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4A
Tuesday, November 17, 1998
Robert Novak / KANSAN
Editorial
Hiring practices face shaky results when lofty goals dominate quality
In its quest to meet the lofty minority- and women-hiring goals established by Chancellor Robert Hemenway, the university must remember that reaching those goals is not as important as making sure the hiring is done right.
Hemenway has said the University should have 200 minority faculty members by the year 2000. There now are 152 at the University. The administration also has said it needs to increase the percentage of women staff members beyond the current 32 percent to a number closer to 50 percent.
The University is on its way to fulfilling these goals and should be commended for its persistence and dedication.
But with the year 2000 only 14 months away, the University must face the very real possibility that it will fall short.
The University must continue to work hard to reach these goals, but it also must remember that reaching them is not worth hiring sub par people simply to get to where Chancellor Hemenway wants the University to be.
Fortunately, the University is not
University should continue to reach for the goal of 200 minority faculty members.
guity of this. The faculty and administrators that have been hired have been outstanding additions to the University.
However, as 2000 approaches and the University realizes it may not meet these goals, there is that danger that the standard of excellence in candidates will take a back seat to the goal of hiring badly needed minority and women faculty and staff.
That must be avoided.
It is necessary for Chancellor Hemenway to set high and even unattainable goals, to push the administration to get tangible results — especially with issues as important as diversity and equality among the University's faculty and staff.
It is not imperative that the University meet specific numerical goals and somewhat arbitrary deadlines as long as it comes as close as humanly possible and stays committed to the cause.
The goal cannot become more important than the quality of new faculty.
The hiring of sub par faculty would be a detriment to both the University and the groups that it is trying to incorporate. Teaching would worsen, but more importantly, it would be a disservice to minority and women hires.
Hiring less-qualified or sub par faculty simply to meet an administrative goal would reflect poorly on the numerous minorities who are talented at what they do and have worked hard to reach what should be regarded above all else in education — excellence.
It would be an injustice to them.
Qualified candidates for these jobs who also will diversify our University are out there. It is up to the University to find them.
Often in a large bureaucracy, goals become set in stone. Those people with the task of reaching those goals lose sight of what is important in the long run for what is expedient now.
The University has the opportunity to make sure that does not happen.
Spencer Duncan for the editorial board
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Stop sign needed between Bailey, Strong
Getting from the stadium parking lot to Wescoe should not be a life-threatening experience. But many of us who make that trip daily and are forced to cope with automobiles that speed around Memorial Drive, ignoring the pedestrian walk that leads to the stairway ending between Strong and Bailey, often wonder if this is the day we will meet our Maker.
This location demands a stop sign. There is such a sign for the few people who go from Strong to the administrative parking lot under Spencer Library, yet for the thousands who cross farther down, there is no such protection. Perhaps there is a sub text
nere on the value of human life — some at KU are worth more than others. Certainly it is not the safety of the majority which has been the concern of those who deal with these matters.
Elizabeth Banks Associate professor
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Broaden your mind: Today's quote
"Every nation has the government that it deserves." --- Joseph De Maistre
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 a University student. Faculty or staff must identify their positions.
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Perspective
All letters and guest columns should be submitted to the Kansan newsroom, 111 Stufer-Flin Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length or reject all submissions. For any questions, call Ann Premer (premer@kansan.com) or Tim Harrington (tharrington@kansan.com) at 846-4810. If you have general questions or comments, email the page staff [opinion@kansan.com] or call 864-4810.
The real world fogies take some adjustment
T his is it. Last semester.
Harrington opinion@kansan.com
I've already had a couple tastes of life as a grown-up at internships, and it takes some getting used to.
Tim
You're the only one who wears baggy jeans or a baseball cap indoors.
Your co-workers act as if they've never seen stacks of empty pizza boxes used as furniture. Your biting — yet charming — sense of humor goes from being funny-weird to just weird-weird, or even offensive-weird.
Looks of concern replace
cheers of "chug" when you throw down a beer in less than 10 seconds and you go from being the ultimate anchor man to the ultimate lush.
But am I scared? You bet your Birkenstocks I'm not.
Luckily, you're a gifted reporter who shows wisdom and maturity beyond your years. This helps with feelings of insecurity, but you still feel like a kid — at least I did.
The median age in the United States is about 34. In Lawrence, it's 24.
I'm over my fear of fogies. I've parachutec into the depths of old-people hell and returned to tell the tale. I went to Port Charlotte, Fla., — median age: 52.
I was shocked — when I got there — it was very shocking.
What I'm trying to say is that the experience was a real shock to me.
Port Charlotte was like a fossil dig. These people didn't wait in long lines because they weren't sure they were going make it to the end — that is, unless it was a buffet line.
And the stereotype that old people drive slowly is bunk. Sure, there are some that fit the bill, but more often than not our elderly friends simply reserve the right not to turn or vary their speed at all.
"Unguided-retired missiles." That's what my boss called them. And he wasn't kidding. When I first started my job, my co-workers were still talking about the 92-year-old woman who went to the grocery store, did her shopping, returned to her car, put it in reverse and backed it — no, floored it — into the front of the grocery store. Luckily, nobody was killed. Another good car story was the one about the husband who was legally blind and the wife
who had no driver's license, both in their late 80s.
Naturally, the blind husband drove and the unlicensed wife told him when to brake, turn and what not. Luckily, a policeman pulled them over before they could do any grocery shopping, and nobody was killed.
I can't count the times I had the following conversation with someone while driving in my car:
ing them:
"Oh yeah, how about that — no, wait. See the hands there on the steering wheel? You can barely see 'em there."
"Hey there's nobody driving that car! Did you see that? Look right there. That car's driving itself!"
tun safer when the car was driving itself.
