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Tuesday, September 19, 1989 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Education takes back seat to desire for designer labels
A C-plus was the grade assigned to schools in the United States when compared with their international peers. A country with the resources of the United States should be ashamed to bring home such a poor report card.
The National Association of Secondary Schools concluded that it's not always the schools that are failing the students.
Instead of saving money for college or helping their families, most of the students were spending money on designer clothes.
What the association did find was that half of high school students surveyed in a limited study worked during the school year. Of those who worked, 67 percent were employed for more than 20 hours a week.
But there is also nothing wrong with a parent saying, "No,
you may not have that."
With more than a quarter of all U.S. students not making it to high school graduation, the attention span for students seems to be short enough without the added distraction of thinking about a five-hour work shift after school.
With bloodshot eyes from working until 11 the night before, working students drag themselves to school and fight sleep all day. We all know students can't learn much while playing mind games, like counting the number of tiles on the ceiling, just to stay awake.
Since when is it more important to have a famous name branded on a hip pocket than to be able to read the name in the first place?
But the cost of not getting a solid high school education doesn't end at high school graduation.
High school students who make it to college find themselves lacking basic skills. A report on basic skills conducted at the University of Kansas found that 50 percent of students enrolled in basic math courses couldn't make it through the semester. These students couldn't pass a class in college that teaches skills that should have been learned in high school.
There is no way a student can be prepared for college without gaining necessary skills in high school. And that can't happen when a student falls asleep on a desk four out of five days a week.
Tiffany N. Harness for the editorial board
KU sets example for peers
Women constitute only 18 percent of the University of Kansas' faculty. Although the faculty remains predominantly male, the University is attempting to address the problem and is making strides to correct it.
The University added 14 females to the faculty this fall. Again, it doesn't seem like much. But while we added 14 women to the faculty, most of our peer institutions have about that many women faculty to start with.
According to the March-April 1989 issue of "Academe," a bulletin published by the American Association of University Professors, the percentage of full-time faculty members is 73.6 percent male and 26.4 percent female. Public, private and church-related colleges and universities were included in this percentage.
Across the board, it doesn't seem so good for women seeking professional careers at a university. But it isn't especially bad at the University of Kansas.
At the University of Iowa, there were 432 male and 41 female professors.
At the University of Oklahoma, there were 258 male and 15 female professors.
At the University of Oregon, there were 223 male and 19 female professors.
At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, there were 48 male and 55 female professors.
Name line 3: remote professors.
No information was given for the University of Colorado at Boulder.
The inequalities reported in "Academe" cannot be justified, but the University of Kansas seems to be making some progress. Perhaps we can be an example for our peer institutions.
Deb Gruver for the editorial board
News staff
David Stewart ... Editor
Ric Brack ... Managing editor
Daniel Niemi ... News editor
Candy Niemann ... Planning editor
Stan Diel ... Editorial editor
Jennifer Corser ... Campus editor
Elaine Sung ... Sports editor
Laura Hewan ... Photo editor
Stephen Kline ... Graphics editor
Christine Winner ... Arts/Features editor
Tom Eblen ... General manager, news advisor
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
Joseph Townsend .. Co-op manager
Eric Hughes .. Creative director
Chris Tool .. Classified manager
Jeff Messey .. Tearseys manager
Jeanne Hines .. Sales and marketing adviser
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Refugees only headaches for West
Thousands of "retugues" have left Eastern bloc countries recently to find their fortune in the West. For the Soviet Union, this is a victory for glasnost. For the United States, this is a victory for the forces of freedom and ideals of democracy. For the governments of Western Europe, this is a headache.
Fewer people in East Germany mean fewer mouths to feed and much more money available to spend on defense and other matters critical to the maintenance of a totalitarian government. The talk of reunification pales in light of the political fact that the West Germany now has several thousand new worries on its hands, thanks to East Germany, which is, no doubt, claiming tolerance while taking steps to continue dominance.
"Letting these people go" is just another in a long line of propagandistic victories for the Soviet Union and its satellites. By appearing to embrace the ideals of the West, they rid themselves of troublesome citizens and bolster their economic outlook at the same time.
Of course, former citizens of Hungary might claim that they had no trouble leaving their country. Their government simply removed a fence. Now, Western leaders are hinting that the Berlin Wall might meet the same fate as the Budapest Fence. Not so.
The political reality is that not everyone will leave East Germany or Hungary if given a chance. Many people have lived their lives in one place and have no wish to throw away their comforts, little
David White
Staff columnist
though they might be, for a different life in a different country.
The people who want to leave the East are the people who will undoubtedly make trouble if they are not allowed to leave. These Eastern governors were wise to "let them slip through their fingers."
It is getting somewhat easier to leave the Soviet Union, but it is a nightmare for a good many who have fought their whole lives to leave. That a talent the caliber of pianist Van Cliburn is able to demonstrate in the presence of Mr. and Mrs. Gorbachev is no guardian or ordinary. Soviet citizens can bend the same ears.
Political mavericks Boris Yeltsin and Andrei Sakharov are allowed to visit and tour the United States on what some might call unlimited visas. But while these political figures find out more about the U.S. system every chance they get, dissidents in Azerbaijan and the Baltic states find out more about the Soviet system of repression firsthand every day of their lives.
But what about Poland? It now has a representative government. Solidarity has gained control of the government that once turned its hoses and guns on the troublesome union. But what will this new government do to bolster the still faltering economy? Solidarity leader Lech Walesa made a wise decision when he declined the opportunity to head the new government. He saw that if Solidarity fails to reform the economy, a possibility that is entirely too realistic, the "chance of a lifetime" will be a chance thrown to the wolves. And a Solidarity failure is just another walk down memory lane for Jurzelski and his Communist judges.
