OPINION
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WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 25, 2004
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
EDITORIAL
Restructure Hawk Week Think big, start smaller
www.kansan.com
The much-advertised string of events known as Hawk Week is designed to play an integral role in the introduction of freshmen to academic, community and social life at the University. It's also designed to be a great way for returning students to reconnect with their friends and campus.
Though Hawk Week is a commendable program that supplies plenty of entertainment and information in the days before classes start, it aims to showcase too many clubs, activities and accomplish so many goals that in the end, the whole thing becomes overwhelming and muddled. Trying to force the week to fulfill so many needs intimidates freshmen while largely ignoring upperclassmen.
Hawk Week's attendance and overall value could both be greatly increased by some basic restructuring efforts.
Our suggestions:
Our suggestions:
■ Plan the week's events with the freshmen experience in mind. Those who run Hawk Week and the residence halls need to allow incoming students time to socialize within small groups. Cohesiveness between roommates and floormates should be the first priority. The evening of move-in day isn't the time to thrust overwhelmed freshmen into an overcrowded Kansas Union to play games with people they don't know, and navigate a building they may have never entered.
■ Don't forget about the upperclassmen. Though returning students probably don't need the time to make new friends or explore campus, they are also beginning a new school year and take as much or more interest in job fairs, volunteer opportunities and club meetings as freshmen. Additionally, events such as Traditions Night, which are intended for freshmen, miss out on a wonderful opportunity to bring together Jayhawks new and old. What could be a huge University-wide pep rally is instead reduced to a sort of outdoor class, complete with lecture by the student-body president and lesson in hand-clapping from the cheerleaders. Regular students who have perfected the fight-song and waving of the wheat are much better teachers.
Give more exposure to daytime events. Evening activities provide entertainment, but the various meetings, fairs and tours featured during the day provide an opportunity to become an engaged participant in University life. Sure, Union Fest provides some great free stuff. But it cannot help you find an on-campus job, join a club or navigate Watson Library.
When it comes to structuring Hawk Week, think big but start small. Students need to be given time to create some appearance of a social-support system within their living communities.
The University is a huge place. Hawk Week should aim to make it seem small, friendly and accessible before introducing newcomers to all the fun a big university can provide.
Free for All
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We got pulled over for failing to yield at a roundabout when no other cars were at the roundabout. We got a $90 ticket. Those cops are trickin' Nazis.
Whoever stole the deer in front of our house, wearing the Budweiser bandana: We really need it back. We miss it. And we love it. Bye.
submit a letter to the editor or a column, e-mail the document to opinion@kasan.com with your name, hometown, year in school or position and phone number.
I just wanted to let y'all know that you don't flip waffles, you flip pancakes. So, if that guy was trying to say that Bush's policy is cooked on a hot iron like waffles, then he got his point across. If he's trying to say that they flip-flap like pancakes, well, he just looked like an idiot.
Shawn left his frisbee at the party. What will you do? Thank you, guys. I love the Free for All.
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Who the heck is that Billings, and why does he have a street named after him?
I think the police just pulled over SafeRide.
Yeah, I love how I can fall onto my bed, crash into my CD player, and the girls across the hall somehow not hear it. But as soon as I turn my CD player up, "It's too loud! It's too loud!" This is a real sense of freakin' community. Thank you, KU.
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submit a letter to the editor or a column, e-mail the document to opinion@kasan.com with your name, hometown, year in school or position and phone number.
This is my first, official drunk dial to the Free for All. Hon monumental.
It's the first weekend back in school, it's 2:20 in the morning, and I'm not drunk. What is wrong with this picture?
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I just saw a man sitting on the ledge of the Black River who told me that he liked to catch snakes and eat them with ketchup.
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Who the shnizzle is Bob Billings anyway?
KU Cuisine is the worst guest columnist n the history of the UDK.
submit a letter to the editor or a column, e-mail the document to opinion@kasan.com with your name, hometown, year in school or position and phone number.
My friend's car is filled with water. That makes it a car pool!
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Okay, we already had this discussion last year. Milo is the cat and Otis is the dog.
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Kenan newscrow
11. Saffer-Flin
Doomsday nearer than you think
Nadine didn't flinch when she acknowledged the inevitability of an oil shortage, which was remarkable because it would probably result in the end of civilization as we know it.
"Yeah, it's going to happen," said Nadine Appenbrink, a Westwood senior majoring in environmental science. While this didn't make her an expert on the matter, it did make her a lot more informed than I was on the subject.
"I mean, of course, life won't be anything like it is now," she said with a fairly matter-of-fact resignation. "It's pretty scary, isn't it?"
PERSPECTIVE
Hell yeah.
Then yeah.
