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University Daily Kansan, October 13, 1982
Opinion
Benefit idea's timing off
A KU business professor suggested Friday that faculty ask for a "cafeteria-style" fringe benefit package, perhaps instead of actual salary increases, in future salary negotiations with the Kansas Legislature.
The professor, Hutton Barron, told the Faculty Executive Committee that the different needs of many faculty members warranted a "smorgasbord" of benefits, including dental and health insurance, from which faculty could choose.
The proposal sounds appealing. As Barron pointed out, the rising taxes that accompany salary increases eat away much of the intended pay raise. It would be more efficient to give faculty members the fringe benefits they must buy to supplement the state's plan than to give them the dollars to buy those benefits.
But the plan raises some questions — questions that are especially important in light of the possibility that the
state may be broke before the school year is out.
For one, if KU faculty are given these benefits, how will faculty at other Regents schools respond? It seems likely that benefits that appeal to KU faculty will also appeal to employees of these schools as well. And what about the faculty of Kansas junior colleges, which are not Regents schools, but are state-supported?
It is hard to imagine that the Legislature will be able to justify allowing benefits for one state agency that are not permitted to others.
It also seems that such a benefit program, even if permitted for other state employees as well, could be extremely costly and complicated to implement.
Few question whether the University's professors deserve more reward for their work than they are getting. But whether the state can now afford this particular request is another issue.
Why take a job that pays badly, requires long hours and has lauity fringe benefits when nice jobs with big corporations are just waiting for a position with a bachelor of science in engineering?
Engineering students have long been able to look forward to getting a good job, without having to get an advanced degree, and without having to look at other, less glamorous job offers. Because of the heavy demand, the university has placed hundreds of bachelor loans out to the big companies in the past.
been using out to be og companies in the past,
even to even be a shot at these "lush"
fruits.
CATHERINE BEHAN
jobs, engineering students are waking up very
early and in line for the jobs they use to get
so easily.
Chemical engineering majors are not trudging up to Learned Hall in the wee hours of the morning to sign up for just the really custy jobs — they are lining up for almost all of the 20-plus firms coming to interview "Chem E's" this semester.
Monday morning, one student even stayed in Learned all night long to get a chance to sign up for one of the 26 slots available for interviews with Dow Chemical Co. recruits Oct. 18.
This has been the common method of getting on a limited interview schedule for such professional schools on campus as the School of Business. And several people were lined up at the Ball Hall doors as early as 4 a.m. Monday to make it onto that precious interview schedule.
Although the business students were suffering a little more from the elements, not being allowed inside, the engineering students were suffering from a greater degree of shock.
This is the first year that chemical engineers have had to deal with the effects of the recession and a partially glutted field that students in journalism, journalism and education have known for years.
Jerry Brandt, midwest regional recruiting manager for Dow, said the lagging economy had made it more difficult to hire.
employ chemical engineers cannot afford many chemical engineers.
The students graduating from engineering schools this May are part of the largest class of chemical engineers ever, Brandon said. Between them, he said, he has seen the class double in size.
Now, like other professional schools, it is a buyer's market, and the graduating student must be able to show more than an engineering degree to get a job.
Doug Hoffman, Emporia senior, got to Learned at 3.0 a.m. to sign up for the Dow interview. "Most of the people got jobs before," he said. "This year it's only going to be the top of the class."
Competition for the interview slots has become so fierce that only those students in fields specified to interview by the company can sign up to interview. Chem E's, for example, can sign up to interview only with companies that have specifically asked to talk to chemical engineers.
Many companies are also specifying that students carry a grade point average of 3.0 or higher.
And although Chem E's say they are very versatile, they can no longer interview with companies looking for petroleum engineers, for example.
Craig Adams, Lawrence senior, got up at 4
Monday morning to get a chance to sign up for
Diana.
"Usually it's a madschool down here," he said.
"I'ts frustrating to get up here early and not get on, so it is only worth it to get up here ridiculously early.
And ridiculously early they came.
The only graduate student waiting in line for Dow, Harlan Cramer, Alexandria, Va, graduate student, brought a foam mattress with him so that he could get as much sleep as possible.
Cramer said that it was not really in his best interest to have a graduate degree. Brandt said, however, that those continuing their education to the doctoral level could help themselves, especially if the industrial market continues to tighten, by being equitable to teach.
"There is a tremendous need in the university sector, and we have to somehow motivate them."
The economy may be just the thing to provide that motivation. After all, where would these Chem E's be if their professors had opted for "cushier" jobs?
Freeze proposal irresponsible
In recent months, a proposal for a U.S.-Soviet nuclear weapons freeze has generated widespread publicity and international attention. A resolution supporting such a freeze has even been slated on the November ballot in several cities and states. Lawrence voters are among those who have an opportunity to voice their opinions in the upcoming election.
The local proposal calls for a "... mutual freeze on the production, testing and deployment of nuclear weapons and missiles and other delivery systems, subject to strict verification."
The intentions of its advocates are sincere in the context of the innate desire of all people for peace, but are unrealistic and irresponsible. Proponents have well addressed the emotional aspects of the issue by scaring the public through terrifying Ground Zero' rallies, chanting the dangers of the "Big Bomb," staging mock nuclear blasts, releasing balloons and even encouraging children to express their "sentiments."
Nuclear war does pose a grave threat to security, and the effects of a blast are tumultuous, deadly and real, but measures to avoid confrontation must be approached realistically. (No one in his right mind could possibly desire a nuclear war.)
In an ideal world nuclear weapons would not exist. In our world, the real world, they do. So long as this is the case, the only means to reduce the risks that they will be used against us is deference, or the certainty that any nation considering the employment of nuclear weapons can be severely punished with a counterattack of proportional magnitude.