What Mazowiecki and his new government don't realize is that Poles are staying in their country to see the outcome of this "noble experiment" instead of leaving in the tiny groups that the Communist government was building in Poland. The more difficult it becomes for Solidarity to perform its miracle.
What we see, then, in this new movement toward "improving relations between East and West" is the underpinnings of just another Communist checkmate. The countries of Western Europe are soon to experience the difficulties of feeding and maintaining a melting pot, a problem the United States has yet to solve. The more "refugees" that "show up" in the West, the less these countries will want to toot the horn of democratic victory and the more they will want to curse the Warsaw Pact machine once again.
▶ David White is an Atchison senior majoring in journalism and history.
Kind words make the world closer
If anyone has ever said anything cruel to you — something that has stuck with you for a long time; if anyone has ever said anything very kind to you — something that has stuck with you for a long time . . .
Well, be assured that you're feeling emotions that have nothing to do with national boundaries.
When she was a teen-ager, she dreamed of coming to the United States. Most of what she knew about U.S. life she had read in textbooks.
in the city of Fujisawa, Japan, which is near Yokohama, lives a woman named Atsuko Saeki. She is a single by year-old and is living with her brother. He works as salesclerk at the Yurindo bookstore in her town.
"I had a picture of the daddy sitting in the living room and the mommy baking chocolate chip cookies and a big dog lying by the couch," she said, movies on the weekends with her host girlfriend. "."
"People were struggling with their own problems," she said. "People had family troubles and money worries, and often they seemed very tense. I felt very alone."
At college, one of the classes that was hard for her was physical education.
Bob Greene
"We played volleyball," she said. "The class
She arranged to attend a college in the United States — Lassen College in Susanville, Calif. When she arrived in the United States, though, it was not the dream world she had imagined. She couldn't blame anyone; it was no one's fault and certainly not the college's fault. She considered herself naive to have pictured American life in such storybook terms.
Syndicated columnist
was held in an indoor gymnasium. The other students were very good at it, but I wasn't."
"I was very short, compared to the other students," she said. "I felt I wasn't doing a very good job. To be very honest, I was a lousy player."
She tried to fun play volleyball, and often she was able to. But the games made her
One afternoon, the physical education instructor told Saeki that she was assigned to set the volleyball up for the other players on her team. "I was told that it was my job to hit the ball to other players so that they could hit it over the net."
Apparently a young man on her team sensed what she was going through. This was a coed class, and he was on her side of the net.
No big deal for most people, but it terrified Saeki. For some reason, she feared she would be humiliated if she failed — if she was unable to set the shots up for her teammates. Undoubtedly they would have forgiven her. But in this world each person's fears — each person's perceived humiliations — are private and real.
"He walked up to me," she said. "He whispered to me: 'Oh, come on. You can do that.'
"He said it in a nice way, but he was serious. If you are the kind of person who has always been encouraged by your family or your friends or somebody else, maybe you will never understand how happy these words made me feel. Four words: 'You can do that.'"
She made it through the gym class. She may have thanked the young man. She is not sure.
But now five years have passed. She is out of college and back in Japan, living in her parents' home.
"I've never forgotten the words," she said.
"You can do that. When things are not going well, you can tell."
She is quite sure that the young man had no idea how much his words meant to her.
"I'm sure that he was just a nice guy," she said.
"I'm sure that he was the kind of guy who would ask you to do something."
"But at the time it made a big difference to me. When I left the gymnasium I felt like crying with happiness. He probably doesn't even remember saying the words."
Which, perhaps, is the lesson here. You say something cruel to a person, you have no idea how long it will stick. You say something kind, you have no idea how long that will stick.
"I remember the young man's name," Seski said. "His name was William Sawyer. I do not know what happened to him, but he helped me just by whispering to me."
She's all the way over there in Japan. But she still hears his words;
Rob Greene is a sundicated columnist.
LETTERS to the EDITOR
Pronoun problem is petty
I think Tiffany N. Harness has a really big authority perception problem if she is going to take lessons on English word definitions from some drunk person. "Guy" is defined in Webster's dictionary as "Person — used in plural to refer to the members of a group regardless of sex." The word is similarly defined in The New American Dictionary. It has
been a long-established policy of mine to argue defenses with a drunk before bickering with Mr. Webster.
Aside from definitions, I think that automatically applying the terms "men" and "women" to all students is a bit naive. I agree that the majority of the student body is responsible and acts like adults and therefore has earned the titles of man or woman. But only those deserving should be called men and women. The standards for adult-like action should be the same for males and females. (A male drinking beer with his father is not a man in my book.)
But all this idealistic word usage is impossible because everyone has his or her own interpretation of which pronoun is proper to use.
Donald Hass Kansas City, Kan., freshman
Open those closed minds
Joel Zeef stated, "I don't hate every skateboarder, just the ones that look like they've survived a nuclear holocaust." Meaning the
Many times a pronoun applied to you isn't an insult but rather a product of upbringing and environment. So smile to the people who use the improper pronoun, and kindly ask them to use the one which you prefer. If you would do likewise in return, then all of us would live in a world of happiness, based on mutual respect of our personal favorite pronouns.
only matter of his concern was their clothing. For this reason, I'm not only angry with Joel's column, but I feel a bit sorry for him. College is a place to open your mind and explore new ideas. It's not a place to adhere to the close-mindedness and cliquish tendencies that often thrive in high school. Joel could deprive himself of an important part of his education if he continues to dwell in his shallow complacency. Finally, wishing bad thoughts on people, based solely on their attire, shows a lack of reasoning to say the least. Contrary to Joel's "Solution for Skateboards," I think a cure for closed minds, like his own, would be a better sought solution.
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Conan Shinn Desoto sophomore