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Tuesday, November 6, 1990 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Miscalculation
Kansas State's hasty decision shows KU's recipe for administration to be a worthwhile investment
Kansas State University President Jon Wefalid apologized Thursday for his comments. He says
eliminated the university's college of human ecology and college of architecture and design.
"It was a very, very, very dumb idea," he said.
The plan to eliminate the colleges was only preliminary, and a different plan had been formed that included department and program cuts in many different colleges.
Welfald went on to say that those involved in the original plan had handled it poorly.
Wefald is correct. But the K-State administration has been handling its university poorly the last few years.
While the University of Kansas was struggling to control growth and avoid a fiscal crisis. K-State's enrollment was growing by
leaps and bounds.
rang up the KU has implemented a controlled-growth plan because administrators felt that the two-year lag time between enrollment growth and money made available by the legislature to pay for those extra students was too great.
to pay for those extra students was too great. In 1987, enrollment at K-State was 18,048. The next year enrollment jumped to 19,307, an increase of 1,259. K-State received money from the legislature to more consecutive enrollment jumps of 803 and 1,027 will not bring financial returns until fiscal 1991 and 1992, respectively.
KU is lucky that Judith Ramaley, former executive vice chancellor, and others in the KU administration recognized the dangers in uncontrolled enrollment growth and acted to halt it.
Brett Brenner for the editorial board
Report justified
Stricter tenure review would help, not hurt KU
A recent report submitted to the Board of Regents has upset many faculty mem-
bers.
A Fee suhate
Regents has supported many faculty members. The report evaluates the status of post-tenure review policies at the seven Regents institutions, leaving some faculty and administrators concerned about the motivations behind the report.
Whether the report's authors seek dramatic changes in tenure policy or merely have conducted a fact-finding mission is still unknown. The report outlines the history of tenure, its acceptance as a national practice and the benefits and costs attached to reviewing post-tenured instructors. University administrators and members of the University Senate Executive Committee are reading the report between the lines.
To them the report symbolizes the distinct possibility that stricter tenure review may be required of professors at the University of Kansas and the other Regents schools. As University policy now stands, tenure is granted if the candidate has satisfied teaching, research and service requirements for the department in which the candidate seeks a professorship. The specifics of tenure review vary among departments at the University.
Aside from expressing concerns to the department chair, the only means students
have to affect the tenure review process is through the student evaluation forms. The forms are good indicators of an instructor's teaching ability and are required of every University professor and tenure candidate. Nonetheless, the extent that these evaluations are considered in the review process differs from department to department. Consequently, as a former member of the Faculty Senate Committee on Tenure noted, "Students don't play a role in the actual decision-making process" of tenure review.
Strict tenure review is a necessary evil. It holds the key to securing the best faculty for the University; after all, the measure of an educational institution is the quality of its faculty.
The Regents are doing the students of the Regents schools a favor by investigating tenure review policies. Student tuition in part supports faculty salaries, and students should be held accountable they conducive to giving them quality instructors. Students should get what they pay for.
No matter what the intent of the Regents report, the implementation of stricter tenure and post-tenure review would be justified. The quality of education at KU depends on it.
Sally Gibbs for the editorial board
Voting is our chance to take part in government
Make a difference
The editorial board
Avery's cartoon realistic
The cartoon, of course, is "Three Imaginary Girls," featured Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays in the Kansas.
I've been shaking my nea-
t to dismay a lot lately. With every-
thing out there in the world to
worry about, several people have
chosen to write letters to the editor
about... a cartoon. I guess concern
about the environment, world peace
and whales isn't in vogue anymore.
After all, a cartoon is a much easier
target.
Most of the letters about the 'toon are from women although a few have been from men. But they all accuse Tom Avery, the 'toon's creator, of being exist, insensitive to women and stereotypical.
As a woman, I suppose I'm supposed to agree with these allegations. Surprise. I don't.
Now, I see you sitting there. And you're saying to yourself, "Sure. She's just defending the 'toon' in her nurse. She has no choice.
Wrong. If I were offended by the 'too', I would fire Avery and yank the 'toon', replacing it with others that have been submitted for publication.
Mary
Neubauer
Editorial
editor
Several people wrote to the Kan萨 at the beginning of the semester concerned that Avery depicted the "Three Imaginary Girls" in bars and at parties. Not only in bars and at parties, but drunk in bars and at parties.
Why am I not offended by the 'toon? Because it depicts real life.
Okay, I'm going to go out on a limb and be a realist here. Tell me that if you go to bars and parties in Lawrence you're not going to see drunk people. If you say you've been to them and haven't, you must not have been at the same bars and parties I've been to and heard about.
Several letter-writers were concerned that Avery stereotypes women, and KU students in general, as drunkards. I'm going to be a realist again and say Avery is not depicting all KU students in his cartoon. He's depicting Three IMAGINEARY Girls.
Other people are concerned that Avery shows the Three Imaginary Girls acting "dumb" or "provcivec" to catch the eyes of nearby children. She continues to make them they don't realize until someone better comes along.
Reality is showing me out on a limb again. People, women and men do act like the Three Imaginary Girls. It's a human flaw. It's the 'I'll stay with this person because I'm afraid of being alone' syndrome. It happens.
As for the title of the 'toon,' I concede that calling college-age females girls is inaccurate Girls become women at age 18, just as boys become men. But Avery chose the title after a song by The Cure entitled "Three Imaginary Boys." The song is about college-age people. Avery didn't think his title would offer anyone.
terrible Brutus while she rarely does anything but scream for help. Olive Oyl is stereotyped as a spineless, helpless damsel and Popeye is the bigger-than-life man who saves the day.
