UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN editorials
Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the Kansan editorial staff. Signed columns represent the views of only the writers.
February 20,1979
Spending lid justified
It hasn't taken long for the Kansas Legislature and rookie Gov. John Carlin to tangle with each other, and it certainly is not surprising that their first major difference of philosophy concerns the issue of spending.
That issue arose last week when the Legislature sent Carlin a compromise bill that sets an annual 7 percent ceiling on increases in state spending and requires that final balances not dip below 8 percent of general revenue fund expenditures.
Cartin reacted by threatening to veto the bill and by pledging to take his case to the people of Kansas by traveling throughout the state to promote an exchange of ideas with residents.
WHILE THAT plan may sound nice, Carlin may find that in this era of antigovernment, anti-spending and antitax fever, the people of the state fully support the spending lid.
Nevertheless, Carlins says the bill is unworkable. He is disturbed that it requires only an 8 percent surplus of tax dollars in the treasury. Carlins says that a 10 percent ending balance at least would allow for more flexibility in case of economic troubles.
Carlin apparently is worried also that the spending lid would prohibit him from funding more money into local school districts, which was one of his top priorities.
WITH THESE objections in mind,
Carlin is planning to submit to
the Carlin.
legstature a less stringent measure that would, in effect, turn the spending lid into a 10 or 12 percent lid, rather than the current 7 percent lid.
But faced with the wild spirals of increasing inflation, it is obvious that stringent measures are needed, and the Legislature's bill seems to meet the demand.
Yes, the bill would limit increases for the KU budget, but faced with the circumstances, some degree of sacrifice is necessary. The bill would force state government to define its priorities and then act in the interests of those priorities.
AND HIGH on the lists of those priorities should be the social service programs that are so often mentioned as the first that would go onto the chopping block.
Programs that serve the needs of state residents do not have to be chopped off by the new bill. The high waste and bloated bureaucracies of present-day government should be more enticing targets, and the spending lid will make it necessary to attack those areas.
Rather than serving as a death knell for social programs, the spending bill can serve as an impetus for cutting unnecessary and wasteful programs.
In that form, the lid can be a blessing to state government. Carlin must realize that fact before his relationship with the Legislature becomes even more strained.
Recreational pursuits in America have boomed in the last five years as the public has become more aware that a balance be expected to play lends more overall satisfaction to life.
People are having more fun
And the University of Kansas reflects national trends in the geometric growth of its research facilities.
Faculty should pay recreation fees
Four years ago students paid 28 cents of their activity fee for recreational services. This year they are paying $2.55. New programs have been added every semester and the staff is now providing services director, his staff is at its limit try to keep the whole program running.
Wilkerson said the "Student Senate allocated about $103,000 last year and has been "really supportive of recreational services provided by the Senate from the Senate have paid for resurfacing and lightning courts, resodding playing fields and providing staff to supervise
For example, approximately 232 basketball teams, with an average of eight players a team, participated in this year's internship program. One reason the number of participants in other programs such as softball, volleyball, rugby, hang gliding and karate, to name a few, lead Wilkerson to claim that the recreational sports program has more students than any other program in the University.
VET STUDENTS pay to participate in athletics, whether it is on a team, in a club or jogging around the track in Allen Field House.
"We plan to resurface four or tennis courts every year and the only reason we'll be able to do that is that students give us," Wilkerson said. "If Student Senate choose not to fund us we would have to cut programs or hours the buildings are open, and I've spent four years trying to find a way."
For staff alone, an additional $73,000 will be needed this year to maintain Robinson. The administration has agreed to pay about $18,000 and the Student Senate will pay about $11,000. A third group was asked to pay, but so far has refused.
THAT GROUP is the University faculty. The faculty are allowed to use all facilities available to students, but pay only for lockers in their private faculty and staff locker room. They also pay less for lockers than do students.
Jake
Thompson
Faculty members on the University's Committee on Recreation Services recently said they would not support an assessed fee for students in their program. Mike Harper, former student body president, said faculty members on the committee also have paid a fee to enter the entire faculty that they pay a user's fee.
Michael Brady, associate professor of geology and a present committee member,
"It (recreational services) has been a
privilege provided to the faculty in the past," Brady said. "It has been a fringe benefit of employment at the University. There is a reluctance on the part of the faculty to see that fringe benefit done away with. It was felt by the faculty (members on the committee) that we couldn't recommend the faculty pay that."
BRADY ALSO said the cost of operating recreational facilities should be " picked up in the meantime."
Nonsense. It should be picked up by the faculty.
And it seems more sensible to charge the faculty, who presently are not paying anything, instead of the state or the administration, which already have enough difficulties and are reluctant to pay more. An assessment similar to the one students
paid should be imposed on all University
recreation facilities.
If they use the facility or participate in a university sponsored program, they should not attend classes.
WILKERSON SAID the problem with a faculty user's fee would be one of expectation by the faculty. He said it would be difficult to determine the services program if the fee were too small.
But a faculty user's fee deposited into a capital improvements fund would be beneficial to students, faculty and the entire recreational services program.
