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Opinion
Page 4 University Daily Kansan, November 7, 1980
Kill it before it spreads
Death squads don't belong on college campuses. Foreign students do. And they have a right, even as temporary residents of the United States, to freedom from fear.
The shooting of an anti-Khadafy Libyan student at Colorado State University was only a splinter in a forest of horrifying, proliferating international terrorism. What was more tragic than the act itself, however, the apparent lack of concern it generated at the school and in the media媒.
Perhaps, after more than a year of the hostage crisis, after countless hijackings and political imprisonments, the nation has grown used to the sounds of fighting, the sight of blood. Perhaps it was that learned nonchalance that prompted the relative silence about the Colorado attack.
The victim of that shooting is on the way to recovery. But the next victim might not be so lucky.
the next victim also might be closer to home. He or she might be a lab partner, a roommate, a friend from across the Pacific.
The Colorado shooting may be investigated. The wheels of government and administration have begun to turn in reaction. That is as it should be.
But KU officials and local law enforcement personnel should take note and work to prevent such a shooting here by taking a long look at the foreign student situation before it's too late.
Noisy demonstrations and counterdemonstrations are one thing. Noisy gun reports are another.
Pre-enrollment time at hand without big KU expense
The list of complaints about the archaic University of Kansas enrollment system is as long as the lines in Allen Field House every August and January.
In August, the field house is a sweltering place where long waits are answered by beleaguered staff members saying, "That section is filled." Message: More legal news...
More agony. More long lines.
The computer age has long had computer answers for KU's enrollment mess. Some are expensive and elaborate, others economical and simple.
For a decade, the idea of computerized enrollment has been tossed around the campus. But it's always been, "Well, not next semester, or next year, but soon." In 1979, an $85,000 scholarship was reopened and was rejected by Chancellor Archie R. Dykes because it required a student fee increase.
So now the question is still up in the air, with no concrete plans or proposals on paper. If a computerized enrollment decision were made in the year before students could take advantage of it.
Some hope lies in the Student Senate's current work on a petition to recommend some kind of specific computerized enrollment plan. It at least indicates the subject is being discussed.
At an Oct. 29 Senate forum on the subject, an interchange between David Ambler, vice
SCOTT FAUST
chancellor for student affairs, and Lawrence Sherr, professor of business, provided a glimpse of the details and advantages of a specific computerized enrollment plan.
The plan Ambler outlined would use existing KU computer equipment. It would require students to meet with their advisers and fill out their applications. Ambler plans to semester, and possibly for the entire next year.
Students or advisers would drop the cards off to be read by a scan-scoring machine now used for grading tests. The computer would match the schedules against available sections, with the objective of giving students the classes they wanted when they wanted them. Students would be given an online schedule, or work out any problems in them. Fee payment could be done by mail or in person.
For starters, this system would take a burden
off students, because the computer would be doing the field house jockeying for them. Taking a number-two pencil and filling in the right dots easily beats an anxious, last-minute search through the timetable. Also the system could conceivably be run on a first-come, first-serve basis, with no letter schedule to doom some to the captain fate of a Saturday morning chemistry lab.
The number and size of sections needed for a semester could be anticipated months in advance, not the weekend before the first day of classes.
Ambler told the senators that computerized enrollment was a "management tool" that would "help better plan the use of the University's resources."
Other benefits would include the elimination of some of the non-class days on the University calendar, more accurate bookstore ordering with reduced excess inventories and an imminent reduction in the University would have more time to work out the problems of students who didn't enrol.
Scherr, and presumably others, oppose computerized enrollment on a cost-benefit basis. Indeed, spending $100,000 on a new elaborate system of dispersed computer terminals for students to plan their schedules would be an unjustified expenditure.
This, the kind of plan presented in 1979, was wisely rejected. Although it would have allowed first-try completion of schedules, there were simply too many better ways to spend that money than to eliminate four days of enrollment hassles.
Any improvement is going to cost something, so costs must be minimized. According to Amber, the University already bears most of the costs of a scan-scoring plan. New programming and cards would be needed, but many of the additional costs would be covered by the savings from the elimination of the current enrollment system.
Ambler estimates the system would not cost more than $16,000 in additional funds. Less than 3 percent of KU's budget is now spent on student loans that would cost 400 increase would not significantly alter that.
Undeniably, with any enrolment system, someone must go first and someone must go last. Those 7:9 a.m. sections will not go away. But the scan-sensing plan offers a moderately pricey alternative to the last-minute field house frezy KU struggles with.
