Opinion
Kansan
Published daily since 1912
Published since 1921
Jodle Chester, Editor Marc Harrell, Business manager
Gerry Doyle, Managing editor Jamie Holman, Retail sales manager
Ryan Koerner, Managing editor Dan Simon, Sales and marketing adviser
Tom Eblen, General manager, news adviser Justin Knupp, Technology coordinator
Monday, December 7, 1998
"The only person I'm hurting is myself."
Editorials
University policy against posting of fliers should stick to classrooms
Some University of Kansas students are daydreaming in class anyway they don't need extra distractions. This is why it is a good idea for the University to remove most posters and filers from classrooms.
Students are attacked on campus by a barrage of messages and advertisements.
The classroom should be an escape from the campus marketplace, not an extension of it. And a classroom, as a learning environment, should be free of as many distractions as possible.
The University's policy allows only signs posted by teachers to be posted in classrooms. This rule, a gesture of respect by the University for its teachers, removes the clutter of posters and fliers that compete with information posted by instructor. The policy should be regularly enforced.
The policy makes it so that advertising can't be in classrooms.
INITIALIZE
The policy, enacted in September, should not be as strict regarding fliers in the halls of buildings, which is where students are more likely to look for entertainment information.
The University should allow signs posted by campus groups to be displayed on the poster boards in hall.
wavs.
Fliers that inform students about bar specials, upcoming concerts and night clubs have a place on campus as well, just not inside the classrooms.
The University's policy says that fliers posted on bus stops, light poles, newspaper deposits, staircase handrails and the like can be removed immediately, and the promoter can be charged for the cost of removal.
This section of the policy goes too far and should be changed. Students should be allowed to see promotions for upcoming off-campus entertainment and activities.
The competition for students' attentions will rage on, but the fight should be allowed outside the classroom.
Ronnie Wachter for the editorial board
Instructors should learn to operate modern classroom teaching tools
Instructors who use technology in the classroom should be commended for using visual aides and finding creative methods of instruction. Instructors who don't know how to use that technology, but insist on incorporating it anyway, are hurting our educational experience.
There are professors who do not know how to operate University televisions and VCRs but attempt to show videos anyway. There are graduate teaching assistants who struggle with overhead projectors but still try to use the machines.
It's not as if technology should be
Class time is wasted when teachers fumble with equip-
eliminated.
But instructors must learn to use this technology before putting it to use in a classroom. Otherwise, students spend the majority of a class period watching instructors try to figure out how to use the technology.
nology. Most departments have technology people willing to help. All teachers need to do is ask.
Students appreciate teachers willing to use overheads, slides, audio aides and televisions. It makes learning more interesting and informative for students.
There are people willing to help instructors learn how to use this tech-
students also must learn to be patient. Not every instructor can be expected to be a technology guru. Many students are not technologically sound, and they cannot expect every teacher to be. If an instructor needs help, then students with know-how should be willing to help.
Kansan staff
Spencer Duncan for the editorial board
Ann Premer . . . Editorial
Tim Harrington . . Associate Editorial
Aaron Marvin . . News
Gwen Olson . . News
Aaron Knopf . Online
Matt Friedrichs . Sports
Kevin Wilson . Associate sports
Marc Sheforgen . Campus
Laura Roddy . Campus
Lindsey Henry . Features
Bryan Volk . Associate features
Roger Nomer . Photo
Corie Waters . Photo
Angie Kuhn . Design, graphics
Melissa Ngo . Wire
Sara Anderson . Special sections
Laura Veazey . news clerk
News editors
Stacia Williams ... Assistant retail
Brand Byram ... Campus
Micah Kafitz ... Regional
Ryan Farmer ... National
Matt York ... Marketing
Stephanie Krause .. Production
Matt Thomas ... Production
Traci Meisenheimer ... Creative
Tenley Lane ... Classified
Sara Cropper ... Zone
Nicolle Farrell ... Zone
Jon Schlitts ... Zone
Shannon Curran ... Zone
Matt Lopez ... Zone
Brian Allers ... PR/Intern manager
Advertising managers
Broaden your mind: Today's quote
"Blessed are the forgetful: for they get the better even of their blunders." Friedrich Nietzsche
How to submit letters and guest columns
Letters: Should be double-spaced typed and fewer than 200 words. Letters must include the author's signature, name, address and telephone number plus class and home-town if a University student. Faculty or staff must identify their positions.