I know it sounds cold — and scary — but hold on.
Those fogies were the exception and not the rule. I met some amazing seniors.
I met 77-year-old Ken Lewis who spent a good part of his life working for the Department of Defense, creating the great grandparents of the computer which I typed this. Off a government salary and pension, he and his wife saved enough to buy a cozy double-wide mobile home, complete with an organ, for entertaining, a home-made, back-up generator for those just-short-of-hurricane nights, a single-engine airplane to escape those full-blown hurricane nights and a little sailboat to get away from "all those old people." His words.
Last time I talked to him, he was trying coax a contractor into taking — not buying — his idea for a cheap, backyard tornado shelter. Experts said it wouldn't work, but Lewis doesn't agree. As far as I know, he's still working on it.
rarely see it in there.
I felt safer when the car was driving itself.
Lewis is pretty cool. And he's an excellent driver of both cars and airplanes.
I also met John Slaughter — Sgt. John Slaughter. In 1945, he hit Normandy beach about 300 yards up-shore from the Utah landing site, where the opening scene to Saving Private Ryan took place, which was why Spielberg invited him to the movie's premiere in Los Angeles. He said the cast was "cordial as hell," but that Tom Sizemore kept following him.
The point is: There are cool old people out there, even cool, really old people. So if and when you leave the University, don't let the fact that everybody's not young and beautiful get you down. A lot of those old people are all right and hopefully you'll be one someday. In the mean time, just be sure look both ways before crossing the street.
Harrington is a Pittsburgh, Pa., senior in journalism.
Why did the deer cross the road? To play chicken
deer can have a sick sense of humor
deer can have a sick sense of humor. This humor, which most likely has left humans the butt of all animal jokes for centuries, has been the source of countless, senseless vehicle-deer accidents.
Today, deer are more disruptive to normal highway function than ever before. Sure, we built our roads directly through private deer property — without permission — but we did have the decency to put up personalized deer-crossing signs. We did not erect skunk, or dog, or cat-crossing signs, even though these animals also have the right to live and wander. We put up deer-crossing signs, as a gesture of good
Mike Perryman
Guest Columnist
signs, and a grassy faith. Good faith that deer would exercise proper judgment when advancing toward the greener grass on the other side of the highway.
green grass on the soil Needless to say, our good faith was mocked, and we were taken advantage of by renegade deer with a waving for humaniliation.
I therefore, in an attempt to eliminate all misunderstandings, I would like to speak on behalf of all motorists and convey a message to those deer who might somehow catch wind of this article:
We want to have an enduring relationship with your kind. However, if you continue to leap upon us, unannounced, we will have no choice but to accelerate with reckless abandon and, if need be, chase you blindly through the grass and trees, at the expense of our vehicles and ourselves, to dissuade you from ever entering the road again.
Having said this, I would like to recount a traumatic experience.
Speeding West down US Highway 24-40 toward Lawrence, I stared forward, desensitized, listening as swarms of insects pelted my car and tainted my windshield.
drained my whimsey against the unlocked door of my 1989 Mazda and entertained myself with such thoughts as:
"If I saw a deer meandering out onto the road, would I swerve to avoid it, or would I lay on the horn and keep straight, hoping to convey the message to the massive beast that 'hey, a large, heavy object with a considerable amount of momentum is heading directly toward you. It probably would serve both of our best interests if you would put yourself in reverse and wait for what you consider to be the next possible window of opportunity to cross the road unmoiled. If you are unwilling to leave the road, at least step far enough out of the way so that I can
this same one she came to.
Continuing down the road, I noticed three dark objects ahead of me. The first thought that came to mind was my older sister reprimanding my speeding and repeating over and over again:
"BE CAREFUL DRIVING, AND WATCH OUT FOR DEER! THEY'RE EVERYWHERE!"
My earlier thought, regarding whether I would honk or swerve if I encountered a deer in the road. Instantaneously was replaced with:
edge by and allow the guy driving about 80 yards behind me the opportunity to carry on this same one-sided conversation with you."
the road, instantly we were warped.
"IIf it hit a deer, I mean head on, would I be able to duck below the dash board in time to avoid decapitation as the animal plummeted through my windshield, or would I just sit there, in complete disbelief, staring, kind of like a you-know what caught in the you-know-whats?"
I didn't want to hit a deer. Up until this point, I really liked deer. However, it became obvious that this animal was playing chicken, I mean deer, with me because it just stood there and not into my lights, but toward the other side of the road, waiting. I panicked, honked my sissy Mazda horn and braced the wheel tightly with both hands.
I switched my brights on to get a better look, and there it stood, a huge deer with half of its body on the road. Trailing a few feet behind the beast and just to the right side of the road were two more decent-sized animals.
Somewhere along the line, between the moment that my brain sent the message to my arms and hands, instructing them to twitch and swerve to the left, and the moment at which the appendages would have received the message and actually reacted, the deer quickened pace and jotted across the road. I held steadfast.
FOR DEER THEY RETRIEVE.
I ignored the warning. After all, I never noticed a deer on this road. Come to think of it, I never noticed a deer-crossing sign either. I had seen the dark red stains, which spotted the road every mile or so, but I never gave them any thought — hmm, interesting.
and jetted to the
His friends, girlfriends, parents or whove
they were trailing behind him advanced as if
they were going to follow his move across the
road, but they stopped and decided to hang back
and wait for the next unsuspecting motorist,
I guess. No doubt they were taking turns
I am convinced that the animal chose to spare my life and risk his own, for only one reason, to obtain yet another joke, a story to tell around the rivulet, at my expense.
I fell asleep that night, reluctantly, to the horrid vision of hundreds of sick, smiling, deer cackling while kicking down deer-crossing signs.
Perryman is a Prairie Village senior in journalism.