4A
Friday, September 1, 1995
OPINION UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
THE ISSUE: TUITION CHANGES
Regents' proposal good for all
The two-part plan proposed by the Board of Regents
the two-part plan proposed by the Board of Regents for the 1997 fiscal year would benefit the students and improve the financial situation of the University of Kansas.
The first part of the plan calls for a change from a flat-rate tuition payment plan to an hourly payment plan. Paying for tuition per credit hour offers two benefits.
First, because students would be paying for each individual hour, they would be less likely to enroll in courses they had no intention of taking. The per-credit-hour fee would force students to make wise, realistic decisions about their schedules from the get go instead of adding and dropping several times during the first few weeks of the semester. Therefore, fewer classes would be closed and enrollment would be less frustrating for students.
Second, students who are not enrolled as full-time students would not have to pay for full-time tuition. With the current
The University of Kansas and its students would benefit from a proposed two-part Board of Regents' plan.
system, students enroned in seven or more hours pay the full-time tuition rate. Paying per hour is more financially feasible for many students.
The second part of the plan calls for the Legislature to allow KU to have control over raising and spending revenue from student tuition. Currently any revenue from tuition goes to the Legislature, which decides how the money is used.
By giving the University control of the revenue from tuition, the money will directly benefit KU students and boost the University's base budget.
Too often, the interests of the students are sacrificed in budget dealings. This time, the Regents have proposed a plan that is both financially beneficial to the University and advantageous to the students.
SARAH MORRISON FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD.
THE ISSUE: CANCELED GLASSES
Students left without class
Instead of teaching, Bryant Freeman, professor of Haitian studies, will be serving as an adviser to the commander of the United Nations mission in Haiti. As a result, many students found themselves without a Haitian history class midway through the first week of classes.
This was not the first time and certainly not the last time the enrollment center did not notify students that their class would be closed.
The University of Kansas is privileged to have an esteemed scholar such as Freeman, with his expertise and stature in Haitian studies. But students should not be sacrificed in accommodating Freeman.
Chancellor Robert Hemenway has said students have to come first at the University of Kansas. The blame lies not with Hemenway or Freeman. But last winter, it was widely known that Freeman was being considered for the advisory position, which he was named to in
The University should have informed students about canceled course before the semester and add/drop began
and add/drop began mid-August.
An interim instructor should have been found for Freeman's classes, or the bureaucrats in the enrollment center should have informed the students enrolled in the class that the class could be canceled.
The University had sufficient time to prepare for the possibility. The enrolled students should have been informed that the class would not be offered before they arrived for the first day of class. Instead, many students missed their add/drop times and had to scramble to add a class during open add/drop.
Freeman will be doing a great service for the world in Haiti. But the University should have respected students and notified them of the cancellation or provided a professor in the classroom.
NATHAN J. TOHTSONI FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
KANSAN STAFF
COLLEEN MCCAIN
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Jeff MacNelly / CHICAGO TRIBUNE
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But Red cannot be found on the beer menu.
But there's no reason to listen to my rantings. We here in Lawrence can enjoy the Free State Brewery. Grab an Ad Astra Ale or a Crimsonberry.
Think you're drinking a microbrew? Think again
"Give me a Red Dog," said the young man as he glanced proudly around the bar, wondering if anyone noticed his step into the circle of connoisseurs.
"I am grown, and I know my beer," he declared to himself. "No longer will I accept the Beast of my youth. Give me quality! Give me flavor!"
Red Dog. Redhook. Kilian's Red. Red that signifies a warm, amber-colored brew with a nice head, a bread-in-the oven fragrance and a thick but fresh taste. Red that implies a quality beer that was mixed, measured and bottled with reverent hands in someone's garage
The most damage has been done to the image of a microbrewer. A sip of thick beer with a down-home title, such as Red Seal Ale, brings to mind a couple of nerdy guys talking mash and chemistry in their backyard shed, driven to find the perfect combination of ingredients for a beer. Try to fit suits and ties in a huge steel-coated factory setting into the picture. It doesn't work.
Angela Lopez is a Tulsa, Okla, senior in Journalism.
Red beers are pouring out of local bars and liquor stores. It can mean only one of two things.
One, Americans have turned their backs to the Big Boys' mass-produced and bland beers and are demanding the flavors, quality and freshness that can only come from a tenderly-cared-for microbrew.
The Big Boys are stealing microbrewer's identities and profits. There would be no complaint if they also were stealing the brewmeisters' admiration for a good beer and desire for quality. But a good beer takes expensive ingredients and a slow brewing process — neither of which the big brewers can afford to do because it will prevent them from shipping thousands of barrels a day.
