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Thursday, November 8, 1990 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Education expenses
Engineering fee is necessary to maintain quality
Rising education costs are a concern for all students. But when the quality of education is at stake, isn't the cost to maintain that quality worth it?
The ability of the School of Engineering to continue delivering a quality education is being scrutinized. Carl Locke, dean of engineering, said Tuesday that the school's accreditation committee had mandated that the school must buy and maintain appropriate instructional laboratory equipment and provide access to labs for staff and students.
With current financing, the school will be unable to do that. The school needs about $1 million to buy and maintain lab equipment, including computers. Locke said, but it only receives about $20,000 yearly from the Legislature for lab equipment.
To help offset the difference, school representatives usually solicit donations from private companies such as IBM and Hewlett-Packard, he said.
The deans of the schools of engineering at Kansas State University, the University of Kansas and Wichita State University have developed a plan to help their schools avoid approaching companies with a cup. The deans have proposed to the Board of Regents a $15-a-credit hour fee for engineering students. The fee would generate about $450,000 each year, which would be used to maintain and operate school-wide facilities and pay for individual engineering department laboratory costs.
The Student Advisory Council, which is comprised of student body presidents of the seven Regents institutions, told the Regents on Oct. 18 that the fee was unfair. And last night, Student Senate passed a referendum condemning the fee.
Mike Schreiner, KU student body president, said the fee could stop students from choosing to major in engineering because of the increased cost
He said the fee could make it more difficult for engineering students to plan schedules if the money they had to pay fluctuated each semester. He said he was engineering courses in which they enrolled.
Schreiner also is not sure the schools are making every effort to find alternative financing. One option he sees is providing a line-item appropriation for lab equipment during legislative budget reviews. By listing lab needs separately, the Legislature would see the need for additional financing.
Another alternative Schreiner suggested would be reallocation of money already in
the schools' budgets. In a report to the Rejents, Chancellor Gene A. Budig estimated that the KU School of Engineering undersent its Fiscal Year 1990 budget by about $339,000. Schreiner said he questioned the need for a fee if money already budgeted for the school was not being spent.
Locke refuted Schreiner's ideas. He said school representatives had asked the Legislature for special lab appropriations for the past three years, with little success. And the money listed in the SAC underspending estimation never was received by the school, he said.
Another major concern for Schreiner is that the Legislature might appropriate less money to the school if the fee is implemented. Locke said that if the fee were approved, school representatives would meet with the Legislature to ensure that the fee would be an addition to already secured financing. If the Legislature would not agree to that, Locke said he would rather have secured financing from the Regents than a fee.
The fee would cost students an average of $800 during their entire college education. That cost would have to be considered when determining a student's need for financial aid, Locke said, and could be included in financial aid packages. The cost is less than other state's school fees, such as the University of Missouri's $23-a-credit hour fee and the University of Arkansas' $150-a-semester fee.
Students will get a chance to voice their opinions about the fee during a referendum. Locke said that whether to offer the referendum as a written form or as an open debate for students had not been determined. The Regents have requested that the referendum be scheduled by Dec. 7. Locke said. The final decision concerning the fee is expected to be made later in December by the Regents.
Without appropriate lab equipment, the School of Engineering will be unable to keep up with schools it competes with for engineering students, and the University of Kansas' ability to attract and retain students will be undermined. The proposed engineering fee is a sure way to guarantee lab financing for the school.
Students should support the fee to ensure a quality education for themselves and a quality school for KU.
Mary Neubauer for the editorial board
Somebody had to be governor
Well, just as I feared might happen, someone won the Kansas governor election. I guess somehow I hoped the election results would be delayed until a candidate came along who was more qualified, more trustworthy and most importantly, not a total goober.
But it didn't happen. My governor in shining armor, whoever that would have been, never arrived. It appears we're stuck with what we got.
Anyway, I'm not sure the candidate I ended up endorsing, whose name rhyme with Lone Niny, was the best suited for the job. In fact, I'm not even sure I've ever seen her in a suit. But, the point is, I voted for somebody. Even if you were completely disenchanted with all the
In my mind, there is still a question as to who was the more evil of two lessers, or however the expression goes. My apologies to the third candidate, who she was, for overlooking her in the previous sentence.
Because voting is a very personal and private thing, I am not going to reveal for whom I voted. Suffice is to say, her name rhyms with Lone Nimy, although she certainly wasn't the lone nimm running for governor
Rich Bennett
Staff columnist
What frustrates me is the people who did not vote at all, citing the irrefutable fact that all the candidates had the I.Q. of a radish. Like it or not, however, one of the candidates was going to be our next governor, so you might as well have voted for one of them.
if you failed to vote, and now you're moaning and whining about the results, you should be publicly flagged. At the very least, you should be locked in a room and forced to listen to speeches of the '86 election. You've probably repeated promises he'd bring the death penalty back to Kansas.
candidates, someone had to win. Even if pushing the button of one of the two candidates caused you to fail, your team was at least you did all you could.
time out of their lives to vote for that third candidate, whatever her name was, are just as bad as you non-voters. You might as well have placed your completed ballot in a sewer drain. She even conceded that she didn't have a chance to win. She said she just hoped to take about 10 votes and get out if her capped out and should be forced to remain in Kansas for the next four years under our new governor.
Those people who took valuable
And those of you who did vote for one of the two primary candidates, congratulations. I empathize with you. Not only did you have to choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledum, you also were probably more likely to do that, who will go to any measure to slap an "I voted" emblem on you.
Now, let's hope our future governor, whose name rhymes with Lone Ninny, does too.