The time for running endless pre-enrollment ideas up the flagpole is past. It's obvious that many people would gladly salute a cost-effective computerized enrollment plan.
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Tor Bantor '80
Kansan, Senate feud KU tradition
By JOE BARTOS Guest Columnist
It seems tragic when two organizations that serve students are locked in destructive conflict. But this fall, the University of Chicago and the University Daily Kampan were at it again.
As a former student senator and a past and present Kansan staff member, I've had the chance to view this controversy from both sides. Each year a ritual of misunderstanding transpires, with damage done to the role of president Kansan. It is different. Once again, the Kansan's attempts to provide incisive criticism of Student Senate were off the mark, lacking a grasp of Senate's problems or a scope of the issues involved. Likewise, the responses by the student body president, vice president and senators also were off the mark, lacking understanding of the Kansan's constitution or the role of the president as role. Thus, the pattern of misunderstanding continues in large questions about the performance and nature of each group.
Student Senate is a body faced with an immense job. In addition to administering a budget of over $800,000 dollars each year, the Senate must provide a voice for students in the governance of the University. The resources of Student Senate are small compared to the administrative and legislative staff and also artificially large of a university the size of KU is a huge task. In many ways, Student Senate has met these challenges. To its credit, Senate has maintained student control over the activity fee and effectively administered its distribution, bringing a wealth of student activities and services to our campus. The committee hearings and marathon budget meetings demonstrate dedication by our senators. Furthermore, an experienced, hard-working nucleus of senators keeps the Senate functional. University committees and on campus as a whole. This small core of dedicated senators is Student Senate's strength. It is also a weakness.
A small nucleus of senators carrying on the affairs of Senate means too much work for too few people. Also, the tendency of such a core to be composed of like-minded individuals brings with it a certain lack of perspective, which is a major reason behind Senate's inability to recognize and solve many of its other problems. Foremost among these is its lack of any real political power on campus. The administration, faculty and Board of
Regents listen politely to Student Senate, but when any real contest of power occurs, as in 1978 over the funding of women's athletics, there is no doubt who runs the show. Student input on University committees is minimal and student representatives are outmanned and often outclassed. Besides this lack of political power, Student Senate has internal problems, as anyone who has gone to many full Senate meetings can attest. Lack of attendance, apathy and confusion among senators at meetings, parliamentary squabbles and entanglements, and improperly researched or prepared bills are just a matter of time and must be addressed with. On top of all this, voter apathy demonstrates Student Senate's lack of contact with or the support of the student body. Obviously, these are problems that will require a lot of input before they are resolved; input Senate now lacks.
This is where the Kansan fits in and where it has been negligent. The paper should provide comprehensive coverage and analysis of University events and issues. The Kansan falls short of this goal. Campus news coverage is deficient in range and pertinence while campus editors lack depth and perspective. This results partially from the dual nature of the Kansan, which functions both as a campus newspaper and as a journal. The paper is designed to meet the informational needs of its campus audience and to provide professional journalistic training for its staff. When the two conflict, the compromise strikes between them often means a decline in areas of campus news and commentary. But this same professional orientation brings to the paper excellence in other areas such as style and organization. With the William Allen White School of Journalism behind it, the Kansan is a top-notch college newspaper with a long tradition of quality. Although each new semester brings with it a new staff of varying size, the number of journalists counted on to exhibit a number of good reporters, writers, editors, photographers or artists. And despite the disadvantages of a student staff, the Kansan is a very readable and informative daily newspaper.
It is important when evaluating two student organizations like the Kansan and Student Senate to keep in mind the disadvantages they do face. College class loads and incomplete abilities are problems that both groups must cope with. Time demands and imperfect skills combine for a lot of mistakes, a fact each group should consider when the next controversy arises between them. Perhaps a poorly reasoned editor orally
prepared bill then would seem less outrageous. They also should consider the nature of the environment in which they exist. A university can be a very demanding audience and contain a number of harsh critics. Placed in the perspective of the high demands placed on students with limited time, ability and maturity, many of the problems of the Kansan and Student Senate can be understood.
But there is a common, fundamental problem that cannot be understood. It is demonstrated by superficial editorials and petty politics, by insensitive news coverage and poorly attended Senate meetings. This problem is the greatest obstacle that the Kansan and StudentSenate face, a trouble they share with the rest of our student body as children of a selfish decade. And that is a self-centered attitude that rules today's campus. This attitude is at the core of many student problems, for it spawns apathy and selfishness and poisoning. Self-concern has a proper place in our lives, but the current mood of self-absorption is a disease. It has infected our students and consumed our spirit.