The United States now faces dangerous deficiencies in its nuclear armament, contrary to propaganda and misconstrued reports that suggest otherwise. This is a fact confirmed and reconfirmed by Senate and House investigators who compiled by conservatives and liberals alike.
A freeze at existing levels would lock our government into a very vulnerable and disadvantageous position, as the measure would prevent the correction of these deficiencies. The United States, under the Nixon, Ford and Carter administrations, pursued unilateral defense
The Soviet response was to "beep up" its armed forces to where it now more than doubles ours, and to expand military defense spending (when adjusted for inflation) by nearly one-third. A general balance is necessary for the future of the freeze proposal, as such, would not allow this.
Furthermore, strict verification of such a freeze is not possible. The Soviets refuse to allow the necessary on-site inspection. Without defective equipment and equipment, we must rely on Soviet trust!
We have every good reason to believe that the Soviets (contrary to their "inherent goodness")
reductions. During those administrations, our nation cut the defense budget's share of the GNP
will deceive us. The entire world has witnessed the merit of Soviet trust. Remember, it was Jimmy Carter who, when referring to the generals of the Soviets, said, "I have been deceived."
We have seen the expansion of communism throughout Eastern Europe despite Soviet promises of "free elections" in those nations and elsewhere. Witness their instigation and support of the Korean and Vietnam wars; the suppression of popular will in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany and Poland; the Berlin blockade; the interventions in Ethiopia and other African countries; the Berlin wall; and the Afghanistan invasion. They are involved in consolidating communism in Mozambique, Guinea Bissau, Cambodia, Laos, South Sudan, Yemen and El Salvador. Through proxy states, such as Cuba and Libya, they promote terrorism throughout the free world.
How can we have confidence in a government that has broken every treaty we were made with by the United States?
war its main mission, and whose military strategy maintains that "War is simply the continuation of politics by other (i.e. violent) means!"
How can we trust a government that is engaged in such "peaceful" pursuits? It is Communist methodology that anything — whether it be lying, cheating or murder — is permissible in the name of the advancement of Communism.
We simply cannot afford to base our national security on trust of the Soviets.
Nuclear confrontation is a clear and present threat, but a nuclear freeze is not the answer. Soon after Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev called for a nuclear frease, a massive propaganda effort mounted in Moscow. Although anti-nuclear activism is outlawed in Russia and its satellites, and violators severely punished and imprisoned, the Soviets still maintain a stronghold on the movement in the free world and have maintained according to recent reports, to militate the existence of nuclear weapons and mistrust of naive and intellectually paralyzed anti-nuclear proponents. We must be aware of this issue and discipline ourselves to scrutinize it intelligently.
The freeze proponents see the world as they would like it to be and not as it really is. No amount of wishful thinking can challenge the reality of the situation — the Soviets want to control the world, and the only thing that is important from realizing this goal is a strong United States.
Albert Einstein once said, "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." There is no cheap and easy escape from the grim dangers of modern physics and an intransigent Soviet state. Although the freeze is emotionally striking, it is also statistically realistic, immedialized, unfounded and irresponsible.
If it is reduction of the growing threat of nuclear war we want, then we must pursue an answer to this question. It involves factual and practical realities. The nuclear freeze proposal addresses none of these.
Jerald Keating is secretary of the KU Conservative Forum and an Axell junior.
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Sack lunches enter cerebral realms
Bv DICK WEST
United Press International
WASHINGTON — The Agriculture Department, which is nothing if not timely, has helped get the new school year off to a hygienic start by enforcing "safety" rules for packaging lunch boxes and bags.
"Just as there are certain rules of conduct in school, there also are basic food safety guidelines for packing school lunches," a department news release points out. "The rule of thumb is: Keep hot foods hot, cold foods cold and all foods clean."
It is good to have philosophical differences such as this brought out into the open.
There is always a small minority of lunch packers who insist on lean down the hot food
students whose parents belong to the latter group have privileges; no evidence has federal support for their cases.
If I may apply this rule of thumb to other digits, I direct your attention to a recent survey of people who commute to work, made by a manufacturer of plastic food containers.
"Brown-bagging," like the ubiquitous "three-martini lunch," is a generic term. Not all workers who bring their lunches to the office transport the goodies in brown bags, any more than all executives who dine out precisely three cocktails during the noon hour.
The poll shows that "brown-bagging" is on the rise among office workers.
What this means is that office workers as well as schoolchildren are in need of some "food safety guidelines." But first, a word about definitions.
In fact, according to the survey, most office workers "prefer to pop their lunch into a cupboard."
In carriers of this sort, the survey adds, "a leaky container or squashed food oozing from foil or plastic wrap could spell disaster."
Let it also be noted that lunches popped into book satchels are likewise vulnerable. Anyone who has ever carried a lunch to school can tell you that it is unsafe to combine arithmetic homework with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
Regardless of how a lunch is transported, one thing that both schoolchildren and working brown-baggers should beware is the frozen sandwich.
The good news is that "freezing sandwiches ahead of time will help keep foods cold until
Now comes the modifier: “Don't overdo the butter or mayonnaise, because the bread may
Yes, and lunch bags themselves also can become soggy, causing oranges, apples and other similarly shaped contents to seep out and roll down the corridor.
become soggy during thawing."
The brown-bagging survey recommends lunchies so that "nothing will spill or drip onto papers, wallet, cosmetics or other important jemts" (such as arithmetic homework).
To that I also say amen.
And in the spirit of reciprocity, here is a school lunch tip from which brown-baggers can also profit: "Don't put your lunch in a warm place; in direct sunlight or on a radiator, for instance."
I would also advise office workers against leaving their lunches on top of copying machines. To do so almost certainly means that they will come along and Xerox the oatmeal cookies.
Dick West is a columnist for United Press International.
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