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 advisor Scott Valler, Technology coordinator
Wednesday, August 25, 1999
Jamie Patterson / KANSAN
Editorials
Kansan report card
PASS
Financial Aid Office — This year, long-line skills were not a prerequisite for receiving scholarships at the University. Thumbs up to shorter lines and fewer hassles. Following the dictum that less is more, the Office of Student Financial Aid should be heartily applauded.
the helpful community service projects, Hawk Week was a resounding success.
** Hawk Week  — Another Hawk Week goes by, and another chance for the University to highlight all that is good to freshmen go off without a hitch. From the lighthousebeamed Beach 'n' Boulevard to
- Credit Cards — The booths that dot the University's landscape often are sponsored by student organizations that receive a boost from the hawking of particular wares. Students who participate get free T-shirts and can feel warm and fuzzy for helping student organizations. But. . .
FAIL
**Credit Cards** — . . . could the same booths that help various organizations be a tad less annoying? Sure, everyone would love a free T-shirt, but some of us need to get to class. Also, is the presence of credit card salesmen a good thing for college students already in a monetary bind?
- Selective Service — College students everywhere should tremble anytime lawmakers even halfheartedly suggest bringing back the draft. At 96, Strom
Thurmond might be a little too far removed to understand our fears, even if the military is struggling with recruitment.
**Parking Department** — The beginning of the school year is not complete without some sense of animosity between students and the parking department. Overzealous ticketing, long lines for permits and the overselling of residence hall lots cre a bad first impression for the department.
Robinson changes benefit academics
Hammering, sawing, and drilling are familiar sounds on campus. The ongoing construction projects at Memorial Stadium, Joseph R. Pearson Hall, and Murphy Hall have been among the most visible. We all have made compromises for the improvement of the Universities of Kansas' buildings.
Some users of Robinson Center's racquetball courts have been grumbling about poor access to the facilities because of the construction of a new exercise lab. The construction has led to a strain on the already limited number of courts and hours available to play.
The exercise physiology lab was approved by the Board of Regents and the Legislature at a cost of nearly $1 million, which is coming from grants. The lab is a significant step for the growing
New exercise labs are worth the inconvenience at courts
Health, Sport and Exercise Science department and will boast a metabolic chamber, four exercise rooms, a nutritional kitchen, a biochemical lab, and several offices.
In fact, the metabolic chamber, which accurately measures caloric use of human subjects during a 24-hour period, will be only one of a few in the country, raising the standards and reputation of the School of Education and the HSES department. Such facilities will bring in much more money in research grants, compared to the money brought in by tuition for a racquetball class.
Recreation at the University is a complicated subject. Most services the University provides at Robinson's facilities are reserved first for academics, and second for recreation. The further encroachment by the HSES department into the area once used for racquetball at Robinson will undoubtedly complicate things further, especially for the students and faculty who used the courts.
We know that Robinson is a state building and will be used for academics before recreation. And while it seems once again that the small recreational luxuries that Robinson offers are being swallowed, the University is left with few options. Until a new recreation center is built, concessions have to be made in the interest of academic excellence.
Kansan staff
Corey Snyder for the editorial board
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Broaden your mind: Today's quote
How to submit letters and guest columns
"The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense "
**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 newroom, 111 Stuaffer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length or reject all submissions. For any questions, call Chad Besset, or Seth Hoffman at 864-4924.
Aaron
Major
columnist
enginion at kansas com
If you have general questions or comments, e-mail the page staff (opinion@kaman.com) or call 864-4924.
Perspective
I feel a lot better now. For three years I've apparently been attending an inferior university. Thankfully, now that the University has managed to coax a few more National Merit Scholars into its ranks with an overgrown carrot of financial and academic benefits. I can suddenly feel proud to be a student here. I can at least that's.
Perks to privileged few not necessarily merited
what I'm supposed to feel. Unfortunately, I instead find myself filled with frustration and disappointment. Rather than spend its time and money on actually improving the quality of this school, or helping those students who are struggling to pay for their education, the university has instead decided to recruit heavily from the ranks of the privileged so as to gain a minor statistical advantage above its peer institutions.
Most went to large schools that offered accelerated programs and a college preparatory curriculum, and most lived in communities whose residents exceeded the state's average level of educational attainment. Although the numbers may be a few years old, I have a feeling that not much has changed.
What this collection of really dull statistics tells us is that many who join the ranks of the National Merit Scholars come from backgrounds that give them every advantage for success; family and financial stability at home, college educated parents, and high schools with advanced programs. The University's quest to recruit these students only gives them further advantages, creating a wonderful paradox: those who have already demonstrated that they have the ability to succeed are given every advantage the school can offer, while those who have difficulty in school are left with the scraps.