The polls are open until 7 p.m. Vote
Okay, so you're not buying my arguments about "Three Imaginary Girls" and you still think it's stereotypical and belittling to women. In that case, I've got some more 'toons you'd better keep in mind.
How about "Popeye?" Or should I say Olive Oly? Popeye is the spinach-eating, swashbuckling hero who rescue Olive Oly from the
Let's not forget "The Simpsons." I can hear the offended screams now. But in the Simpsons episode that aired Thursday, Homer informed Marge that she could not voice her derogatory opinion about his boss, Montgomery Burns, who was running for governor. Marge naturally acquessed and said nothing. She did, but later, through the food she cooked. She showed a little backbone, but who is Homer to tell her what to do?
And finally, remember Roger Rabbit. Or should I say Jessica Rabbit. If you think the Three Imaginary Girls are drawn provocatively, what about Jessica? No one on earth is built like she is. That's right, it's time to return all those loveable, stuffed Roger Rabbits and demand your money in return. You can be entitled to stereotypes, with its humans treating its 'loons as noodies and everyone treating Jessica as a sex object.
All of these cartoons obviously are stereotypical and male-dominated. Or are they?" Or is it just my interpretation that makes them stereotypical when all they are supposed to be is comical?
I'll get off my soapbox now. I've pushed reality on you enough for a day. But keep this in mind, Reality isn't pretty, but it all we've got and we want. It can be hard to find with it; it is to think of it like a cartoon like "Three Imaginary Girls."
In argument over governor's race, Kansas ties for worst
I had to be the strangest argument I we've been in. I was in a bar fighting with him, a friend about a law commission in Kansas, when a worse governor's race
At that point, the idle banter stopped and the argument began.
Mary Neubauer is a Chapman senior majoring in journalism.
We discussed what had happened in our lives since we had left Washington, D.C., where we intermed together. We talked about school and how anxious we were to graduate. We coursed we talked about the game.
It all started innocently enough.
Bellied up to the bar at Eskimo Joe's in Stillwater after the football game, a friend from Oklahoma State University and I were catching up on news.
Robin, my friend, made the oow-
ously misguided point that the Cowboys were better than the 'Hawks
Brett
Brenner
Staff columnist
Tired of losing that argument, she changed the subject. Both of us had worked for Republicans in Washington, so we started on politics. A pretty safe topic with a lot of common ground between us.
simply because they were from Oklahoma. I pointed out the score of the game.
She said that the Cowboys hadn't lost to Kansas since 1972. I reminded her of the score.
"No way," I said. "This sounds familiar. For the last three months, we've been dealing with our own election crisis."
governor's race," she said. "The Republican is a real loser, and the Democrat is a half-wit."
"Well, I've got to tell you, our race is so bad I couldn't imagine anything worse," she said. "They are both giving lip-service to higher education. I'm considering not exercising my right to vote."
"Oh, man, you should see our
Wrong.
Waves of deja vu continued to wash over me. Could it be that just south of the border a bizarre political race exists, paralleling our own?
"I really think that we have worse choices." I said.
"No, we do," she said indignantly.
"Ours are worse."
"Dear."
"We have an independent candi
date who wants to pray for the state budget," I said.
"Our race made the Wall Street Journal, complete with little sketches."
"No way."
"We can't even have a write-in candidate."
"I can't believe it, a race as bad as ours," she conceded. "I've got to handle it to you. things sound pretty awful." And I thought that would you expect from Kansas?
Thinking about what I had done, I came up with the best response I could manage to salvage my pride in Kansas
"Yeah, but at least our football team."
teach Wolf
▶ Brett Brenner is a Wichita senior majoring in journalism and political science.
LETTERS to the EDITOR
Discrimination in ads
While perusing Thursday's Kansan, I came across an advertisement that disturbed my sense of justice. It showed a near complete frontal photograph of a woman wearing a white blouse and garmament. The name of the ensemble, as well as the name and description of the building wherein it could be found, seemed to be a might – well, suggestive. This disturbance in light of the exclosure of a pizza on the basis of its sauciveness.
This is merely a reflection of the sad state of mind that rules those
auto decide what will and will not make up respectable advertisement in the Kansan. I suppose I should stop purchasing Huster magazine magazines and begin collecting the Kansan ads for my pin-ups.
Make no mistake, I'm not offended in the least by the content of the ad. But the management that differentiates identical twins with the judgment, "This one is ugly, but this one isn't," demonstrates the classic pot versus kettle case.
Unjustifiable discrimination in advertisement is as morally unacceptable as racism and probably stems from the same kind of narrow-minded conservatism so prevalent in world society.
KANSAN STAFF
Matthew Stewart Lawrence resident
DEREK SCHMIDT
Editor
KJERSTIN GABRIELSON
TOM EBLEN General manager, news adviser
Editors
News  Julie Mettenberg
Editorial  Mary Neubauer
Planning  Pam Sollin
Campus  Holly Lawton
Sports  Brent Maycock
Photo  Andrew Morrison
Features  Stacy Smith
Campus sales mgr .. Christ Dool
Regional sales mgr .. Jackie Schmalzmier
National sales mgr .. David Price
Co-op sales mgr .. Deborah Salzer
Production mgr .. Missy Miller
Production assistant .. Julie Aklan
Marketing director .. Audra Langford
Creative director .. Gail Einbinder
Business staff
MARGARET TOWNSEND
Business manager
MINDY MORRIIS
Retail sales manager
JEANNE HINES
Sales and marketing adviser
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By Tom Michaud
PSYCHOLOGY 46B: PSYCHOLOGY OF WOMEN:
HISTORY 531: HISTORY OF AMERICAN WOMEN;
SOCIOLOGY 273: WH...
HUH, WHO...
UGH! A MOUNT TIL FINALS.
AND NIGHTMARES ARE ALREADY STARTING!
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