It is time for the faculty to contribute to recreational services through a user's fee. It would lighten the burden on Wilkerson's students and benefit the total University community.
Nazi exhibit valid as educational tool
To the editor:
On Thursday, Feb. 15, Judith Palin wrote to protest the AUAIP's stand for the 2017 election, saying she cancelled last spring. Her letter was emotional and sincere, and her stand can be readily appreciated by anyone familiar with her work, the genocide inflicted on European Jews.
However, I cannot agree that the position of the AAUP is objectionable. The exhibit was first cancelled due to an unfortunate scheduling accident, which would have had the exhibition opening the day after the conference last fall for "focaldoc" series on television last spring.
UNIVERSITY DAILY letters KANSAN
There was much press interest at the time, and a conclave of University administration ever held in connection with cancer the exhibit. What is forgisted is that the exhibit had been arranged as an integral part of Charles Sidman's course on Nazi Germany and that it involved some very unusual events.
As soon as the exhibit was cancelled, it was dismantled to discourage press inquiries. In 2017, the Kansas City collector, reclaimed his artworks and Sidman's class was thus deprived of an opportunity to see firsthand examples of German art under National Socialism.
A more logical solution would have been to set a definite later date for the opening of the exhibit in order to assure the faculty and students that academic freedom would be ensured. As it was, general misuse of discriminators ensured and still continue.
I do not feel that the exhibit should be rescheduled simply to affirm the University's commitment to free speech. It was originally intended as part of a course of instruction and should remain so. Joseph Goldman is teaching a course on Nazi Germany this semester. I believe that if he would like to give his class a chance, I think of Hitler's twisted conception of culture, the exhibit should definitely take place.
As a graduate student in modern European history, I would personally like the chance to see it, and would be disappointed if I were deprived of an opportunity to further my understanding in my chosen field.
From all indications the exhibit can in no
way be considered a glorification of Nazism, and the existence of Nazism as a historical event cannot be ignored, however despicable it may have been. If the exhibit can be used as an educational tool, the University has an obligation to do so.
Eudora graduate student
Disco fever no joy; offensive to reader
To the editor:
The conformity evinced by disco denizens anals me. The polyester shirt "nice"
Just a few comments from an admittedly biased reader about your disco article. Disco has disgusted me since I first heard "The Hustle" four-and-a-half years ago. I have nothing against people enjoying themselves, but must be I suspect to do the same drone of disco clones that emanate from virtually all media source these days?
pants uniform, the 80 mph hair-do and the simulature of disco music all constitute another industry pumping out its goods and services. There are sex, that admittedly American tradition.
It is the vast loneliness that prevails in our society that these entrepreneurs exploit. If you're not a member of a group like the army or the moonsies, And if "Discus Sucks" is a mindless slogan, as Katherine Conkey claims, could she be a businessman with a significant significance of "Boobie-Oogie-Oogie"?
Rick Hellman
Rick Hennan Overland Park junior
Ad "helps" students at their own expense To the editor:
I'm sure I speak for most of the students on campus when I thank Mike Harper and Reggie Robinson for spending $170.10 of Student Senate funds for a full-page ad in the Kansan telling us what a great job they did. Students appreciate their obvious concern for the students and their money. Keep up the good work!
Tamara Dutton
Lawrence special student
Family, marriage worthy of survival
While some people think the foundations of the family institution are crumbling, some recent statistics suggest the family has regained some strength in its battle to survive this era of expedition and narcissism.
In a report last week on the family, the Census Bureau said that within the past 10 years, the pressures for young people to enter school would increase and would facilitate stable relationships.
"Relaxation of pressures in these ways would be expected to increase the quality of the marriages that are initiated and of those that remain intact," the report said.
The study also said that the marriage rate peaked in 1972 at 11 for every 1,000 persons, but has declined since then, stabilizing at about 10 for every 1,000 persons. This decline, combined with the fact that most divorces occur several years after
Philip Garcia
marriage, the report concludes, should reduce the number of divorces.
The center reported that the birth rate and fertility rate increased for the first time
In 1977, there were 15.4 births for every 1,000 persons compared to 14.8 for 1976, according to the report. The fertility rate rose in 1976 from 63.8 births for every 1,000
ADDITIONAL encouraging news came from the National Center for Health Stewardship.
women in childbearing years in 1976 to 67.8 in 1977. The sharpest increases in the fertility rate were among women between the ages of 25 and 29 and 30 and 34.
However, there still is one major discouraging fact: according to one estimate, forty-one percent of marriages end in divorce, and five percent in divorce according to another study. Moreover, a study by a University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher indicates that about one half of American married men "are emotionally divorced" from their families.
LIVING TOGETHER has, of course,
tolerable if not preferable for many couples.
As professor Pepper Schwartz of the University of Washington says: "People are scared. They see relationships collapsing all around them, and they worry too much about last. But they don't know what to look for. They're operating at the level of myth."
But, of course, marriage isn't a constant romance or cure-all. Living with any person, whether as a married couple or roommates, requires hard work at accepting a particular person for what they have to offer. As Schwartz said, most of us don't know what we want for a child. As a child we have become so conscious of what we don't want to marriage to be that we are afraid to try and to make it something we want it to be.