What has been created is a situation where a select few become our first-class students who receive a hefty benefits package — free education for four years (no tuition, no fees, no room and board charges), priority placement in University scholarship halls, and enrollment in the Honors Program where they enjoy smaller classes taught by professors, not to mention the other monetary awards already given to them by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation and its sponsor corporations or both. The rest of us are relegated to the lower classes where we must pay for our education, apply for special housing or find ourselves in the less-than-spectacular dormitories, and take courses in overcrowded classrooms taught by GTAs.
Rather than spending its time and money trying to attract quality students, perhaps the University should be using those resources to find ways to create quality students. We are supposed to believe that everything that is spent on recruiting these Merit Scholars is good for all of us because it makes the University a better institution, but the fact of the matter is that the quality of a school cannot be judged by the students who come into it, but only by the students who come out of it.
I am not suggesting that that the University not give any sort of aid or benefits to National Merit Scholars, but rather start paying attention to the other tens of thousands of students who go to this school and help them out, instead of just focusing on a tiny, elite fraction of the student body.
incomes of more than $50,000 per year and 61.9 percent of their parents had at least a bachelor's degree, with the most common situation being one parent with a bachelor's and the other with a master's or higher.
Let's look at some facts. In a study done of Kansas's National Merit Semi-Finalists (NMSFs) in the graduating class of 1993, it can be seen that most of the NMSFs had every social advantage while growing up. Nearly 90 percent of these students had parents who were still married, 60.2 percent lived in households with
Major is a Deerfield, N.H., senior in sociology and American studies.
Maxwell asks students to look forward, not back
Korb
Maxwell
guest columnist
maxwell@ukans.edu
My grandfather lives a large portion of his life in the past. I have never left his house without at least getting one story about the past. Whether it is the war, work, or the women he chased — these are by far the worst stories, as nobody really wants to think about their grandpa in this manner — I come away with a little history lesson from our discussions.
I enjoy them every time, even though I have already heard each one before. Yet I am always disturbed that he never focuses on the future.
I found myself staring blankly into the institutional gray walls of a university meeting room and reminiscing about the past. Conversations with friends began drifting regularly toward remembering the old times instead of focusing on the future.
Like my grandfather, we would sit around and talk about what we did or how the current night reminds us of a previous one. My grandfather had the war. I had my freshman year and pledgeship. He had a business he helped build and gave his energy to, I had a coalition that I created and a campaign that I gave my GPA to. He chased women. The analogy falls off here, as I seem eternally confounded by the opposite sex, but you get the point.
Call this a personal testament to inherited traits if you wish, but I began to think it was more than that. So, after talking with many others I realized the Maxwell genes are not eternally tainted and am now sure the problem is much deeper than natural laws. I have become a senior and am in my last year at the University. In the process, I received all the emotional baggage that comes with that. I was
He never looks to what is coming next, or where his life is going; only to where it has been. He spends his time living in the past. That is why I got scared this summer when I realized I was becoming him.
Whether it is your first year here or your last, don't let yourself waste it on pipe dreams of the past. Take hold of what you have in front of you. Time here is short, the span to make a difference small, and when it is over, its over. I don't plan to waste my final year here. I can only hope nobody else does.
Maxwell is a Leawood senior in American studies and political science. He is student body president.
I realized that the time for my class, my friends and myself was not behind us, but clearly in front of us. Sure, the end is in sight for many of us, but that should give us all the more reason not to be sitting back and reminiscing. Instead, we all need to be out in front, showing the way; dispensing the wisdom we have learned in our time here, but more than that, giving an example of what is possible by our actions. It is our time, and this goes well beyond the seniors on campus. We cannot squander it.
We had already done, heard, or seen all the university had to offer. Or so I thought. I realized my summer lamentes were wrong when the school year started. At Traditions Night I sat in amazement, listening to what it means to be a Jayhawk. I felt what it means to be part of KU when 3,000 of us sang the Alma Mater together. I got goosebumps when the Rock Chalk chant began. I smiled as new student after new student came to an information table to get involved in Student Senate, all with ideas about how to make this University better. My first class left me confused and yearning for more after the professor challenged my views and told me the questions we would explore. I could hardly control myself when I got my first Wang burger for the year from The Wheel.
at the end of my journey. My ARTS form, which used to be sparsely peppered with the word "fulfilled" now was full of that term. My presidency had much the same feel. People began talking to me more about who was going to run for President next year, then asking what I was going to do this year. Things were coming to a close for my friends, my class and for me.
Kansan
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