Opinion
Kansan
Published daily since 1912
Julie Wood, Editor Brandi Byram, Business manager Laura Roddy, Managing editor Shauntae Blue, Retail sales manager Cory Graham, Managing editor Dan Simon, Sales and marketing adviser Tom Eblen, General manager, news adviser Scott Valler, Technology coordinator
Tuesday, August 31. 1999
Seth Jones / KANSAN
Editorials
Alcohol advertising campaign takes an encouraging approach
A new advertising campaign at the University of Kansas targets students who party.
But it doesn't tell them what beer to drink or where to pick up babes and chicks. Instead, the message is moderation: "Most KU students drink moderately when they party," or "Most (58 percent) KU students have zero to five drinks when they party."
The ads initiate the Social Norms Media Campaign, whose long-term goal is to decrease heavy drinking at the University by 25 percent. The campaign is an ingenious way to reach college students and reach them with a relevant, yet effective, message.
Scare tactics don't work, and neither does denying that college students will and do drink. Instead, the goal of the
Using Northern Illinois model, new plan will raise awareness about alcohol norms
media campaign is to encourage students to drink responsibly.
"We want to focus on the positive behavior instead of saying, 'Look what will happen if you drink,' said Jannette Berkley-Patton, project facilitator.
Last spring, more than 1,600 KU students were surveyed regarding their drinking habits. The survey results are used to guide the media messages that the campaign produces. Berkley-Patton said sharing the results that a majority of KU students drink moderately should help to bring students who
drink excessively closer to the norm.
The KU campaign was designed after a similar media campaign at Northern Illinois University, where in nine years heavy drinking decreased 44 percent. Media were used as a way to influence mass behavior, Berkley-Patton said.
The Social Norms Media Campaign is sponsored by a grant from the Kansas Health Foundation and is separate from the Alcohol Task Force. No programs are associated with the media campaign, although it may enhance outside alcohol awareness programs. Ads will appear in the Kansan, on posters in residence halls and on buses.
Advertising sells and this ad campaign offers a valuable and possibly life-saving message that students should not miss.
Katrina Hull for the editorial board
Service learning program essential
Every minute we spend as suents at the University of Kansas we lose valuable life skills opportunities because of the lack of curriculum based around service learning.
Service learning allows students to apply classroom concepts to benefit their community. For example, a mathematics class could perform a statistical analysis of poverty and wealth in Lawrence. This "real world" concept was important enough for the Chancellor Hemenway to deem it an initiative for 2001.
Another initiative of Hemenway's included the recruitment of 100 National Merit Scholars. While he has achieved that goal, it is a shame that we are far from seeing any headlines about service-learning at the University.
Despite recent accomplishments, the University still is behind
Recently, the chancellor took the first step in initiating service learning by joining Campus Compact, a national organization of nearly 600 universities that promotes the idea of developing students' citizenship through public and community service.
While membership in Campus Compact is important, it will do little to actually install service learning at the University. The chancellor and the Serve Kansas Task Force must set a more proactive plan than just outlining service learning. Only then will faculty fully take advantage of its educational benefits.
nation have co-curricular service-learning classes — some of those universities are not as prestigious as the University of Kansas. We will slip behind the strides made by other institutions of higher learning if we do not take action.
The universities of Michigan, Colorado, Colorado State, Arkansas, Illinois and others have shown improved educational results from the implementation of service learning. Service learning also can be a crucial selling point for a university to prospective students.
Nearly 440 universities around the
For every day that the University lags behind in their service learning efforts, there may be prospective students choosing other schools. Increasingly, students are looking for a school that moves ahead with practical endeavors, not to schools playing catch-up.
