4A
Friday, October 20, 1995
OPINION UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
THE ISSUE: ENROLLMENT
Enrollment mistake negligent
The University offices in Strong Hall seem to be competing to see who scores more errors. The Enrollment Center is winning after a major mix-up with the permits-to-enroll. The enrollment process is frustrating even without an error such as this.
About 12,000 KU students received the wrong permit-to-enroll with their names on the front of the permit but somebody else's academic history on the other side.
KU officials said the mix-up was due to a human error. Humans make mistakes. However, carelessness cannot be tolerated when dealing with the private information of students.
Obviously, the University respects the private nature of students' records. Before mailing out transcripts, it requires photo identification and the signature of the student. The enrollment center should apologize to students for
Enrollment permit debacle makes the enrollment process even more frustrating for KU students.
delivering private information to people who normally would not have access to it.
The enrollment process is difficult enough for KU students. The permit mishap only adds to the chaos. Students are shown little leniency when they make mistakes or encounter problems during enrollment. If the University expects students to follow the enrollment center's rigid policies, it needs to be more careful and more sensitive to the frustrations students face during enrollment.
The error also will cost the financially strapped University $2,600.
Mistakes such as this are so frustrating because whether the error is computer or human, students are the ones who ultimately pay.
LUBY MONTANO-LAUREL FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD.
THE ISSUE: CAMPUS LIGHTING
Lighting needed in Oread area
The poorly lighted neighborhoods surrounding the University of Kansas campus make the area a breeding ground for crime. Better lighting in alleys and along streets is needed to make the heavily populated area safer.
Because of the lack of campus parking, those who live outside the Oread neighborhood park there and walk to campus as well. It is a neighborhood filled with pedestrians. Unfortunately, it is also one of the most poorly lighted.
At night, students and faculty who live near KU walk to campus and back, traversing the dark streets and alleys along Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, Louisiana and Indiana streets.
The attack last week on the KU student who was walking up to campus should serve as a warning to the Lawrence City Commission to direct their attention to the infrastructure needs of the Oread neighborhood.
A lack of street lights in the neighborhoods around campus leave students vulnerable to crime.
SARAH MORRISON FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Students may not pay property taxes,but the income they bring to area merchants and landlords is significant. The city should make keeping the neighborhoods where the students live as safe as possible a high priority.
The University of Kansas and the city of Lawrence have a lot to lose if housing areas surrounding the campus continue to be plagued with burglaries, robberies and violent crime. Certainly better lighting would not solve completely the problem of crime in the Oread neighborhood, but it would be a good start.
KANSAN STAFF
COLLEEN MCCAIN
Editor
DAVID WILSON
Managing editor, news
ASHLEY MILLER
Managing editor, planning & design
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
Editors
News & Special Sections - Doordraa Allison
Editorial - Moorhill Lawnrs
Editorial - Morrisons McLaren
Campus - Morrisons McLaren
Associate Campus - Veraresy Vanzey
Associate Campus - Tereen Todd
Sports - Jemmie Cargill
Associate Sports - Tom Erickson
Photo - Paul Kotz
Nationwide Network - Paul Kotz
On-Line coordinator - Tina Patelw
STEPHANIE UTLEY
Business manager
MATT SHAW
Retail sales manager
JAY STEINER
Sales and marketing adviser
CATHERINE ELLSWORTH
Technology coordinator
Shawn Trimble / KANSAN
Business Staff
Campus mgr ... Meredith Hennling
Regional mgr ... Tom Daleo
Research manager ... Neather Barnes
Special Sections mgrs ... Nancy Euston
Production mgrs ... Nancy Euston
Krista Kya
Marketing director ... Kendra Kya
Public Relations director ... Bettie Chelli
Creative director ... Bring Bloomquist
Internship/so-op mgr .. Karly Connolly
Republican moral beliefs should not reform welfare
If they do, however, they should not find the Republicans' moral rules stacked against them. Give them free day care, give them job training and give them a deadline to be off welfare.