Guest columns: Should be double-
spaced typed with fewer than 700 words. The
writer must be willing to be photographed for
the column to run.
All letters and guest columns should be submitted to the Kanson newsroom, 111 Suffer-Flint Hall. The Kanson reserves the right to edit, cut to length or reject all submissions. For any questions, call Ann Premer (premer@kanson.com) or Tim Harrington (tharrington@kanson.com) at 864-4810. If you have general questions or comments, e-mail the page staff (opinion@kanson.com) or call 864-4810.
Perspective
As curtain falls, editor readies for new show
o Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?"
My answer to that question, which my adviser often asks me when I want to go out, is
der into his office; usually was I last spoke with the assistant's native writer a frustrated manager officer or an usert reader
intensive managed managing editor or an upset reader — and what time of day it is. Early afternoon is the best time to get a positive response; any aftermath from the previous day's issue has been dealt with, and it is not yet long enough for me to be stressed about tomorrow.
Jodie Chester opinion on kansan.com
Some days, I just smile in response to Tom's question. Some days, I say "Grrrr" and make an ugly face. And
some days, I tell him about the good job someone has done, and why we should have a good paper the next day.
But today is the last day that I will get to answer my adviser's question based on how my staff is doing. Tomorrow is the last edition of The University Daily Kansan for Fall 1998. The semester almost is finished, as is my editorship, and I graduate this weekend.
Now, I think about how I will answer the question in reference to the entire semester, to my eight semesters at the Kansan and to my nine semesters at the University.
When I started at the Kansan, the newsroom ter riffed me. As a graphics designer, I would come in and quickly go to the graphics office. Sometimes, people looked at me a little strangely. They weren't mean; they just spent so much time in the newsroom that someone who came in only once a week seemed a little odd.
Eventually, I figured this out. I attribute my delayed integration into Kansan life to trying to tipte into it rather than taking a running leap, which is what we have new editors do each semester. The editors take over a new position and learn by doing.
I try to remind myself that the staff is learning before I answer Tom's question about how the day has gone. That is usually when he just gets the smile
If I just would have smiled that first semester and started talking to some of them, I wonder who I would have met a semester earlier. Some really talented people. I suspect.
As frustrating as the learning process can be, I appreciated its set schedule of change. For as long as I can remember, I could count on a new semester bringing new classes, new professors, new classmates and a new position at the paper. It was scheduled change. Now, I will have to set my own schedule.
response.
Before the whistle blows, sending me home not just from school for the day but home to a new city and a new job, I want to do a few things one more time.
Before I clean out my desk in the newsroom, I want to sit at it and watch people making phone calls, typing stories and laughing with their friends about what they did the night before.
I want to read the critique tomorrow and see a "Good Paper," the highest praise, written on the final issue in big red letters.
I want to leave the newsroom and walk down the Hill, past the Campanile as the bells chime, and watch the Kansas Union begin to glow as the sun reflects off the building at dusk.
I want to get home and remember that last important item I meant to tell someone. And when I call back to the newsroom, I want to hear them say, as they often do, that of course they knew and that the problem already has been resolved.
Maybe tomorrow I will arrive on campus to find the front page of the back-to-school edition printed on all the papers rather than the one for the semester's final edition.
I hope that the new production is as entertaining as this one has been.
But would I want to start again?
But won't I want to start again?
I can't image trying to rewrite the script or recast the actors in this play. So, I think I will be happy to see the Dec. 8, 1998, front page.
And soon, I am going to have a new play to watch. It premiers in January and is set in Philadelphia. I have a role as a copy editor.
