Opinion
Page 4 University Daily Kansan, October 24, 1980
33 124 11
KU nears bush league
Administrators and faculty members are leaving the University of Kansas at almost the same rate that the autumn leaves are falling from the trees.
Ralph Christoffersen, vice chancellor for academic affairs and president-to-be at Colorado State University, is the latest KU official to resign. His soon-to-bacv position is yet another position that the University must fill.
For starters, the University is searching for a new chancellor, not to mention a new director of admissions and records. Also vacant are dean's spots on the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Schools of Business and Architecture and Urban Design.
The reason for the wave of resignations seems to be obvious; the University just doesn't offer competitive salaries. Although former Chancellor Archie R. Dykes was the highest paid official in the Big Eight, studies show that faculty salaries at Regents institutions are as
much as $4,200 less than those in private businesses and as much as $1,000 less than those in peer institutions.
Wait a minute, ladies, it's not nearly as a bad as it seems. Make a brief stop, here in the midst of Women's Week, and have a look around.
KU's high turnover among administrators has slowed the decision-making process at the University, but KU officials are confident that the University can run smoothly despite the temporary vacancies.
Although the University probably will maintain an organized administration, the central question remains unanswered. After all, if salaries are not increased, the resignations are bound to continue. If so, the organizational problems won't be so easy to handle.
Look, what's this amendment here, plodding along slowly, with all but a handful of states behind it. And what's this, some other state? It seems to be in his cabin, they say? What about these pay
The University needs to make salaries one of its highest priorities when it goes to the Kansas Legislature in January.
KU officials say that it's a compliment to KU when other schools seek KU staff members for positions at other universities. That may be true. Yet it's unfortunate that KU is turning into a farm club that is only a step to the big leagues.
Women's movement in U.S. more successful than many
AMY
HOLLOWELL
checks here, Mary's is bigger than John's!
and these course listings, there's more than
40 in Women's Studies and there's even a
decream program? See what's going on?
This, and a lot more. Things are happening for American women and their movement. Ours is the social movement of the 80s, with a focus on vision and potential for international change.
International? Not exactly. Remember that America is the young experimenter, the new-build-testing-ground for ideas unthinkable in the distant old world. Ironically, we have become the unconventional forerunners of institution-clad forefathers across the Atlantic.
From across the sea, French culture is luring and romantic, appealing to the American appetites for wine and the refined, for the artistry of Paris and the French Impressionists. "Ah," we say, "Vive La France!"
So turn around and glance momentarily at the continent, to that bastion of old world elegance and time-tested rites and rituals. Look at France, for example.
But look again. behind this France we think we see, there lies a France buried in oppression. This is a nation steeped in centuries of fear and belief, in religion and social practices.
What a paradox it is that French women are so very far behind their infant American sisters, behind, that is, on the road to equality. What a tragedy it is that a population of women is leading, as Thoreau wrote, lives of quiet desperation.
French women, surprisingly, did not gain the right to vote until after World War II, in 1946, some 26 years after American women. They were meant long leaps forward for French women.
Not until the mid-1970s were divorce and abortion feasible for women in France. And feasible does not mean likely or easy or acceptable. It simply means that the French
government agreed to slightly overlook the stringent commands of the male-oriented Catholic hierarchy, which dominates French culture.
Divorce in America is a snap compared to divorce in France. Until the mid-70s, a woman could not divorce her husband unless she could prove that he was living in their home with her. In 1963, she hand, a man requesting a divorce was not required to prove the same of his wife.
As American women struggle to keep the right to opt for abortion, they should perhaps realize that elsewhere that right barely exists. In France, due of course to the heavy taxes and public pressure, it is expensive and nearly impossible. Whereas in America abortions are allowed up to the 13th week of pregnancy, in France, they are not given after six weeks, and then only if the woman has statements from two doctors asserting that her pregnancy is hazardous to health. The amount money is not available to fund abortions, even for the poor, as in the United States.
There are no women in high government posts in France. There is no equal rights amendment. There is no apolitical women's movement. In a patriarchal culture, dominated by and linked deeply to Catholicism, French women are thought of, as first, mothers and second, wives. If they work, it is not supposed to be for money.
