4A the university daily kansan
opinion
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tuesday, September 30, 2003
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editorial board
University must raise academic standards
Editor's note: This is the second installment of an occasional series of editorials examining what needs to be done to make the University of Kansas a leading university.
Since Chancellor Robert Hemenway announced he wanted the University of Kansas to become a top 25 public university, the University has slipped steadily in national rankings. Unsure as to why the University can't climb in the rankings, Hemenway will hire an independent consulting firm to analyze the University's image to see how it can market itself.
When the University administration cannot tell why rankings get worse, they always seems to find an excuse in state budget woes. The reaction symbolizes the typical human response of pointing the finger anywhere but at itself.
The University can turn its declining stature among public universities on its head without a dime leaving its pockets. The University must change the generally complacent attitude toward academics and foster an environment more suitable to an intellectual community.
Many students enter the University expecting to get by without doing much work, in part because of the University's low admissions standards. The problem occurs when professors reinforce this attitude and students embrace it.
Ridiculously easy classes exist everywhere at the University, especially where the intellectual challenge serves as the cornerstone of the course.
Western civilization classes typically land near the top of least-liked classes. Few students look forward to spending an evening reading Rene Descartes.
David Dewar, assistant director of the Humanities and Western Civilization program, said he and almost all of his colleagues lay awake at night worrying about how to gage the difficulty of required classes such as Western Civilization I and II. But in the end, he said it's up to the students to do work they are assigned.
"Students get out of it what they put in."Dewar said.
Besides not doing the work, students find other ways to glide through classes.
Many students try to duck professors notorious for difficult curriculum or tough grading standards, opting instead for those known to give an easy A.
If a student gets through college by learning the system and knowing the easy route to an A, what does a degree from the University mean in one's professional career? With such a poor focus on academics, the degree is worth about as much as a wooden nickel.
If the University wants its top 25 ranking, it must raise the bar for its students and offer a top 25 education, and students should not be content for only meeting the University halfway.
The University must restrict the abundant avenues toward an easy A by removing professors and teaching assistants who foster complacency. And students must expect to put a significant amount of effort into their classes.
Steve Vockredit for the editorial board
wade's view
perspective
Suppressing science hurts us all
George W. Bush doesn't believe in evolution.
COMMENTARY
During his 2000 campaign, the leader of the free world told a New York Times reporter that "the jury's out" on the single most well-supported theory in all of biology, and that creationism should be taught alongside evolutionary biology in public school science classrooms.
This isn't mere trivia. It epitomizes the Bush administration's hostile attitude toward science and scientists' hostility that goes far beyond pandering to religious fundamentalists in an election year.
Rachel Robson opinion@hansan.com
Science is suffering under the Bush administration. And when science suffers, we all suffer.
We all know that money talks. And while funding for a few scientific agencies such the National Institutes for Health has been maintained under Bush's leadership, federal science financing on the whole has stagnated. Research at the National Zoo at the Smithsonian, possibly the United States' most prestigious scientific institution, has been almost entirely eliminated because of budget cuts. Here at the university of Kansas and across the country, university researchers compete for an ever-dwindling pool of federal grants.
Global warming. Virtually all atmospheric scientists agree that increasing the amount of "greenhouse gases" in the earth's atmosphere will lead to
But it's not just about funding. It's about philosophy. In science, objective truth is the goal, and scientists accept data even if it conflicts with dearly held beliefs. Contrast that with the Bush administration, in which ideology routinely trumps truth.
global climate change. Among the people who study this issue, this is not a controversial point. But apparently it was for presidential advisers, who demanded references to global warming be stricken from a 2002 Environmental Protection Agency report on air pollution. Earlier that year, world-renowned climatologist Robert Watson was asked to resign from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which he had been the chair of since 1996. His science was impeccable, but upsetting to the oil giant Exxon Mobil, which lobbied the Bush administration for his ouster.
treatments for lils such as diabetes and Parkinson's disease, many doctors say. But two years ago, Bush banned federally funded research on new lines of human stem cells, claiming that "more than 60 genetically diverse stem cell lines" already existed. It turns out that only 11 stem cells lines can actually be used by researchers, none of which are suitable for human use.
Stem cells. Research on human embryonic stem cells could lead to new
Breast cancer. There is no evidence that having an abortion increases a woman's risk of breast cancer. But that didn't stop the Bush administration from insisting that the National Cancer Institute change its Web site in 2002 to imply that there is. When epidemiologists protested this gross politicization of their research, the NCI changed its Web site back to more accurately represent reality but by then the false assertion that breast cancer and abortion are linked had been allowed to stand for almost a year.