So far, I've kept my mouth shut about welfare reform. Although I'm usually a bleeding heart liberal, I agree that the welfare system must be revamped to prevent a permanent underclass that knows only welfare as its livelihood.
Sex is not evil. If it were, the KU campus would have melted away in hell's flames a long time ago. Poor teens have sex for the same reasons some rich teens do: love and desire. And like most unwed young people, most poor teens do not want to get pregnant.
The Republican's latest reform move, however, is not about finances. It's about tying welfare to Republican moral values, with which I disagree.
Confident that Congress is going to give the states welfare control, Massachusetts governor and Republican pal William F. Weld has announced what he would like to do with his state's program: cut off cash assistance to unwed teen mothers. The only way that the women would receive aid, such as food stamps and medical assistance, is if they live at home and attend school.
"By actively supporting children out of wedlock," Weld said, "government has completely eliminated the shotgun wedding as a socializing force — and that is too bad because it means that a terrible percentage of American children are growing up fatherless."
Angelina Lopez is a Tulae, Okla. senior in journalism.
Such weddings are a viable option to lead boys to the altar only if they aren't pointing back with AK-47s. And what's the point of marrying two children — with a
STAFF COLUMNIST
50% divorce rate hanging over our heads? We're too realistic to believe that marriage guarantees security.
Their other option, Weld says, is going home. What kind of June-and-Ward-Cleaver-world does Weld think we are living in? When
families discover their pregnancies, many young women will be turned away, not welcomed home.
What will happen to these young women, out on the streets, alone, with no hope of support for themselves or their babies? Abortion becomes an option, a dark and desperate one.
If it were up to the Republican-led Congress, however, this choice also would be eliminated. Speaking in unison with the Christian Coalition, these Republicans declare that they abhor abortion and would eliminate a women's right to it if they could.
These Republicans are the brick layers for denying options to young women who have sex and get pregnant. So what option does Gov.
Well, Weld's view is that if a young woman abstains from having sex until she is married, then she won't have to worry about being in this predicament.
Weld want to leave for young women?
Abstinence is a funny thing. Many of the Republican politicians may have abstained until they were married, but how old were they when they got married? 17-, 18-years-old? Some of our parents and grandparents got married straight out of high school. We, on the other hand, aren't getting married until we're out of college. By Weld's standards then, we're supposed to wait until we're 22- or 23-years-old despite our natural physical inclinations.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Editorial cartoon
misrepresents team
I was going to write a letter to the editor today about how upsetting it was to me that media of the University of Kansas refuse to get behind the KU football team. Then I saw the Oct. 10 editorial cartoon in the Kansan. As a former player who gave up the normal use of my knees for the rest of my life and gave 100 percent to my team and school, I resent your self-righteous attitude toward a team I still consider part of my family.
Let the facts be known that not one penny of student money goes toward any football player's scholarship, which includes room, board, books and tuition. This is covered by the Williams Fund, the same fund that pays for basketball. It has been worked out mathematically that the financial equivalent of the scholarships equals less than minimum wage for the hours of hard labor put in during practice, workouts and games.
As far as early enrollment goes, it would be impossible for any athletic team here to be able to put together a normal practice schedule unless players are available at certain times. When you talk about "pud" classes, I am not sure to what you are referring. Is it Math 101, Western Civilization,
I also take great offense to your insinuating that sexual favors are being handed out on recruiting visits. This is preposterous. I am offended and will not let you drag the very nice girl who was my recruiting hostess, whose brother is a close friend of mine, through the mud like that.
Most important is the fact that you have forgotten that these guys are human. In every society there will be a criminal element — it is just a fact. There are people doing drugs, carrying guns, sexually assaulting, gambling, stealing, you name it, in every dorm on campus. It is important that everyone understands that not everyone comes from Shawnee Mission, from rural Kansas, from Midwestern America.