Those who voted should be publicly recognized in some way, however. They did all they could.
Rich Bennett is an Overland Park junior majoring in journalism.
Advertisers deceive
This is America. Land of the free and home of the brave. Great continent of opportunity. Our founders traveled here in search of a life free from government interference. In general, we want business to be controlled by the invisible hand rather than an iron fist.
You may ask then, with all these truths we hold sacred, why should the government step in and regulate the tobacco industry so rigorously? Cigarettes are just another product fighting for a place in the free market, right? Anyway, no one has the right to dictate how someone
That is what the multi-billion dollar tobacco industry would like you to believe. Unfortunately, cigarette smoking is hazardous, and advertisements are misleading. For these reasons, cigarette advertising should be banned.
Kellie
Hogan
Guest
columnist
Cigarette smoking causes more premature deaths than all of the following together: AIDS, cocaine, heroin, alcohol, fire, automobile accidents, homicide and suicide, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association. Louis Sullivan, secretary of health and human services, called smoking the single greatest avoidable cause of death or injury. Cigarettes are the only product on the market that lead to death when used according to the manufacturer's instructions. Each year, 400,000 people die as a direct result of smoking.
Stereotypes that cigarettes are a sign of maturity, sophistication and acceptance are highly desirable to children, who are not as able as adults to foresee the health consequences. Tobacco companies say that they do not want children to smoke. Hence, they have limitations on their advertising. They say that their advertisements are for adult eyes only. One must doubt their sincerity, considering cigarette brands keep popping up in video games, movies, compact disc giveaways and free T-shirts.
in addition to youth, women and minorities are increasingly the targets of advertising. Public outrage against R.J. Reynolds' Uptown, a new cigarette targeted primarily to Blacks, led to its removal from the market. Dakota, JRJ's new cigarette which is targeted to young, lower socioeconomic Caucasian women, has received a similar welcome from women's activist groups. This is an appropriate response, considering that lung cancer has surpassed breast cancer as the leading cause of death among women.
Banning cigarette advertising and increasing public health bulletins has been shown to decrease overall consumption of cigarettes. In Norway, cigarette smoking rates among 16- to 20-year-old women dropped from 41 percent in 1974 to 23 percent in 1984 after cigarette advertising was banned and a strong anti-smoking campaign was begun.
Banning advertising sounds like a restriction of free speech, but the important distinction is that advertising is not the same public speech that our forefathers valued so greatly. Advertising is commercial speech and can be heard by almost everyone, according to decisions handed down from the Supreme Court.
In addition, one must consider the product. Cigarettes are lethal, advertising is directed to minors, and misleading advertising for the product deceive consumers. We cannot support the right of advertiser's to seduce more people to death. Unless cigarette executives begin to advertise honestly, they should be restricted from advertising.
Kettle Hogan is a Wichita junior majoring in political science.
LETTERS to the EDITOR
HIV information wrong
I am writing in response to the misinformation and confusion profered by Buck Taylor in his Nov. 2012 editorial in which he urges students to give up their anonymity when an emergency was at Watkins Memorial Health Center.
In said editorial, Taylor argues that "masking the truth only hurts the patient." I suggest that his own masking of the truth about HIV is not harmful to patients, it is not responsible. People tend to trust journalists to provide the truth. Taylor provides his readers with a pack of lies based on what appear to be his confused opinions. Here are the facts.
A patient's past medical history is irrelevant and unnecessary when being tested for the HIV virus. Past medical history has absolutely nothing to do with whether one carries the virus.
Withholding one's name when being tested does not cause physicians to "waste time ordering tests." If the ELISA test (enzymine-linked immunosorbent assay, the initial test for the presence of antibodies to the HIV virus) is positive, a Western Blot test is almost always automated to run to confirm the ELISA test. New tests have no other accurate tests are widely available to run, even if the physician wants to run more.
Though the medical community may "depend on diagnostic testing both to rule out and zero in on treatment paths," the HIV test is not used in this fashion. It merely reveals whether one has developed antibodies to the HIV virus. If these tests are positive, then other diagnostic tests should be performed. At that point, should find a good physician who knows about HIV disease and provide the physician with a complete medical history.
- Watkins is not equipped to provide full treatment for someone who has tested positive. One should be encouraged to seek such medical care at a major medical center where state of the art information is shared among physicians, researchers and other patients with the HIV virus. The nearest centers are in Topoka and Kansas City.
Having known many people with the HIV virus, I am aware of many violations of patient confidentiality. While none of these instances occurred at Watkins, such errors can and do happen. As a result of having confidential information about HIV disease have lost jobs, been denied insurance, been refused social services and been abandoned by families. Certainly, when seeking TREATMENT, one should provide personal information to medical professionals. When being TESTED for the HIV virus, one's name is irrevocable, absolutely irrelevant. Any expert on HIV testing will tell you that.
There are many states that still require people being tested to provide a name. Every testing counselor I know tells people being tested that using one's own name is unimportant. That is why more than dozens of people use the name "Nancy Reagan" when being tested.
Because your newspaper is a source of information for students in Lawrence, and because AIDS is the most horrifying fatal of all issues this campus has seen, I impone you the facts. We are about AIDS or HIV testing without getting the facts — not from the folks at Watkins, but from the folks at the National Institute of Health, the Center for Disease Control, the American Association of Physicians for Cancer Research, the Crisis Center, the Topeka or Douglas County AIDS Projects and the Good Samaritan Project in Kansas City.
▶ R.W. M. Stineman is a Lawrence resident and a member of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power.
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