4A - THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
OPINION
THURSDAY. SEPT. 6. 2001
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CLAY MCCUISTION/KANSAN
EDITORIAL
False fire alarms pose threat in campus housing
Three Seton Hall University students died in a dormitory fire and 58 were injured in January 2000. The lack of fire sprinklers in the Seton Hall dormitory contributed to the tragedy, but another contributing factor hits close to home for students living in campus housing at the University of Kansas.
At Seton Hall, as at the University, a tremendous number of false fire alarms had caused unresponsiveness among students. The students who died or were injured decided to wait out the alarm in their rooms instead of evacuating the building. The decision was deadly.
It's fall and Kansas' residence halls are full of students again. Which means that late at night, when a student decides it would be funny to pull the fire alarm and wake everybody up, some students opt to go back to sleep, finish studying or stay inside to avoid the rain — instead of evacuating the building. This distrust of fire alarms could lead to a tragedy like the one that happened at Seton Hall.
PERSPECTIVE
The University has taken steps to ensure fire safety, but it must take one more and install video cameras in student housing so those who set off false fire alarms can be identified. Those caught setting off the alarms must be punished.
Every year, the Lawrence Fire Department talks to students in residence halls about the dangers of crying wolf. If the department is busy chasing after late night jokes, reaction to other fires in the city is slower. And the department worries that students don't take the alarms seriously when they sound.
The Department of Housing has installed sprinklers in residence halls and plastic covers over fire alarms in McCollum Hall to deter students from tampering with them. A fire alarm will sound if the plastic cover is lifted.
But these measures have not been successful. Grospitch said the department had considered using cameras placed by the alarms — most of which are in hallways — to identify students who sound the false alarms, but decided not to because of concerns of invading students' privacy. Cost, he said, was not a deciding factor.
But repercussions for those who set off alarms seem hazy. Eric Grospitch, assistant director of student housing who is in charge of Jayhawk Towers, said the housing department disciplines people who sound false alarms as much as possible. He said punishments range from putting the student on probation to asking him to leave housing.
Andy Davies for the editorial board.
How much would the parents of students who died at the Seton Hall fire have paid to stop false alarms? Surely they would have approved of the $1,000 price tag that a video camera carries if it would have detered students from sounding alarms when there wasn't a fire.
Students in campus housing deserve the right to a good night's rest and a proper study environment. And nobody should be hiding in a closet when a fire spreads through a residence hall.
Corporate influence thwarts ideals of higher education
Many students come to college with the impression that the next four or five years will essentially be job training. They are taught that college is a place to discover a job to do after graduation and that classes will provide job training. This expectation of education continues to dominate higher education and equates people with resources at the disposition of government and corporations.
This job training approach to college is in many ways corrupting the purpose of the university. The trend toward a corporate takeover of our schools is in conflict with Thomas Jefferson's ideal university. Jefferson's ideal university was based on "the illimitable freedom of the human mind to explore and to expose every subject susceptible of its contemplation." The university should provide a safe haven where students can gather, debate, read and think freely.
Yet it is precisely the freedom that universities are intended to provide that frightens many protectors of the status quo. In 1950, Rep. Harold Velde of Illinois, speaking to the House of Representatives, spoke about his opposition to mobile library service to rural areas. "The basis of communism and socialistic influence is education of the people," Velde said. Although that warning was spoken in the unique climate of the Cold War, it was not the first time in history that education inspired fear among those who wanted to keep the existing distributions of power and wealth intact.
Today we face a new challenge. Never before have a few corporations controlled as many resources and as
Commentary
Kyle Browning
Guest columnist opinionakansan.com
much power as they do today. Corporations such as Exxon-Mobile and General Motors control more wealth than entire countries. Ronnie Dugger states in Campus,Inc. that after inflation between 1990 and 1998, the average worker's pay eased up 5.5 percent while the average CEO's pay increased 420 percent. Dugger also points out that in 1999, the world's 475 billionaires had more wealth among them than the combined incomes of half the people on earth. Wealth and power is highly concentrated among a relatively small segment of the population.
In a more recent trend, corporations are scrambling to invest their newfound wealth in the university system. According to the Center for the Analysis of Commericalism in Education, the percentage change since 1999 in the number of U.S. public schools run by private companies has been 111 percent.
U. S. and Canadian universities made almost $600 million from licenses and research sold to corporations in 1996, and products created from university research generated about $25 billion in that year. In the United States, CEOs of corporations are the largest single group of trustees of universities. Marriott is the food contractor for more than 500 campuses, and Coke and
Pepsi fight over exclusive rights to sell their beverages on campuses. Barnes and Noble manages more than 340 campus bookstores.
Corporations want to turn students into consumers, education into training for jobs and professors into researchers for profit. Financial considerations have redefined educational priorities, reduced the importance of teaching, degraded the integrity of academic journals and determined what research is conducted at many universities.
The social costs of corporate influence at universities have been lower-quality education, a reduction in academic freedom when professors are pressured to research in certain areas, and, in effect, the transfer of resources from the public to the private sector. Although most college students are 18 or older and therefore have all the constitutional rights of citizens, many university's regents or trustees and their hired administrators rely on students being too busy going to class, studying and just living to worry about how their university is run.
