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University Daily Kansan
Friday. Jan. 15. 1980
The Critical Stage
The battle of the budget has progressed to the critical stage. Like two opposing armies, the proeducation forces and hold-the-line politicians have been maneuvering for months, fighting for position, mastering strategy.
Now the last battle is being fought out in the Legislature. It is a battle that will have lasting significance for every young man and woman in Kansas.
Gov Docking has marshaled an imposing array of tax cuts, money-saving schemes and a huge treasury surplus behind him. On the other side stand the educators, students, the overwhelming majority of the state's newspapers and some members of the Board of Regents.
KU has a lot at stake in the legislative warfare. The outcome will decide how well this University will be prepared for the coming years of booming enrollments. Other state institutions likewise stand to lose or gain much.
Each side is moving toward a different objective. The governor, by holding fast against education, seeks political security for himself and his party. His opponents are pushing toward a more tangible goal—a sound, adequately-financed
educational program that will be prepared for increased enrollments.
In the end, the battle will not be decided by either group but by the Legislature. However, the arguments presented by each side and the relative support given each by the voters will influence the Legislature in its final decisions.
Doubtless, many of the recommendations made by the governor in his budget message will be rejected. The governor has never met with success in getting his major programs through. We can only hope that this pattern continues.
But to win the battle we must do more than hope the governor does not succeed. We must continue to support the program for higher learning that was originally advanced by the regents. We must keep our representatives informed as to the need for forward-looking building program and increased faculty salaries.
Unless something is done soon, the students who follow us to KU later in this decade, will find an undersized staff, inadequate facilities, and a second-rate institution.
In this way we can add our numbers to the people who are actively supporting KU in the sessions at Topeka.
—George DeBord
Docking's Regents
Each year, in January, legislators and citizens concern themselves with education. During the remaining 11 months, with their duty done, thoughts return to whatever legislators or citizens usually think about.
One thing is certain, education is not included in these general thoughts. Here, it would seem, is the great weakness of the Kansas educational system.
Education is not something that should be considered for a few brief weeks each year. To do so is to say that youth is an unimportant and trivial factor. What education demands is continuing and comprehensive consideration by citizens and their elected representatives.
There is one group in the state which is working 12 months out of the year, however. This group is the Kansas Board of Regents. What is that group's function?
Supposedly its function is to assess and evaluate the Kansas educational system and make its wants known to the taxpayer. By virtue of the time it spends doing this, the nine members of the board become experts on educational needs.
For 12 months out of the year they consult school administrators and politicians in an attempt to find out what the schools need and how many resources are available to supply those needs.
The members of the board are appointed by the governor for overlapping terms. No more than five members can be of one political party. Virtually every member either has been appointed or reappointed by Governor Docking, due to his length of tenure.
It would seem logical for him to respect and
listen to his educational watchdogs. Obviously, he does not.
We wonder why? We do not question his right to assign financial priority to various state agencies. We recognize his right and duty-as chief executive to reconcile monetary requests with funds he believes available in the state.
What we question is his ignoring of citizens' committees, the regents, administrators, legislators, and citizens in general who maintain that education should be given priority by the state government.
Obviously the governor does not believe the Board of Regents to be incompetent. To do so he would admit that he has made an error in judgment in appointing them.
It is remarkable that a man of his obvious intelligence does not recognize the importance of education and cannot (or will not) heed the warnings of an impending educational crisis.
Perhaps the whisperings are true, that he is motivated by a very deep, personal animosity towards a key University administrator.
Comments he has made at various times, and especially during an interview with KU student reporters last year would seem to bear this contention cut.
In any case, it is sad that continuity in Kansas educational policy-making is being sacrificed on the altar of political blockering each budget session.
We would like to ask the governor this question someday (unfortunately the governor will not consent to a press conference with the Daily Kansan):
What is his concept of the function of the regents and does he think the board is qualified to make recommendations?
Rav Miller
UNIVERSITY
Dailu Hansan
University of Kansas student newspaper
Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904, triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912 Telephone VIking 3-2700 Extension 711, news room Extention 276, business office
Member Inland Daily Press Association, Associated Collegiate Press. Represented by National Advertising Service, 420 Madison Ave., New York N.Y. News service: United Press International. Mail subscription rates: $3 a semester or $5 a year. Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University year except Saturday and Sundays. University holidays, and examination periods. Entered as second-class matter Sept 17, 1910, at Lawrence, Kan., post office under act of March 3, 1879.
