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University Daily Kansan
Opinion
Tuesday, Sept. 10, 1985
Tackle the rumors
The Athletic Department should squelch the rumors by laying the facts on the table: These players are eligible. These players are not. Here's why.
The campus rumor mill churns at full speed these days. For more than a week, secrecy has shrouded the academic eligibilities of eight football players scheduled to play this season.
Six other Big Eight Conference schools came clean more than a week ago. The seventh, Nebraska, won't say anything either way becauseNU officials interpret such a disclosure as an invasion of student rights.
Strangely, the Athletic Department seems satisfied to let the mill turn, heedless of the credibility coach Mike Gottfried's football program loses with each whisper.
"I really can't comment on that," has been the word from coaches and Athletic Department officials on whether the eight, including three starters, will play the rest of the season.
Coaches and officials say the players still may be eligible. But they never follow up by saying why or when they will know each player's status for sure.
As of last week, Iowa State had three football players
ineligible for the season, Oklahoma had one, Oklahoma State had two, Missouri had four, Kansas State had one and Colorado had two.
Just rumors.
But no KU numbers.
The administrator in charge of certifying the players said late last week that the issue was already settled in his mind: All eight are ineligible. It's hard to believe Athletic Department officials and coaches harbor hope of saving the players' eligibilities at such a late hour.
Fans have stood behind the football team in worse times. Last season, 11 players were declared ineligible for academic reasons. And in 1983, the NCAA slapped Kansas football with two years of probation for recruiting violations.
The Athletic Department and the football team should abandon their "no comment" policy. They owe fans, if not an explanation of what happened, at least a list of who's suing up and who's not.
Fans never are happy to learn of such woes. Problems that cause players to lose eligibility and a football team to go on probation insult their years of financial and emotional support.
But worse is leaving the fans in the dark.
William Bennett, secretary of education, said recently that Congress should act to reverse a sharp increase in delinquency on guaranteed student loans. The rate of delinquency rose a full point to 11.7 percent from a year ago.
The costs of default
He is right in asserting the need for steps to enforce loan terms, but the story is not all on the surface.
When students default on such loans, the federal government must pay claims. It is federal backing that makes the loans available at low rates in the first place. Bennett said the department estimated it would pay more than $1 billion in default claims in 1985.
As tuition costs rise and the funds for grants continue to shrink, more students are forced to rely on loans to pay for their educations and to
gamble on their ability to repay them.
Reports show that defaults occur most often in the first years of repayment and among students from low-income backgrounds who attended community colleges or trade schools. This suggests that the meaning of debt is not being conveyed adequately and that people aren't finding decent jobs.
Taxpayers and future loan applicants suffer when loans are not repaid. Forgetfulness, ignorance and address changes do not excuse failure to meet responsibilities.
Students who have loans now should plan their futures with repayment in mind Guaranteed student loans are a bargain, and future students deserve a functioning system, not an insolvent one.
A chance worth taking
A state lottery would be the ticket to help Kansas lawmakers searching for ways to patch up the state's financial crisis.
Proponents predict that the lottery could produce as much as $80 million a year for Kansas.
In April, the Kansas Senate approved a constitutional amendment to create a lottery, but the House failed to act on the resolution. Gov John Carlin recently expressed tentative support for a statewide lottery.
Last year 17 states and the District of Columbia brought in $8 billion in lottery-ticket sales, which added $3 billion in profits to state coffers. Five other states have decided
lotteries might provide a cure for anemic revenues.
Even the federal government is aware of a lottery's potential to increase revenue. Three bills are pending in the House of Representatives to create a national lottery to raise money for social security, Medicare or to help reduce the national deficit.
Lukewarm supporters say the state shouldn't rely on a lottery to bail Kansas out of its fiscal crisis.
A lottery would not be a panacea for the state's revenue problems. But judging from the millions who line up each day to purchase tickets in states that already have a lottery, most Kansans won't mind plunking down a few bucks to put a Band-Aid on an ailing state economy.
Rob Karwath
Editor
Duncan Calhoun Business manager
John Hanna Michael Totty
Managing editor Editorial editor
Lauretta McMillen
Compus editor
Susanne Shaw
General counsel news adviser
General manager, news adviser
Brett McCabe Sue Johnson
Retail sales Campus sales
Megan Burke
National/Co-op sales
John Oberzan
Sales and marketing adviser
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University shines after 9-to-5 job
A year ago I returned to the University. I had graduated in May 1980 with a degree I never really intended to use, worked four years in a job I never planned to keep, and finally decided to get serious about life.