Kansan staff
Corey Snyder for the editorial board
Chad Bettes ... Editorial
Seth Hoffman ... Associate editorial
Carl Kaminski ... News
Juan H. Heath ... Online
Chris Fickett ... Sports
Brad Hallier ... Associate sports
Nadia Mustafa ... Campus
Heather Woodward ... Campus
Steph Brewer ... Features
Dan Curry ... Associate features
Matt Daugherty ... Photo
Kristi Elliott ... Design, graphics
T.J. Johnson ... Wire
Melody Ard ... Special sections
News editors
Becky LaBranch ... Special sections
Thad Crane ... Campus
Will Baxter ... Regional
Jon Schlitt ... National
Danny Pumpley ... Online sales
Micah Kafitz ... Marketing
Emily Knowles ... Production
Jenny Weaver ... Production
Matt Thomas ... Creative
Kelly Hefferman ... Classified
Juliana Moreira ... Zone
Chad Hale ... Zone
Brad Bolary ... Zone
Amy Miller ... Zone
Advertising managers
Broaden your mind: Today's quote
“‘I do not want to achieve immorality through my work; I want to achieve immortality not doing.’” — Woody Allen
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 hometown 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 Kansan newsroom, 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length or reject all submissions. For any questions, call Chad Bettes or Seth Hoffman at 844-4924.
If you have general questions or comments, e-mail the page staff (opinion@kansan.com) or call 864-4924.
Perspective
Brown Bear has solution to ordinance: Go nuts
last year, the Brown Bear Brewery was associated with live music, busy bartenders and beer that tasted like peach Jolly Ranchers. Now, Brown Bear has been reduced to peanuts.
A city zoning restriction established in 1994 demands that all downtown drinking
establishments must make 55 percent of their money from food. So in a very thumb-to-the-nose response, Brown Bear is planning to sell a bag of peanuts with every beer for $1 and claim that 55 cents is for the peanuts (55 percent of the sale) and 45 cents is for the beer.
Jenny
Dakson
columnist
jonnier@kansan.com
First off, 45 cent beer!
Secondly, is there no free market in Lawrence?
The entire idea of capi-
talismar revolves around private or corporate businesses distributing goods in a manner determined by supply and demand. Well, I know there is a demand for beer and Brown Bear seems to have a supply, so why is the free market being tainted with food sales quotas? Capitalism, like other philosophical tenets on which the United States is based, seems to be just a mushy, patriotic ideal instead of something we adamantly practice.
While I try to see the City Commission's side of it, I can't. If Brown Bear is selling to minors, it should be closed down or fined because that is illegal and tears down the high standards that this community strives to ... blah, blah, blah.
But, Brown Bear is only guilty of not sensing enough food. As for the idea that food along with alcohol somehow reduces the number of drunks — I roll my eyes. Eating while drinking alcohol only reduces the number of people that will throw up later. We all know that!
I think the city instituted this law to
squelch the success of another bar. Our free market makes opening a new business hard enough because of the struggle to sway customers away from long-standing competitors. When the majority of Brown Bear's sales has to be food sales, an extra barrier is set up in competing with Louise's Downtown and the Replay Lounge, two bars, opened before 1994, that don't sell food. This is an obvious deterrent, put forth by the city, to keep entrepreneurs from opening another downtown bar.
Well, read your history books, commissioners. Our forefathers would have wanted Brown Bear to have the right to compete freely with the other bars, and either fail or succeed with little intervention from the government.
But the city has intervened, and the quite young co-owners of Brown Bear have reacted like smart alecks which I don't think the forefathers would have applauded, even though I do. The owners have even formed a new corporation that they will use to lamely disguise the opening of the same bar (only probably called Black Bear Brewery or Brown Beer Brewery). The problem, of course, is they will have to reapply for city and state licenses.
City Clerk Ray Hummert has said he would have some question about signing a new zoning verification knowing Brown Bear did not meet the zoning in the past. Don't mess with Ray, or you will never sell beer in this town again. How vengeful!
I know drinking is not a pastime of extraordinary people. No world leader or award winner has ever thanked Busch or Coors for taking them all the way, but we should all remember the basis of our system. This land is the land of opportunity, and you should have the opportunity to open a business, having the same rights as your competitors, without being forced to alienate people allergic to peanuts.
Oakson is an Overland Park senior in journalism.