So, have I enjoyed the show? Throughout the acts, I have cried, cried, laughed, learned and listened. And when I start to answer this question, I may begin with "GRRrrr" — I can see where we could have made some improvements — but then I would have to smile and tell about that scene when we played kickball at 3 a.m., or the one when I sat on the dock with my best friend and we decided to be roommates, or when my family sent flowers to the newsroom, or the one when my design editor added an ever growing collection of Bahama Mama key chains to the newsroom decor, or the one when ...
Chester is Glade senior in journalism and political science.
Bitter-sweet farewell to the town of Lawrence
1 Five-and-a-half years and outta here,
that's my motto. I'm glad to be moving on,
because frankly, I'm broke.
this is goodbye. So long. Adios. I outta here. I got kicked to the buck by the man.
Money is the root of all evil, so I guess I'm going to be evil. I've spent enough time in the last five years denouncing capitalism. Now, it's time for me to go out and work.
Tom Winter
opinion @ kansan.com
Many of you taking this voyage are on the swells of reality with me. Good luck. I figure you're going to need it because I know I will.
For those of you staying behind, I would like to say have fun, be safe, be sorry, be stupid and be young. We'll
I'm going to miss talking in circles about every possible topic conceivable and never getting any where — just getting worked up. I'm going to miss referring to the future as an open book, where all things are possible. Now, I must begin to write it. So far it starts out, "In the beginning, there was this one guy and," "That's all I have so far."
I'm going to miss asking professors questions that I know they can't answer — like: So what does it all mean? ALL of it? And are you my father?
send pigeons from the other side.
I'm going to miss college. It's been a good time. College is like a tickle-fight with a cat: it's fun for a while, but eventually you need to let the swelling go down.
There are certain things I know I will miss about this town. I'm going to miss the teen-age runaways that congregate outside the Replay Lounge. I don't know who I'll give my spare change to now.
College has been good to me. It has given me lots of laughs, but it seems like they've all come at the most inappropriate times. Someone once relayed
I laughed at graduation last spring when Chancellor Hemenway told me how much more money I was going to make because I had a college degree. He told us that the amount of education you had was proportional to your value in the work force. I wonder how many CEOs have doctorates. Doesn't rampant capitalism run counter to the general philosophy of educators at this University? I don't know, I guess I'm thinking again; I should learn to stop that.
"I hate U.S. foreign policy.
to me the story of how a group of monks lit themselves on fire in Saigon to protest the Vietnam War. I laughed. I know there is nothing funny about suicide, especially in such a somber act. I laughed because I didn't ever think that I would see that kind of sacrifice in the United States.
There are some things that I won't miss.
I won't miss all of the people who seem to be hipper than I am. Is hipper still the "in" thing to say? What about "in?" Maybe I haven't ever been that cool. A good example of my ineptitude is my lack of music knowledge. People ask me if I like the music of Massive Attack. I give them the same look my mother gives me when I try to explain DNA replication.
"Well I wouldn't go that far."
I can't wait to graduate, because, well, I just don't know what else to do. Goodbye, Lawrence, I've loved you enough. Now, I've got to give someone else a chance.
I won't miss using the word "kee" in daily conversation. Because some time after I began using it regularly, I quit using the Friday and Saturday. My weeks went Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, ????, Recovery Day.
I won't miss people asking me what I want to do with my life because I'll be doing it, and if they don't like it, they can just make fun of me.
Winter is a Blue Springs, Mo., senior in biology and journalism.
Feedback
GTAC supports right for union
I am writing in response to David Perico's editorial on the "bad politics" of Delta Force student senators. Contrary to his misrepresentations, the Graduate Teaching Assistants Coalition did not press for a health care bill in the State legislature.
Indeed, we struggled against a bill sponsored by Republican
GTAC networked with the House and Senate democrats in fighting against a majority of Republicans who supported the anti-union legislation.
Senator David Kerr that would have eliminated our union and our right to health care benefits as employees.
GTAC did support a few democrats this past election cycle, most notably Tom Sawyer and Dennis Moore. Yet, our support by no means indicates an
endorsement of the Democratic Party at large now or in the future. As I indicated in the original Kansan article announcing our endorsements, GTAC appreciates those republicans who stood up for principle and supported our union last spring.
Mark Horowitz,
GTAC president and
Springfield, Mass.,
graduate student