In addition to suppressing data, the Bush administration has suppressed researchers, sacking brilliant scientists for purely political reasons, and stacking scientific panels with unqualified hacks who support the president's policies.
"Not only does the Bush administration scorn science; it is subjecting appointments to scientific advisory committees and even study sections to political tests," said Donald Kennedy, editor-in-chief of Science.
A president who scorns science isn't a trivial matter. He sets the tone for his entire administration, tacitly telling appointees that scientific truth can be disregarded for political expedition.
but truth should be more important than political perks. Science and its offspring technology benefit us in countless ways, improving our quality of life, alerting us to future perils and even improving our economy. It's interesting to note that science-friendly Bill Clinton presided over a vibrant economy, while Bush, to put it mildly, does not.
We can't afford a president who can't handle the truth, about evolution or about anything else. But that is, unfortunately, just what we've got.
Robson is a Baldwin City doctoral candidate in pathology.
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is Johnny's Tavern the only bar in town that jacks their prices on game day?
The bars have not been this ugly since the last time that Mizzouw was in town.
弱
To the ninja that killed the pirate on Wescoe beach yesterday: I commend you.
perspective
I think I am the only one in Ellsworth who won't have lung cancer by the age of 40.
perspective
perspective
That crazy Wescoe preacher is back,
and he just condemned me to hell.
You bite into an apple and you expect awesomeness, but instead you get some sticker in your mouth. It ruined my day.
图
1
perspective
You're my boy, Blue.
To the suggestor of multi-tasking while dancing; You have changed my life.
Career women should be supported, embraced
Last week, The University Daily Kansan ran a column saying that the reason women took lower-paying jobs was to care for their families. Apparently, "women as a group lack the obsessive dedication and go-getter qualities it takes" to succeed in the workplace.
Unfortunately, the column neglected to say that women are often pressured into the domestic position.
True, the wage gap may not be present between men and women in the same careers. But the fact that fewer women than men are in these higher-paying careers is a cause for concern
The discouragement of women to have demanding careers is much more serious than one may think. I know of college-aged women who were told by their high school counselors that they would never make it in college. Believe it or not, it's 2003 and this still happens.
GUEST COMMENTARY
Leslie Kimmel opinion@hansan.com
I like to think of the rights that some men enjoy over some women as "invisible privileges." "Invisible privileges" are obstacles that are present in certain aspects of a woman's life, but men take for granted.
I have been in positions where this unspoken discrimination is apparent. Consider the time when I was interviewing for a job and the manager couldn't take his eyes off of my chest. I didn't take the job he offered me because I had no desire to enter that sort of workplace. If I was a man, this issue wouldn't have even come up in my interview.
A man might respond to this by saying I could file a sexual harassment complaint. But then again, I have also been told by a male employer that too many "frivolous" sexual harassment complaints are filed in the workplace.
Hey, I'm just trying to work my way through college here. The uneasiness
Take a look at the example the column uses, saying that women take less demanding jobs to take care of a young child or an ailing parent. Women are pressured to take on these responsibilities, often being cited as selfish or uncaring if they don't give up their careers and let a husband or brother take on the job instead.
that I have felt in a fairly liberal-minded work community just proves that women still have a way to go before they are treated as equals in the workplace.
Think of the women who feel guilty for not being there to pick their child up from school. This is also the age of psychoanalysis, when parents are being constantly bombarded with the "right" way to live and raise children. Women are being told in each and every way how to be a good wife and a good mother. So when does this make room for women to be a good professional?
Because of these attitudes that women are constantly around, they are either discouraged or taught an apathetic attitude toward achieving their dreams or becoming a CEO.
My mother recently warned me not to fall into the "marriage trap." She told me that just because I am a woman, I don't have to act womanly in the traditional sense.
I know that there are women who only go to college seeking the Mrs. degree, and she simply told me that I don't have to feel pressured in that way. There is nothing wrong with the stay-at-home-parent vocation — my mother is a stay-at-home mom who just recently decided to go back to school — but there's nothing wrong with declining it as well.
Women need to be told early in their lives that they can succeed as much as men. It doesn't matter if they have menstrual pains every month or that they may, at some point, conceive a child. They can still do their job, and do it well.
And don't tell me that women have to take lower-demanding jobs to take care of their children in a single-parent household. Talk to the single mother who didn't listen to her high school counselor.
Kimmel is a Newton junior in journalism.