Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY Kansan
Published daily since 1912
4A
Jodie 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 Knapp, Technology coordinator
Monday, November 30, 1998
Editorial
Incoming freshmen visits cause chaos for students, but beneficial
As high school seniors get closer to deciding on a university, more and more of them will be visiting the University of Kansas. Although tours for high school students provide prospective students an excellent opportunity to see what life at the University is like, they also can interfere with KU students' schedules. Efforts should be made to minimize these conflicts.
A major inconvenience that residence-hall residents have endured are touring groups that eat at the Ekdahl Dining Commons.
Kim Beeler, Assistant Director of On-Campus Programs for the Office of Admissions, said that student groups touring the residence halls and cafeteria try to get through before the peak hours at Mrs. E's.
However, when tours sometimes run past the time budgeted, the groups end up eating at Mrs. E's while many KU students are trying to eat between classes.
The Office of Admissions should be sensitive to KU students' schedules.
Although the Senior Day groups reserve tables in only one section of the cafeteria, it can be difficult for KU students to find a place to eat.
As a result, many students go to E's Express in Hashinger Hall, which then becomes overcrowded as well.
Although KU students who rely on Mrs. E's to eat every day are inconvenienced, Beeler said that attempts are made to see that this happens as little as possible.
The Department of Student Housing posts fliers letting residents know when groups will be coming through. According to Beeler, allowing prospective students to have as realistic a look at college, which includes eating at the cafeteria. is an important part of the tour.
"Mrs. E's and housing tours are a great way of doing this. In order to attract the best freshman class, we need support from everyone," she said. Beeler also said that students in Oliver Hall would sometimes eat with prospective students. She said that the people on the tour appreciated the opportunity to talk with KU students.
Students inconvenienced at Mrs. E's have a legitimate complaint. Efforts should continue to be made for the groups to avoid busy cafeteria hours. Students eating at Mrs. E's also should try to accommodate for the busy days. Most of all, communication lines should be kept open between students in the residence halls and those administering the tours.
Erinn R. Barcomb for the editorial board
Perspective
Student senators should steer clear of bad politics
I thought I was going to have a few months or at least a few weeks to recover from the recent national elections. Unfortunately, it looks like the cam
paign for next year's Student Senate elections already is under way.
There have been several stories in the Kansan recently that had campaign overtones. Starting about a month ago, there have been several reports in the Kansan, including a front-page story in which some Delta Force senators accused Scott Kaiser, student body vice president, of rolling his eyes at a Student Senate
David Perico
opinion@ kansan.com
meeting. This shocking allegation was made by means of a delivered letter that was signed by six members of the Student Senate Executive Committee.
The article didn't even mention that every person who signed the letter ran on the Delta Force ticket last year. Am I supposed to believe that this was not a return to last spring's negative campaign tactics, which were used by some Delta Force candidates?
The outcome of the recent national election should convince anyone that negative campaigning is not what voters want. The Republican Party tried to turn public sentiment against the Democrats by making a big deal out of Monicagate, and look what happened. The president's party actually increased the number of seats it held in Congress during a mid-term election.
Let's see if I've got this right. The Republican Party relied on political attacks against President Clinton to generate public support for its candidates, and it failed. Delta Force made use of attacks against Campus Cause candidates last year and lost the presidential race. Now, they've started the same attacks several months before next semester's election. I must be missing something here.
The worst part of this is that Delta Force won a slim majority of seats in the Senate in the last election, and yet I can't see that they have changed anything for the better. Granted, that margin was the result of
winning several seats in races with a very low turnout, but a lack of a voter mandate is no excuse for not changing the system. What happened to all those claims of "passion and commitment?"
Delta Force senators have done some things that have captured public attention. Mark Horowitz, graduate senator and president of the Graduate Teaching Assistants Coalition, pressed for passage of a bill in the Kansas Legislature that offers subsidized health coverage for some graduate students.
Yet after the Republican-controlled legislature passed the health care bill, the GTAC union publicly endorsed the Democratic slate in the latest election. This should guarantee that the Republican-controlled legislature won't look favorably on legislation proposed by the GTAC union in the future.
There also is last year's Delta Force candidate Nicole Skalla, now the transportation coordinator for KU on Wheels. Skalla made a proposal a few months ago that reluctantly offered the suggestion that KU students be kept in the dark about the failure of the new KUID readers on the buses.
I don't want to be critical of these two people. Everyone makes mistakes, and I have never known either one of them to engage in attacks on the character of other people. I just want to point out that none of their actions resulted in public criticism from Delta Force senators. And certainly none of these actions resulted in Delta Force senators requesting that the StudEx look into the matter.
But if a few Delta Force senators want to accuse Kaiser of (gasp!) rolling his eyes during an incredibly tedious meeting, we'll have an investigation and a front-page scandal on our hands. I suppose you can't stop politicians from trying to influence voters, but three campaigns in less than a year is more than I can bear.
My only hope for this upcoming election is that each coalition will sign and abide by a pledge to avoid negative campaign tactics.
Perico is a Lawrence sophomore in English.
Feedback
Jayhawks, fans were hospitable
manner in which they run their basketball games.
The entire team and staff at Gonzaga University would like to express our heartfelt appreciation to everyone at the University of Kansas for the first-class
the loss) for us.
The game-management personnel, Coach Roy Williams and his staff, along with the classiest fans we have ever experienced, made our Nov. 13 visit to Allen Fieldhouse and the city of Lawrence a great experience (except for
Thank you and good luck to the Jayhawks the remainder of the season.
Dan Monson
Head Basketball Coach
Gonzaga University
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