We must prove them wrong.
A university for hire is not a university at all. It should not be a corporate personnel training agency, a research subcontractor, a business or an instrument for oppressing unwelcome facts and opinions.
We must struggle to reverse many of the current trends in higher education and we must fight for our university. After all, to fight for something is to make it your own.
Kyle Browning is a senior in political science from Lawrence.
PERSPECTIVE
Kudos to the cafeteria's fine delights
like fine wine or Mandy Moore, one of the few things that improve with age is the quality of the school cafeteria. As I got older, my classmates got stranger, my classes became longer and the tests became harde. But I always found that the variety of food got better. I am writing in praise of the Market in the Kansas Union.
With a variety of choices such as Mexican food, Pizza Hut, a carvery, a hamburger grill and a salad bar, it is truly the greatest cafeteria in the history of my schooling career.
Yes, there are days I wish I were back in elementary school — back when my days included eating lunch, playing lightning at recess and watching Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? (a severely underdressed show) every day.
But thinking back to terms like "Beefy Tomato Mac" and "Manager's Choice" makes me rethink my decision. Those were some of the things that weren't so great about elementary school.
Marc Ingber
Columnist opinionekansan.com
Commentary
In junior high, the variety got a little better. The cafeteria now boasted a snack line, where I could buy bagels, pretzels and a Sunny Delight every day for the three years I was there. And the cherry on top was that every Friday, I was able to get a Pizza Hut personal pan pizza. Not to mention that Friday was also the day I played Pogs with my friends after school, and you get the best day of the week without a diggity doubt.
In high school, things only got better. There was a sandwich bar, vending machines and pizza every day of the week. So naturally I expected the cafeteria at the University to be even better.
Last year, as a freshman, the cafeteria in the Union was good, and this year's even better. The Market has a new name and some new choices to give it bigger variety. Some of the new additions are a Burger King, a sub stand and a Freshens Smoothie stand.
Thankfully, I wasn't let down in the slightest.
Having a cafeteria in the Union is a great luxury. It's a lot easier to make a trip to the Union between classes rather than to go all the way home. Besides, it has a better variety than my lunch at home, which consists of peanut butter and bread (the only thing I know how to make).
Throughout my entire life the food services have gotten better as I've gotten older. The Market in the Kansas Union is keeping the streak alive. I can only imagine what my nursing home is going to serve.
Marc Ingber is a sophomore from Golden Valley, Minn.
Free for All callers have 20 seconds to speak about any topic they wish. The Kansan reserves the right to edit submissions, and not all of them will be published. Slanderous statements will not be printed. For more comments, go to www.kansan.com.
FOR MORE COMMENTS, GO TO WWW.KANSAN.COM.
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To the hip-hop critics, go back to wherever you camp from.
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Eastern philosophy has illuminated to me that Confucius' teachings are very similar to Jesus' teachings and Confucius is older. Think about that for a sec, beep bop!
Did you hear about the new pirate movie that's coming out? It's rated "arrrrr."
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Can we go back to the days when music was based on talent and not looks?
The other day it was raining, and a girl gave me a ride all the way home. I just wanted to say thanks.
Can we go back to the days when music was based on talent and not looks?
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Can someone just answer my question?
Why the Kansan is so anti-greek?
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Myroommate keeps making things with his organic chemistry model and putting them on the TV. Myroommate's a weird guy.
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I just wanted to congratulate all the sorority recruits for bid day yesterday, you all looked very expensive.
This is for the guy who spent the weekend at his lake house. It's okay to have money, but you're just a brat.
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Yeah, I think only pretty women should be able to vote, and I'm sure just about everyone agrees with me on this one anyway.
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I just wanna give a shout out to the guy that hit me with his bike as I crossed the Daisy Hill intersection on my bike today. Thanks for not even bothering to stop. It's jerks like you that give college students a bad name.
Me and my buddy are here at my place drinking some beers with two chicks, and we all have our clothes on. What the hell is the deal with that?
I just wanted to let the greeks know that the University is not the only people dogging them right now.
I'd just like to say that there's plenty of nice trimmed foliage all over campus, but it's not the kind my mom would be proud of.
I agree, the foliage around campus is nice,
but I like my foliage trimmed in a heart.
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My roommate really needs to get out of the bathroom.
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Is it bad to feel like drinking at 7:30 in the morning?
HAIKU FOR ALL
I cry and I weep.
What dark sadness torments me.
Izipped to too fast.
Roll with the punches but don't get punched in the mouth. Tyson is the man.
Full lots, big tickets.
Injustice your name is the Parking Department.
I love Mr. Bush.
Happiness is a warm gun.
Thank you John Lennon.
题
My toe streaks the glass of the cold foggy window. Chevrolet backseat.
Haiku for All will continue running through Friday, September 14. Call in your haiku to Free for All at 864-0500. Please identify them as Haiku. The Kansanwill attempt to run all of the haiku it receives that comply with the usual Free for All guidelines.
According to the traditional style, haiku consists of two images, the juxtaposition of which creates the meaning of the poem.
They have five syllables in the first line, seven in the second and five in the third. Submissions will not be required to conform with this style.
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