So at the advanced age of 27, I took my seat among the 18- to 21-year-olds to learn to do what I'd always had the desire — not out the dedication — to do. I'll get my s'cond undergraduate degree in December.
After four years, school was different. But the biggest change wasn't in the students or the teachers or the campus — it was in me. A good dose of nine-to-five, five days a week, 50 weeks a year will cure most cases of apathy or nonchalance toward school and all it offers.
As a sophomore I was a pragmatist. How would studying Descartes do me any good? As a junior I swore under my breath as I compared and contrasted the world view of T.S. Eliot with that of Wallace Stevens.
But after only a few months behind a desk in corporate America, shuffling memos from the In basket to the Out basket, I began to crave such intellectual exercise. After droning yet another file summary into my Dictaphone, I longed to break into a discussion of free will vs. predestination.
In a frenzy of frustration, I contemplated holding my letter opener to the receptionist's threat until she interm e expound over the office intercom about the role of primaries in U.S. presidential elections. I sat through department meetings white-knuckled, gripping my chair to keep from leaping onto the conference table and shrieking, "L.HAVE...A.BRAIN!!!!"
A university also offers diversity. When I was younger, I observed with scornful amusement the easily identifiable campus "types": the Greeks in their plains and polo shirts, the hippie holdovers in their berets and "U.S. out of North America" T-shirts, the perpetual graduate students in their properly rumped tweed jackets and skirts.
That was before the world of gray business suits and maroon ties, of navy pumps and black wing tips, of blue button-down oxford cloth shirts. I hadn't seen such conformity since junior high school, when we made frantic phone calls each morning to see what everyone else was wearing.
Now, any urge to laugh at someone's purple jellies or black high-tight sneakers is squelched by the thought of the high heels lurking in my closet, awaiting the day when I again must dress for success and
Guest Shot Sarah J. Nettels
resume the role of the professional.
Perhaps most of all, a university offers teachers. During my first trip through the University, a college education was a product, not a process. The teachers were the guys on the assembly line churning it out. All I had to do was pick up the bits of knowledge that were handed out to get the grades needed to get the credits needed to get the degree needed to get that good job. The teachers were important because they doloed out the grades.
But now I cringe when half my classmates skip a lecture. I shake my head when the guy in the back row asks how many syllables he has to utter in class discussion to get at least a B minus. I want to throttle the woman in the front row who whines because the teacher asks us to rewrite an assignment until we get it right. It isn't that I don't understand I understand all too well
I want to grab them by the collar and yell. How many times in your life will you have intelligent people
wanting to teach you? Interested in your ideas and opinions? Pushing and pulling you to do your best? Work for two weeks under a supervisor who seeks to expand his intellectual horizons by reading Modern Office Equipment Monthly, whose greatest ambition is to rewrite the vacation and sick-leave policy, and those tyrannical teachers will be remembered wistfully.
I realize that some underclassmen take full advantage of their years here. I am aware that some people walk down the Hill at graduation straight into a challenging career they love, to be surrounded by brilliant mentors and an interesting array of colleagues.
I didn't. So here I am again.
Something can be gained from any experience, but I still regret those missent years. I wish I had prepared myself during those first four years here, instead of cramming it into three semesters this late in the game.
But I still have this semester, I plan to be on campus early in the morning and stay until late in the afternoon, because my days at this special place are numbered.
I hear the click, click, click of those high heels behind me, and they're gaining on me fast.
Mailbox
Drugs delude users
We seem to be reaching a curious state of affairs in our world. Truth is becoming garbage, garbage is becoming truth, and illusion is passed off as "reality." And so it goes with Dennis Highberger's notion that "occasional use of psychedelic drugs under the right circumstances can be helpful in expanding our awareness."
I contend this is a Lie of the Greatest Order.
As a former user of pet, cocaine, acid, mushrooms and various other "mind-expanding" drugs, I feel somewhat qualified to deny that drugs open the door to raised consciousness. In my opinion, drug use is an attempt to deny (or recreate) reality.
A popular slogan in the bathroom at Wescoe cateraies state: Reality is for those who can't handle drugs. This appears to be the mentality that Highberger would offer those who look for easy solutions and answers to our complex (and often twisted) society.