In French higher education, the only Women's Studies degree program was cancelled this year by the government, which finances all universities and colleges in France. At the University of Paris-Sorbonne a master's degree was taught this summer, the first course of its kind to be offered in the institution's seventh-century existence.
The instructor who will teach that course is a visiting professor at the University of Kansas in the department of French and Italian, Blayne Dejon-Jones. Next semester he will take his own course at KU. The course will examine the evolution of women's literature in France.
At first the department here was reluctant to offer the course because, they said, women's literature was not "genuinely French."
But, Dez-Jones argues, it will be. If a course such as hers can succeed on the American testing ground, she says, it will be much more difficult to success on the more virgin French scene.
So, ladies, what is happening here, now, far across the ocean from the old country, is crucial, and although the fight, the road, seems endless, remember that the end is miles farther from Europe than it is from here.
The University Daily KANSAN
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Dear Calvin Klein .
AN OPEN LETTER TO CALVIN KLEIN,
N AN OPEN LETTER TO VANDERBILT AND SERGIO
VALENTI
Like a lot of the people who write letters to Dear Abbey, I never thought I'd be writing this letter. But it's Women's Week '80 at the University of Kansas, and it seems to me that the work your jeans have done has gone too long without the praise and comment it deserves.
With a couple of yards of cloth and a few strategically placed stitches, you have made it all right for women to be thought of as sex objects once again.
Of course, it may not be socially acceptable to say so, but it appears to be true. Oh, sure, even the most ardent feminist can choose to display herself from underneath your patterns from paradise—and her beliefs won't be diminished in the least.
But to the average red-blooded American male, especially those of us with a little Latin mixed in, your clothes are interrupting what the feminists are trying to say.
Now don't get me wrong; I think it's terrific.
You would not believe the number of times a dreary day has been brightened by the sight of your creations put to good use. Suffice it to say it's been quite often. Even if I've just received a good chewing out of a feminist-oriented female, everything's OK when she turns around and walks away in your jeans.
I don't even think you have undermined the feminist movement by dressing women in a fashion that men like and desire. Well, not much, anyway. I mean, let's not kid ourselves. That female nuclear physicist who looks like Faye Dunauail will still draw more attention for her
appearance than for the briefcase she's carrying filled with her Nobel-caliber research.
Old ways die hard, but thanks to you, the skids have been greased a little, as it were.
For all its rhetoric and ideals, widespread feminism has been made more palatable to the male masses by having your jeans as a semi-common denominator. Today's women are more independent, more assertive and, as a result, probably more intelligent than their foremothers 50 years ago. But by wrapping their assets in such flatteringly sung clothing they are as much as saying, 'Hey, I can be equal and sexy at the same time!'
As obvious as this viewpoint should be, the idea did not really appear on a widespread basis until you entered the scene in full force. The disco craze was a big help, too, although the musical side-effects caused nausea in many listeners. But when the smoke finally cleared, the survivors were wearing your jeans proudly, with nary a thought about what they represented.
So here we are in the 1980s, when every woman has the right to act as she pleases, despite the presence of any feminist ideals that might be trying to project, or actually is projecting, may be trying to project, or actually is projecting.
In some women, this manifests itself to the point of hypocrisy and is the only reason I've ever had to curse your product. But hey, you guys have no control over who wears your pants, aside from a few physically restricted sizes of people. Thus any women, regardless of race, national origin or feminist creed, can look terrific.
I don't lift this against them, either. I think it's kind of amusing that those who want us to think of their minds are so adept at exploiting their bodies.
Well, I've got to cut this short. Here at the University of Kansas we have a place called Wesco Beach, and because it's a sunny day, it should be a good place to watch the feminists walk by. Thanks again, and good luck in the new season.
Letters to the Editor
To the editor:
CIA flvers show lack of class, concern
Recently some flyers have appeared on campas that attack several KU faculty members for their alleged relationships to the Central Intelligence Agency. These professors, the Flyers say, are "intellectual mercenaries" who are "masquaringed as scholars" while they serve the interests of American corporate imperialism and are threatened by individualsCLUDEby stating that these individuals are not appreciated (i.e., not welcome at the University of Kansas.