It quickly dawned on me that no matter how successful I become, I may never be able to buy my mom that Hummer she's always wanted. I'm not going to enjoy record rates of consumption, a complacent suburban lifestyle, a quarterly trip to the Cayman Islands, relaxed nights in front of the big screen and, most probably, any hopes of a "normal" future. Chances are I'd be dead by 40. If not, I'll most likely be roughing it in the backcountry of the Ozarks living off small game and vermin or maybe my fellow human being.
OK, so maybe I'm overreacting. But what if I'm not?
This whole fiasco started late one night on the Internet. Lazily clicking my way from site to site, I staggered across the threshold of oilpeak.com. Within a few minutes I perked up to the smelling salts of Kenneth Defeyes.
AHSAN LATIF opinion@kansan.com
geology professor emeritus at Princeton University. He was going on about something called "peak oil."
The scenario begins with some good news: Global warming will not kill us all. The bad news is that it's because oil supplies will soon reach peak production. From this peak, oil will become a finite resource that is growing smaller day by day.
On prices will never become cheap again, even if we start pumping it faster or even miraculously end the occupation in Iraq peacefully and efficiently.
There's got to be some sort of counterpoint. There must be some rational, realistic scientists who can stand up to this alarming train of thought. And there are, but most of them are funded by oil companies and the rest are from the current administration's energy committees. Go ahead. Search the Internet for "peak oil." I triple-dog dare you.
It takes a little common sense to realize that every link in the economic chain is powered by fossil fuels. Cars,
airports, docks, factories, water treatment plants, food processing centers, basically all metals, plastics and most usable materials are all derived from fossil fuels.
Extreme estimates predict that between now and 2050, as oil reserves dwindle, various global assaults will take place in order to control the world's remaining supply.
Take solace in the fact that these are the most extreme estimates. But even the most conservative estimates predict life will change considerably.
By the time Nadine had confirmed my suspicions I was wondering whether I should quit school, rent Quest for Fire and start emulating.
"Bad things will happen, but they won't happen tomorrow. All we can feasibly do is to be smart about our future." she said.
I guess she's right.
But what about that whole nuclear destruction and five billion people dying thing?
"Yeah, what about it?" Nadine asked. "What do you want to do?" I laughed she's right
The next day, trying to be smart about it, I was cruising peak oil message boards for more productive reactions to our impending doom when I came across this post:
"Hey, sucks to be you guys!"
Laitif is a Lexington, Mo., senior in journalism.
At new student orientation I remember watching a dopey video about the benefits of diversity. Four years later, I'm still wondering what they are. I can't count how many posters I've seen urging students to "celebrate diversity." But why? If diversity is so beneficial, why aren't mudgets on the basketball team?
When it comes to diversity, whether it's the administration or Student Senate, one thing is for sure: they've all been drinking the same poisoned Kool-Aid. They harp on the importance of diversity while exhibiting diversity of thought you'd expect to find in a communist re-education camp.
Diversity promoters misguided
FRESH ARRAH
College professors lean to the left. A recent poll by the Center for the Study of Popular Culture found that in the last election, 80 percent of professors voted for Gore and 9 percent voted for Bush. If the administration was interested in real diversity --that of viewpoints they'd hire faculty members that run the gamut from liberal to conservative.
ARRAH NIELSEN
opinion@kansan.com
The University's diversity people insist campus racial diversity is necessary for students to learn how to negotiate the diversity in the workplace. But why? Employees are required learn new skills on the job. Why can't they learn how to work with minorities?
The Office of University Relations
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said, "diversity enriches the educational environment greatly." There is no empirical evidence to support this claim. Alexander Astin of the Higher Education Research Institute drew on an study put out by the American Council on Education to write "What Matters in College." The study included 309 four-year institutions, 82 outcome variables, and 24,847 students tracked for four years and found no correlation between racial diversity and positive, discernable education benefits. Astin says his findings "do not support the claim that ethnic and racial diversity...enhances educational quality." In the study racial diversity was correlated with higher rates of dissatisfaction and lower student retention rates
B
If racial diversity is important for education, why aren't African-American colleges like Howard University and all-female colleges like
Wellesley clamoring for white and Asian-American males?
Minorities aren't equally distributed throughout the nation. It isn't realistic to expect universities in Kansas to have as many minorities as New York or California. If the ethnic make-up of Kansas is mirrored in the student body, there would be hardly any minorities on campus.
Because this hokey political ideology isn't going away, I have a couple suggestions. First, host diversity seminars that address issues relevant in the real world."Diversity in the workplace: What do you do when you're hired for quotas instead of merit? Shut up and take the money."
Second, extend the concept of diversity beyond race. You could start by hiring blind bus drivers for KU on Wheels, illiterate librarians and yes, basketball-playing midgets.
I'm not arguing against diversity per se, and I don't doubt gathering people from a wide variety of backgrounds and ways of thinking can be beneficial. But that's not what the University is doing. The traditional concept of diversity is broader than race. The University's should be, too.
Nielsen is an Andover senior in anthropology and history.