Be prepared, homosexuals belong in the Boy Scouts
I was a gay Boy Scout. Granted, this was between the ages of 6 and 8, and I was hardly "out" or dating. But I do remember that all
In the Thursday, August 26, issue of the Kansan, Jennifer Rush for the editorial board argued against the New Jersey Supreme Court decision forcing the Boy Scouts of America to no longer discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. Her claim that the Boy Scouts is a private organization is like claiming the sidewalk as a private domain.
you needed to join was a penis and the money for a membership fee of $10. The idea that the Boy Scouts are any more than, as the Court ruled, a "public accommodation," is absurd.
True, if one is to split hairs, the Boy Scouts are private and raise their own funds. The same could be said of any locally-owned shop on Massachusetts Street, but, if signs began appearing claiming "whites only" would the
Matt
Skinta
guest columnist
opinion@kansan.com
editorial board side with the owners?
The supreme courts of a number of states have begun to acknowledge on a legal level that sexual orientation is as innate as one's sex or skin color. Roush cited "freedom of association," but we aren't talking about a Neo-Nazi espousing his views at a Hillel meeting. Sexual orientation is not a matter of disagreement, but one of nature, and the courts are becoming clear: sexual orientation and morality are mutually exclusive. In other
words, you don't have a right to disagree with nature. That is, unless you're the Kansas State Board of Education, but that's another column altogether.
If the Supreme Court shared the perspective of the board, we might have seen desegregation by the '80s. There would probably still be a few parts of the country with segregation strictly enforced. This is the type of society the board has supported in its decision. If you haven't heard the claim before that gay rights are human rights, I am saying it now. This applies to all queer folk.
The point that the Boy Scouts should not be made to feel societal pressure to change is ludicrous. Public opinion polls showed that at the time the Supreme Court ordered desegregation to occur, a majority of Americans opposed it. It took a few years for it to sink in before a majority of Americans were in support of it.
There are queer Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and den mothers, and there always have been. The young man involved in the New Jersey decision had been raised in the fold; he had adopted the Boy Scouts' value system and was cast aside because of nothing more than blatant prejudice.
I am shocked that the editorial board chose to disagree with the court. From sexism to racism, the American courts deny private groups the ability to discriminate. This case is no different.
I am a member of the editorial board, but I'm ashamed for my fellow board members for the decision they made.
Skinta is president of Queers and Allies and a member of the Kansan editorial board. He is an Andover junior in psychology.
Feedback Merit scholars don't have it rough
I am writing in response to the article appearing in today's UDK (08/25/99) regarding the University giving perks to National Merit Scholars.
I agree in principle with your article. I think it is right to help those who need help most, but I thought the view in the article was a little narrow in its reach
I understand that many people feel frustrated that they cannot get first preference in classes, but I think we should be aware of the view not only of those who seem to get the breaks, but those on the other side of the fence, who cannot even come to KU.
Try telling the 19-year old, 8-month pregnant girl I worked with this summer, who has to live off slightly less than $9/hour, that kids need
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If the purpose of education in this country was to level things out between the proverbial haves and have-nots, then I think it would follow that we spend very little money on National Merit college-kids, very little money on non-National Merit college-kids, and the most on lower grades.
extra help at KU are getting the shaft, and you'll get nothing more than an unsympathetic roll of the eyes.
Instead we set up programs to give enormous amounts of money to kids who have succeeded, as you point out, and when it comes to bad schools, in bad parts of towns, we have Republicans shove down the idea of vouchers down our throats. Of course all this means is the government will allow families to choose what school they want, instead of improving the awful schools.
You said around 60% of National Merit families earned over $50,000. I think it would be interesting to see what that percentage is across the university, especially when you consider how many kids from Johnson County invade the school every year. College has to be about separating people with clearly defined goals and expectations and those with less-defined, if defined at all goals and expectations.
We should be spending money on schools such as those in the Kansas City, Kans, school district, where all too often the unemployment rate hovers around 10% and daughters become mothers at 20, and mothers become grandmothers at 40, and you just hope you can keep your cashier job at US Toy till 50.
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Jimmy Barmann
Lenexa sophomore.