Such charges are, of course, quite serious under any circumstances, but they seem particularly grave since they appear in an unsigned document for which no one can be held legally accountable. This anonymity may prove to be fortunate for the author(s), because the charges remain against specific individuals may contain distortions of fact that many courts might find libelous.
The fliers may, of course, be considered objective on many other grounds as well. Close readers will surely note the text's spelling errors, imaginative use of capitalization and tendency to attribute events to the wrong year in example. Mossaqe was overtaken in 1953, not 1961.
My main concern, however, pertains to matters more important than any fetish for good English grammar or the proper memorization of dates.
The flyers do not maintain that the professors actually committed any crimes. Indeed, the text includes an admission that the accused did not commit any crimes. But through the genitales of prisoners. But the flyers do insist that the faculty members are responsible for such misdeeds simply because of their alleged relationships to the CIA, no matter how insignificant or innocent those links might have
This argument is tantamount to the imputation of guilt by association, a tactic of political rhetoric which sadly has become quite fashionable of late. According to this argument,
anyone in any manner connected at any time with any institution, agency or office could be condemned because of the abuse of the leitimate powers of those entities.
Resorting to this tactic can and does appear somewhat silly when examined closely. For example, in this instance, blame for the death of Karen Silkwilk is obliquely attributed to faculty members who may have done nothing more dastardly than discuss expected Soviet grain harvests with CIA personnel (as well as with anybody else who might care to listen).
Undoubtedly, none of those named in the flyer would deny that political figures have abused the powers of the CIA. But they probably also would assert, as most Americans would, that the CIA does perform needed functions. Perhaps they did not contribute to the CIA's ability to perform those functions. If so, they should be openly and fairly criticized. They should not be attacked by anonymous character assassins. Those who use such tactics incite a great deal of anger, but they do not make our world any more just. Of course, justice may not be their principle concern.
James C. Clinger
James C. Ginger
Lawrence graduate student
True salvation
To the editor:
Jesus desires us to come to Him freely, giving Him our whole lives, which, in turn, he redems, renews and regenerates. He gives him back to use marvelously made whole.
Jesus' gospel is the "Good News" of joy and peace. He said He came not as a thief to steal, kill and destroy, but that we might have life (through Him) and have it abundantly (John 10:10). Our identity is not lost when we turn from our current position; our identity is only then found.
Kevin Helliker has painted a very negative picture of Christians, describing their Savior and his salvation. Truly, the Gospel, without an image of Jesus, is on the cross as an expression of His intense love
for us, is undoubtedly similar to a two-legged table—it just won't stand.
Yet a gospel of love that lacks truth is a table that lacks support on the other side. God desires an intimate relationship with men. Yet God, being completely righteous, as well as loving, can't have a relationship with a man or woman who has fallen into sin.
The Bible says, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). For God to compromise this standard, he would have to compromise His holiness. Just as water once polluted by poison is no longer drinkable, so God, likewise, cannot accept man into his Presence when contaminated by lethal sin (for the wages of sin is death, Romans 6:23).
As poison defies pure water, so does sin similarly cast down the demi-god of Helliker's "heroic man." But rather than create our own imaginative and I grant you, Helliker, you have been imaginative), mystical romanticism, we can turn to the "Good News" and reality of Jesus Christ, who with His own blood, brought our freedom.
This must be understood—He has brought our salvation. No spiritual pushups or self-righteousness can win God's favor. God's favor is a gift and cannot be earned.
The full life of joy and peace can only come through the source of life Himself, Jesus Christ. He said, "He who has found his life shall lose it and he who finds his life for my sake shall find it!" (Matthew 10:38)
Helliker, the awe of life and truth go together.
Do not exclude the latter to find the former.
table takes four legs to stand. Without truth, our
mystical reflections do not have wings to fly.
Earthbound, life's speculum becomes twisted and tainted, where evil is good and good is evil and where pride's vacuum sucks another victim, "God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the unprudent." The earth is therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you at the proper time (1 Peter 5:8).
Chuck Vanasse Overland Park senior