Jack Harrison Managing Editor
Carol Allen, Dick Crocker, Jack Morton and Doug Yocom, Assistant
Managing Editors; Kael Amos, City Editor; Jim Trotter, Sports Editor;
Carolyn Frailey, Society Editor.
NEWS DEPARTMENT
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
George DeBord and John Husar ... Co-Editorial Editors
Saudra Hayn, Associate Editorial Editor.
BUSINESS DEPARTMENT
Bill Kane Business Manager
Ted Tidwell, Advertising Manager; Martha Crosier, Promotion Manager;
Ruth Rieder, National Advertising Manager; Tom Schmitz,
Circulation Manager; John Massa, Classified Advertising Manager.
Private flying has really become the thing lately. We know of several agencies in KC that are accepting applications for a new outfit called the "Mile High Club." Sounds interesting!
With John Morrissey
* *
Next year we think football games should be held at night in order to keep the sun out of bleary eyes.
Within the next four weeks the vastly important, psychologically trying, sociologically significant event of women's rush will take place. Honestly, we can hardly wait.
--contribution to Art: Chester Gould (for "Flyface" in DICK TRACY.)
Someone once said that the two best complementary reference books at the University are the Jayhawker and the student directory more commonly known as the Dafer's Handbook and the Index.
Detroit Presents Version of Awards
In conformity with the New Year's custom of presenting awards to outstanding Something-Or-Others, the Varsity News now presents its awards for the year 1959:
Outstanding in the field of Tegetherness: Eduic Elizabeth Taylor.
Outstanding literary artist: Ann Landers.
Outstanding actor: Fabian (HOUND DOG MAN).
Outstanding actress: Dodie Stevens (HOUND DOG MAN).
Outstanding supporting actor: Spot—the Hound Dog.
Outstanding contribution to the Philosophy of Man: Miss B. Bardot.
Outstanding contribution to Population Control: Fidel Castro.
Outstanding contribution Political Thought: Bishop Pike.
Outstanding contribution to Art: Chester Gould (for "Flyface")
Outstanding newspaper: The Varsity News.
Outstanding musical composer: Frankie Avalon (the score of HOUND DOG MAN).
Outstanding historian: John F. Kennedy (PROFILES IN COURAGE).
HOUND DOG MAN).
Outstanding military strategist: Elvis Presley.
Outstanding athletic analyst: Doc Greene.
Outstanding contribution to the automotive industry: Charlotte Ford.
Outstanding historian: John F. Kennedy (PROFILES IN COURAGE).
Outstanding literary critic: Art Sumerfield.
Outstanding athlete: Arthur Murray.
Outstanding penitent: Roger Touhy.
MAN OF THE YEAR: Alfred E. Newman.
—University of Detroit Varsity News
From the Bookshelf
"For many years Brahm's music was for me, every note of it, the greatest of all. Until one day, as I was playing through the slow movement of the Cello Sonata Op. 99 at the piano, I suddenly was aware of hearing not real creative activity but the pretense, the pose of such activity—the pretense of feeling in synthetically contrived themes that were being manipulated by formula to fill out the pattern of the movement. And having heard it here I began to hear it in other works."
(From "The Listener's Musical Companion," by B. H. Haggin; published by the Rutgers University Press.)
\* \* \*
THE AMERICAN HERITAGE BOOK OF THE PIONEER SPIRIT by the Editors of American Heritage. Simon & Schuster. $12.95.
This stunning big book celebrates the American pioneering spirit, the spirit that crossed perilous frontiers of mind and matter. Here we have in text and abundant picture such enterprises as the setting up of Utopias in the wilderness, the derring-do of the mountain men, our industrial revolution and lately our reachings into the heart of matter and our gropings into the void of space.
Allan Nevins has written chapter prologues. The hefty book makes no pretense at scholarship. It is a handsome and well prepared volume that a family can well make space for on the crowded bookshelf alongside the one volume world histories, art surveys and music studies. — J. W.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS By Dick Bibler
"HE SAYS HE HASN'T HAD ANY EYESTRAIN SINCE THE DOCTOR FITTED HIM WITH GLASSES."
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