Seen in this light, one gains a new perspective on the defects of Student Senate and the Kansan. Self-occupied students don't have the time to research issues or reform policies but can do better with broader perspective on our problems. The spirit of altruism will have to be revived before either group can overcome its troubles. The results of the revival will be plain to see. Senate politics will become facilitators of student desires and opinions rather than their embodiment, which they now vainly seek to be. Student Senate will learn about the benefits of its members that it so desperately needs. Perhaps even the seemingly incurable problem of student apathy could be solved. And the Kansan will become a true campus newspaper because the staff will care enough about K.U. and the world around them to seek the knowledge and gain the perspective that students must understand the traversy between these two groups will abate when each realize their separate role and common identity as student organizations.
I sincerely hope this happens. For it has always seemed that young minds and an adult world should combine to create the finest attitudes in our society. If this spirit is dead at our University, then I fear for more than just Student Senate or the Kansan.
Joe Bartos is a Boulder, Colo., senior in visual communications.
Letters to the Editor
Oil war theory oversimplifies draft issue
To the editor:
In his editorial of Oct. 13 on registration for the draft, Scott Faust says the all-volunteer Army can work, but . . . leave it to somebody else do the volunteering.
The individuals and groups who continue to depict military service as anathema clearly are not speaking for those of us who have undergone the experience.
The non-battle cry of young men of draft age today seems to be, "I don't want to die for a barrel of oil; I don't want to fight for my neighbor's car or drive a car that gets five miles to a gallon."
Such a ridiculous oversimplification shows the lack of comprehension of this complex issue.
The fact remains that, in effect, we do have conscription today-conscription by poverty, a fact which makes conscription during the Vietnam War appear representative by comparison. The U.S. has guided the least advanced the American system are engaged to be first in the line of fire to save it.
Attention-getting emotional statements and demonstrations are hardly representative of our society as a whole. A recent Harris survey shows that more than 90 percent of Vietnam-era veterans say they are glad they served their country, regardless of the outcome in Vietnam.
There is something dishonorable and decadent about Americans skirting their moral obligations to defend the nation by jobbing it out, in effect, on a mercenary basis.
That wondrous idea of a decade ago, the all-volunteer Armv, has failed since its inception to
provide a representative cross-section of the population in terms of ethnic background, education and job skills. By 1985, the Pentagon projec- tion that the Army will have 50 percent black.
The decline in the educational level of enlistees is occurring at a time when weaponry is becoming increasingly sophisticated. The services need technicians now more than just able bodies who can, as Faust says, "fire an M-16 or pull a grenade pin." The low rate of training of qualified skilled technicians is caused largely by the lack of training for firearms. Faust's fault, adequate compensation alone will not offset the sacrifice in lifestyle to make the military appealing enough as a career.
Detente has added to the moral confusion, especially when juxtaposed with Vietnam, in an attitude of "why do we need the draft if we are being peace and cooperation through detente"?
The finality of a nuclear confrontation
These are serious problems. But the draft vs. all-volunteer Army controversy goes much furthur.
Those espousing the one-dimensional "oil bar view" typify the "me generation" attitude in which patriotism has become unfashionable. Their views on military service sourced from the nightly television accounts from Vietnam. Their social vision amounts to an individual passion to be comfortable and secure. For them, Vietnam has legitimized resistance and non-participation.
ultimately reduces all military activity at the troop level to utter insignificance. Those who are against a draft say there won't be anything left to fight for.
It is precisely by keeping the conventional warrior strong that we can avoid nuclear confrontation.
The lessons of Vietnam should not be the basis for a total rejection of military service. The times are not like those of the late 60s and early 70s, the appropriate moral response is different.
The Soviet forces today far exceed the Nazi threat of the 1930s in terms of armament, training and readiness. To pretend that these forces are the main threat to the survival of liberty is to live in a dream world.
The draft controversy raises the deepest issues of American citizenship about the obligations it places on us.
It is ironic that, in a period of increasingly commoditious, one of the scarcest is the spiked oil.
The greatest risk of war is incurred by allowing even encouraging our adversary to undermine us.
Service to country will not be restored to respectability until America again embraces the military as a representative outgrowth of its entire self rather than as a pool of someone else's children who can be bought off like Hesians to perform the duty work of our democracy.
David M. Gosoroski Shawnee senior