The funny thing about this self-deletion is that it's never apparent to those being deluded. They contend that acid trips and visions have put them on a higher plane of reality and existence. But I think that my perspective (as an "ex") is actually a more objective standpoint of reality.
Those who recommend drug use as a means of expanding the consciousness are operating under a delusion of godhood. This delusion says that drugs are a key to releasing the unlimited potential of man. It says all we have to do is "tap in."
Delusion is by no means limited to drugs. A number of students seem to be deluded just as much by a god called money and success. Their idea
of fulfillment is realized in homes and cars and boats.
I think it is also true that many of us need to go "out of Bounds" to find out where we are at. But my advice is to be careful when it comes to drugs. Particularly in respect to psychedelic drugs. These trips, if pursued to their ultimate end, do not lead to enlightenment. They lead only to the grave.
Somebody (maybe Confucius) once said that "there is a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof is death."
I don't wish to be labeled an "anti-drug crusader" based on fear. I just want to issue a word of caution. Things are not always as they seem. I have been there. I don't fear that place. I only know that it's a place of delusion; a place where Lies of the Greatest Order are silently whispered into altered minds.
Tim Erickson Chanute senior
Literacy requirement
What exactly are the requirements for staff columnists? Must they be literate?
Apparently not, as exhibited by a recent column by Kimberley Hurley. The point she tried to make was severely clouded by her unconventional use of the English language. The first paragraph alone contained four periods, a question mark and 14 tenuously related words. There were no sentences. The rest of the article continued in the same fashion. Had it not been for the headline (written, no doubt by the editor), the entire message of the column would have been lost upon us.
It is our understanding that the opinion columns serve to educate the masses while stating the views of the columnist. No one benefits when the style of the writer becomes more important than her theme.
May we suggest to the Kansan that the positions of staff columnist have the same prerequisite as any class in the School of Journalism, namely English 101.
Lizanne Klaverkamp
St. Louis sophomore
K.L. Thorman
Bartlesville, Okia, sophomore
Don't blame mopeds
Due to the terrible amount of joywalking on campus, which endangers campus vehicles and buses. I think that pedestrians should not be allowed on campus. Why, not only are they allowed on campus, they don't even have to pay for a campus pass. I would think that wanny faculty and staff who must pay for a campus pass on top of $52 a year for a blue zone permit. And that is not even mentioning bicycles or prams. Why, we should regulate wheelchairs, too.
As for his other complaints, ($$ fee,
easy access to campus), I think those
who have these complaints will
suddenly lose them if they get a
moped. Think of it: no more back
breaking pedaling up Lawrence's
hills, no more too-long walks to get
to class and best of all, no more
expensive parking permits. So I urge
I am replying to Steve Bradt's Sept. 3 letter, "Mopeds on campus." As I have illustrated above, he used the incorrect argument, "because some members of a group are irresponsible, we should eliminate the whole group."
I know about the problem of some who ride on sidewalks (for no apparent reason. Personally, I get my moped on sidewalks for the sole reason of getting it to parking racks, which are only accessible by sidewalk. Even then, I proceed at walking pace or slower. I agree with Bradt's other legal allegations, but as I implied, that is the fault of the individual, not moped riders as a whole.
all of you, who are jealous of the benefits of mopeds, get one and join in taking advantage of them. Why do you think I got one in the first place?
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia sophomore
Mr. Smith does what he condemns in others in his column on being "Out of Bounds" (Kansan, 9-38). He warns students about people trying influence them with ideas — moral, religious, political etc. — and then goes on to preach a distribe on what I would term "Chameleonism."
No neutral observer
Smith says "ignore the rules and mores when you feel the need. ..." that you should flip-flap your religious beliefs and moral upbringings and that by trying "the other side at least once you'll reinforce your standing view...". This is a very immature and selfish attitude.
Life does not afford such foolish experimentation for all who "try the other side" when the outcome is irreversible. Common sense is learning from those who have been there. I agree with Smith that we should check out the issues at hand, a doctor need not contract cancer to know that it is not good or to know how to treat it.
While Smith wants to appear neutral and wise in his advice, his opinions stand out clearly. He calls someone speaking about God "a maniac", but he feels guilty about not talking long enough with the South Africa Committee and he ridicules a columnist who opposes the use of drugs.
Smith, you advocate neutrality, but
your words give you away. As you
see, there is no "Out of Bounds" —
you are what you think!
Eric Schmidt Lawrence senior