Editor:
To begin with, anyone who believes that a "limited nuclear war" is possible is incorrect. And most of the people who believe that are making policy in Washington. If only one nuclear missile hit the United States, death, human life or damage is negative effects to our earth would result.
What the leaders of the United States and the U.S.R. do not seem to realize that the earth is one big ecological system. What good is a first attempt to reaffirm the very afferce affect the whole earth, including America?
I propose no answers to the complex problem of nuclear war. Rather, I wish to encourage each individual to consider the possibility. Our leaders now speak of a "limited nuclear war" as if they were byron once said. A thousand years scarcity to a state, an hour may lay it in the dust."
Kasey M. Kramer
Kasey M. Kramer
Spokane, Wash., graduate student