Opinion
Page 4 University Daily Kansan, September 10, 1980
Enrollment on upswing
Doomday predictors have long been saying that universities and colleges across the country are heading toward deep troubles. After all, college enrollment is expected to stagnate decline in the academic institutions will face financial dilemmas.
But so far, the University of Kansas has escaped this perilous fate. In fact, preliminary enrollment for a new program showed a slight increase from last fall's record enrollment.
While some institutions find themselves scroungling for money, KU has started off the 1980s by breaking its enrollment records.
And to be sure, enrollment figures are extremely important to a university. It is not a matter of whether "My school is bigger than your school," to a significant degree, enrollment figures dictate a university's allocations from the legislature.
Most of the University's schools had increased enrollments this fall. A few schools registered declines, but the drops all were negligible. In all, the University counted a 162-student increase. Final enrollment figures will be compiled after the 20th day of classes.
The increase isn't earthshaking but it probably means another healthy legislative appropriation for KU.
However, as the last products of the baby boom step up to receive their diplomas in the next few years, the trend toward record enrollment certainly won't take long to be reversed.
But given the latest enrollment figures, the University seems to be in a healthy state. Although enrollment drops cannot be prevented in the future, it appears the University won't suffer substantial decreases once the enrollment crunch begins.
Writing overcomes sadness, loneliness and life's rejections
To be a writer is something special. It is to reach, however awkward, for the stars and to move, however haltingly, in their direction. To write is the professional both, writing is something special.
in fact, I love writers. No one makes even a tiny attempt to be a writer unless he has
FRED MARKHAM
something hidden in his heart that possibly he does not even recognize—some little, relentless, inspiring glow that makes him uneasy the way young love makes one uneasy.
I wanted to become a writer because I saw more to life than the grayness around me. I yearn to be a person who does more than eats and live in an open world, with warm fingers, moving and enchanting them.
What is this thing a writer must communicate to feel complete? It is his personal view of the world, of life we all face. In our lives, we all have our own hearts and minds. It is life filtered through the personal
To start to write is to start to live because you begin to observe, pity, love,爱和 sing. I welcome everyone who sat down to a sheet of blank paper would ponder this. A writer tries to communicate that which can never quite be communicated in words. You must communicate in words and closer to his goal of transforming a white piece of paper into a colorful, lively set of words.
heart and mind of an individual that is important to writing.
It does not matter whether an author is writing about his family or a first spring violet; what is essential to his composition is his own personal involvement in the subject. To observe life, to dig into it, to taste it and to smelt it so as to write about it, is to become more capable of living.
I have no special equipment to be a writer. In my youth, I was shy, poor, severely handicapped with cerebral palsy, and lonesome. I had to do my writing while sitting at home, picking away at five words per minute using a stylus strapped around my head.
I used an electric portable typewriter, which my parents gave me when I was about 10 years old. For years, I had no encouragement, except from my family.
I was afraid of life and of people. Yet I kept forcing myself to know them, to love them, to be with them and then to write about them. The more I knew them, the more I felt of them and the more warmth I felt for them.
Sometimes I felt I couldn't stand the years of neglect and loneliness. Possibly you have written a few stories and sat glumly at the window, watching the rain. It might encourage you to know that some of the best writers in the world are people who work on their careers to wallpaper their bedrooms. Every writer feels the pangs of rejection at one time or other.
This early struggle took a long time for me to overcome. But most of us will find our dignity, and we will have the ability to put into words most of the things we feel deeply. There are no corners in the world where someone's heart cannot be touched.
I don't get disturbed by rejection slips anymore. They do not imply a lack of merit. In fact, they can be very helpful.
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Industrial states may swing election
B. JOHN M. MORIARTY
BOSTON-The nominations of President Carter and Ronald Reagan leave little doubt that the November election will be fought and won in the industrial states of the Northeast and Midwest. Such a prospect offers regional organizations a unique opportunity to have their regional economic agendas addressed by Carter, Reagan, and John Anderson.
New York Times Special Features
The emerging campaign strategies show that the industrial Northeast-Midwest is in a strong position to make political demands on the presidential candidates.
Reagan's strategies are confident that they will carry most states west of Texas. The Republicans also believe that Carter's grip on the Deep South can be loosened, and a special session of Congress is needed Louisiana and Florida, where Republics have been consistently gaining ground.
For their part, the Carter forces will to help their own in what has been the pro-Carter South. An attempt also will be made to prey on California's residents, who now hold a sizable lead in both states.
The election therefore will be won in the urban industrial states of the Northeast and Midwest, where discontent with both candidates was amply demonstrated in the primary elections. That this part of the country is also the home of independent candidate Anderson adds still further to the region's importance to the election.
Often referred to as the Frost Belt, the 18 industrial states reaching from Maine to Minnesota to Maryland account for 241 electoral votes—only 29 short of the number needed for election to the presidency. This point is not lost on the political leaders of the region who have been forced to adopt a special approach to the region's many economic illions.
In the face of an alarming economic decline, the political leaders of the industrial belt have organized around a series of economic issues that affect all 18 states.
Potent and enduring coalitions have been
formed in the House of Representatives, the Senate, and among region's governors. The level of disagreement among them is surprisingly small. It is as if the vaunted Southern "buddy" Republican has lost ground with the shift of economic adversity from the once-north to the industrial cities of the North.
There is near-unanimity among the region's governors and members of Congress on what the federal government must do to help these once-prosperous states turn the tide of economic
Big-ticket items such as federal assumption of welfare costs, federal aid for the replacement of aging water and sewer lines, a strong jobs program and the adjustment of federal funding to address the cost of living into account all find broad-based, bipartisan support in the industrial belt.
That this sizable block of votes increasingly speaks with the people of comfort comfort at home, making them look toward Now.
The region's economic concerns can clearly become factors in who becomes the next president, and organizations such as the 213-member Northeast-Midwest Congressional Coalition could easily shape the upcoming presidential debates by inviting the candidates to put forth their views on these and other vital economic concerns.
Although the candidates would want to avoid pitching their campaigns to any one region, they would be foolish to sidestep the pressing questions that face the industrial states.
The region feels neglected, and the way in which the candidates respond to its vital concerns will be as important to the voters as the answers that are given.
Neither of the two leading presidential candidates can point to an urban populist past, a fact that looms large in the minds of the disaffected urban poor and those elected to represent them.
Both major candidates were governors, but neither initiated a strong urban revitalization program during their state-house years.
The people of the industrial Northeast and Midwest and their elected representatives should make every effort to find out how they might by laying the next president before they go to the polls.
Although Carter deserves more credit for coming to the aid of urban America during his presidency but he typically gets, he has seen it as a chance to co-elite on a number of items that head their list.
H
This may indeed be one of the few remaining opportunities that the region will have to deal the cards. With the reduction in congressional representation expected as a result of the 1980 census, the region's powerful electoral position might be significantly diminished for the foreseeable future.
Carter's lack of passion on these issues perhaps had some bearing on his primary election losses in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Connecticut and Rhode Island—states that together account for more than one-third of the electoral votes he needs to win. He's not much better in these states, but he wisely chose as his running mate George Bush, who did.
John M. Moriarty, former executive director of the Northeast-Midwest Congressional Coalition, is director of federal-state relations for Massachusetts.
The coalitions that have been formed in the House and Senate to protect the region's interests could render a great service to their cause, their constituency and the presidential candidates themselves by inviting the contestants to formally present their views. In so doing, the congressional leaders are helping to call for full, and force the candidates to address the issues that clearly will have an impact on the people of this region over the next four years.
Reagan and Anderson could easily gain political milage by speaking to the region's true leadership.
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