Managing Editor
Direk Steimel
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
Send changes of address to the University Daily Kauan, Flint Hall, The University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 60045
KANSAN
If indeed Americans are operating on myth, it is not hard to understand a growing distrust in marriage and fragmentation. Cultural similarities can only be determined, naturally, by the individuals involved. But some generalizations can be made about the current context of myth.
(USPS 60-640) Published at the University of Kansas daily August through May and September; $15 for six months or $30 for six months and Sunday and holiday季票. Second-class postage paid at Lawrence, Kansas 69043; $15 for six months or $7 a year in Douglas County and $1 for six months or $3 a year outside the county. Student subscriptions are $2 a semester, passed through the student office.
Marriage and families are not exactly new vogues in interpersonal behavior. Sure, they continue to exist. Likewise, we decorate them with grooming and trust than afforded them now.
Editor Barry Massey
Campus Editor
Associate Campus Editor
Assistant Campus Editors
Editorial Editor
John Whithesides
Mary Hoen
Pim Minson
Debbie Hunter
Carol Huntner
The issue of worker representation on corporate boards has not even established a beachhead in America by the UAW and the United Rubber Workers, only to
Unions should demand high work involvement
Business Manager Karen Wenderott
SIMILARLY, IN Japan, consultative committees exist in more than two-thirds of the larger enterprises. The growth of European and Japanese shop-floor worker participation reflects an adaptation to today's economic and social conditions that few American unions have been willing to make.
Worker participation in decisions previously reserved for management is commonplace in other industrial countries. Labor-management work councils exist in the West Germany, for example, they exist in all plants and offices with more than five workers.
If employees are to sit on boards or participate in management committees, they need the structure, expertise and staying power that a union can provide. At a time when labor is still important, why should they join a union, organized labor's ability to make participation effective and to give workers a voice in councils where they have never been heard before could help attract new members, giving the labor movement a needed shoe in the game.
Bruce Stokes is a researcher with an organization concerned with emerging global phenomena.
A RECENT POLL by the American Council of Life Insurance showed that 48 percent of the public thinks workers should have a greater say in running the company than they do in choosing the institution through which such participation can best realize its potential.
Ron Altman
Bret Miller
carry with it the label of "satisfaction guaranteed or your money back." And many note that marriage is promoted by mediation. It can be a constant love a sort of panacea.
Yet fewer than one in 10 major industrial contracts contain provisions for such labor-management committees—an indication that most American businesses and unions still shy away from collaborative efforts.
The unionized portion of the American labor force has dwindled steadily: from one in three workers a generation ago to just two or three workers, support for unions may be further undermined if management and the Carter administration increases its minimum to hold wages increases to a minimum.
Retail Sales Manager
National Advertising Manager
General Manager
Rick Muster
Faced with this prospect, labor negotiators may want to consider accepting peacefully a ceiling on pay raises in return for the employer's agreement decision making. A seat on the board of directors or greater day-to-day control on the shop floor may ultimately prove more valuable to workers and by extension, make sure that it is bitter by yet another 1 percent.
By raising the issue of worker participation in this year's negotiations, unions have the opportunity to champion a change that is clearly in the interest of
WORKER PARTICIPATION could enable unions to carve a new role for themselves, while better labor-management cooperation could strengthen the U.S. international competitive position and help protect jobs.
WASHINGTON-Unions that represent 3.8 million workers will negotiate new contracts this year and will go to the bargaining table with a preacific on power.
The assumption of management responsibilities has long been anathema to some leaders. To be accepted, opted, or blurring the distinction between labor and management, is all too real. Without proper safeguards, worker participation in management's tool for breaking unions.
Advertising Adviser Chuck Chowins
BUT IT would be a mistake for American union leaders to close their eyes, dig in their heels and try to hold out against the tide of worker involvement in decision making. Recent surveys show that both productivity and the quality of life work improve and that worker-related drag on employees increases turnover and strikes—diminish when employees assume new responsibilities.
Marriage has taken on the form of a commodity. Divorce is no longer viewed with as much contempt as it once was because marriage is no longer seen as a long commitment. And, with the emphasis careers, economic concerns are lessened.
SINCE MID-1978, however, labor and stockholders have had an equal number of seats on the supervisory boards of nearly 700 German firms, with more than 5.6 million employees. The European community will soon join in to form a corporation as a European rather than a nationally chartered organization to place workers on its board.
Bv BRUCE STOKES
WITH MORE time and money for the conjugal couple, constant self-satisfaction is obtained.
dropped when they got down to hard bargaining.
By BRUCE STORES
N.Y. Times Feature
STATE U.
THIS IS YOUR STATE
UNIVERSITY RADIO
STATION WITH THE
NEWS!
LAST SPRING, 75 PERCENT OF STATE U. 8 GRADEHANDLING LAW STUDENTS FAILED THE STATE BAR
AS A. RESULT, THE
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
TODAY ANNUMKED
THE RECALL ...
BY T. M. ASLA