I know it is hard to imagine a world where guns and violence are a way of life. When transplanting people from that environment to Lawrence, Kan., which is tame and slow by comparison, trouble is unavoidable. Glen Mason has done a great job at helping.transplants assimilate into a culture many of us consider normal. Glen Mason is a great man, but he is not God. To continually pick on football is not fair. There are plenty of other problems within the athletic department, which no one cares about because of the rose-colored glasses everyone seems to wear around this campus. If you, Mr. Trimble, are still bitter about being bullied about the school yard or getting beaten in running races, get over it.
I know the team would very much like support, but they have won without it and will continue to do so if need be. Support all the teams here at KU. Support them because of their hard work and sacrifices they make. If you have that big of an ego problem and will only support the winner every time, then fine ... throw on your Florida State hat and talk about how great you used to be in junior high because you are still the spectator, and they are still the players. You can sleep in a bed of roses, but you will never be one. Remember that these guys work hard and balance a lot more than the average student.
etc.? Everyone at this University has to take them, including athletes. Just because it is not in the J-School doesn't mean it is not a real class.
Every situation needs to be looked at with all the facts present. Give these guys a chance. You could never understand what goes on or into a college football team, so don't even try. Paint your face blue, grab a ticket, and get out there and do your part. Go Hawks!
Brian Rodeno Castle Rock, Colo., senior
Students must put the brakes on drunken driving trend
Read the "On the Record" section in the University Daily Kansan any week, and it becomes painfully clear that we have a drunken-driving problem at the University of Kansas. Students are arrested for doing it all the time.
And it's no surprise since binge drinking is a serious epidemic on college campuses around the country.
STAFF COLUMNIST
In the article "Alcohol Abuse 101," KU students, who admit.
An article in the Oct. 18 FYI section of The Kansas City Star, zeroed on in KU students drinking at The Wheel.
Clearly, binge drinking is a serious problem, but I have no right or intention to preach about the devilish effects of alcohol.
ted that they were under 21, boasted about chugging down eight or more beers within a few hours. According to the article, studies show that the number of students who engage in binge drinking is growing. Up to 42 percent of all college students now binge drink.
I have no problem with a person choosing to self abuse. First, it's almost human nature. We all do it, whether it be through alcohol, caffeine, cigarettes or chocolate bars.
I believe in self-determination. If some people want to drink themselves into a stupor every night and waste half of their lives slumped over a dirty public toilet watching their insides spew from their mouth, please, feel free. By all means, let them drink and be merry.
The problem arises, however,
when a binge drinker drives drunk.
Besides, history has proven that attempts to legislate or regulate morality just doesn't work. The most obvious example is Prohibition. If people want to drink, they will, whether it be through bootlegging or fake IDs.
If someone wants to kill themselves, that's one thing, but endangering the lives of everyone else on the road is deplorable. And it represents a lack of conscience that has to change if we expect civilization to live.
I could wax poetic about how innocent babies could be killed because of students driving drunk, but when people don't have heartstrings, it's pretty difficult to pull on them.
I could remind everyone that drunken driving is the No. 1 cause of death between 16 to 20 year olds, but no one is really conscious of his or her own mortality at this age.
The University community has done everything in its power to stop drunken driving. Students can call Safe Ride for a lift home at night, courtesy of Student Senate.
Also, groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving and Students Against Drunk Driving have helped increase awareness about the dangers of driving drunk.
Admittedly, these and similar efforts have helped decrease the number of drunken driving fatalities among teens, but we still have a serious drunken drive problem in this country and here at KU. Student arrests reported in the Kansan prove that.
All of the awareness campaigns and Safe Ride programs in the world won't keep every drunk off the road. It's up to us, the college students, to be intelligent enough to plan ahead before we drink and to be conscience of our actions. Sadly, most of us won't.
Nicole Kennedy is an Overland Park Junior in Journalism.
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.
All letters should be submitted to the Kansan newsroom, 1.1.1 Stauffer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right edit, cut to length or reject all submissions.
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