Or two, the Big Boys rule the school — still.
Miller produces Red Dog. Anheuser-Busch owns 25 percent of Redhook. Killian's Red is Coors.
It's a microbrewer's nightmare come true. The Big Boys — Bud, Miller and Coors — have infiltrated a market that was created as a rebellion against them. By definition, microbreweries produce less than
15,000 barrels a year. A time-honored microbrew line says that Anheuser-Busch spills more beer in a single day than all of North America's 600 microbreweries make in a year. But the big brewers are taking profits from a market that they were never
STAFF COLUMNIST
invited to be a part of, and they have slapped artsy labeling on bottles to imitate a product that they are not creating. The while, the unsuspecting public keeps guzzling.
appear anywhere on the label. With Anheuer-Busch's investment into Redhook Ale Brewery Inc., their name doesn't appear either.
It's a smart move on the big beer makers' part. In the first part of 1995, Miller and Coors reported declines in the number of barrels shipped, and Anheuser-Busch — makers of Bud — was 'up only 0.6 percent. But the little brewers report annual growth rates of 50 percent. There's big money in imitating a microbrewery.
And the consumer doesn't even have to know that there's a Fortune 500 company behind it all. Miller has created the Plank Road Brewery to produce its Red Dog and Icehouse beers. The name Miller doesn't
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
GTAs say University is to blame for no raises
The Kansan editorial on Aug. 24 and the story on Aug. 25 regarding the graduate teaching assistant union's efforts to negotiate a GTA salary increase for the 1995-96 academic year misrepresented several facts. I hope the following will clear things up.
1. The Kansas Legislature is not the employer of GTAs and does not set terms and conditions of GTA employment. Regardless of legislative budget action, the University must negotiate in good faith with the GTA Union over terms and conditions of GTA employment. Legislative failure to add funds to a specific KU budget line item does not legally prohibit the University from shifting funds to increase funding of that line.
2. The Kansas Legislature did not attempt to prohibit the University
5. The University's refusal this year to consider salary increases for GTAs is a first in recent KU history. While GTAs have in years past not been treated as well as they deserve, they have always received, consistent with a sense of equity and community, and to the University's credit, at least the same percentage of salary increase as the average faculty increase.
from granting GTA's salary increases. Rather, it expressed a preference by shifting on paper within the University's budget the money for GTA salary increases from the GTA salary line to the general fund line. Several legislators have testified to this, including Republican leaders.
Lawrence graduate student
6. The GTA union's legal action does not prohibit negotiations with respect to contract terms for the 1996-97 academic term.
4. The legal disagreement between the GTA Union and the University is over whether the University's desire not to ruffle the feathers of certain legislators counts as a sufficient legal reason to refuse to consider GTA salary increases for the 1995-96 academic term. The GTA Union's position, as I understand it, is that such a non-
3. KU officials acknowledged the above in meetings with GTA Union members, stating that a) the University has the authority and the money, within the existing budget, to grant GTA salary increases, but that b) the University would not do so out of a desire to curry the favor of a handful of legislators.
David Reidy
Dole rebuffs support from gay rights organization
Bob Dole has sold his soul. Why am I not sorrised?
This summer the Republican presidential campaign front-runner became the first member of his party to accept a campaign contribution from a national gay group when he took a $1,000 donation from the Log Cabin Republicans. The group is an organization made up of more than 10,000 gay, lesbian and bisexual people who have deluded themselves into registering
STAFF COLUMNIST
Dole backpedaled madly last week. His campaign paid the money back to Log Cabin as soon as a syndicated columnist informed them that she intended to write about the gift. Hanging on to their money after it became public would have made Dole look bad in front of the radical religious right that has taken over the Republican party.
Last Friday, the Dole campaign's press secretary issued the following statement about the Log Cabin contribution: "Our policy is to decline contributions from political groups that have an agenda that is in opposition to Senator Dole's positions on the issues ... If we had been aware of this particular contribution in advance, it would not have been accepted, and it will be refunded."
as Republicans. That makes about as much sense as an African American trying to join the Ku Klux Klan.
Rich Tafel, Log Cabin executive director, confirmed that the Dole campaign cashed the check in June and said that he was upset about the rejection.
Without a doubt, his decision to return the Log Cabin's contribution is tied to the Iowa straw poll held August 19, in which he unexpectedly tied with Phil Gramm. Gramm partially credits his strong showing in Iowa to a get-out-the-vote letter about how the "radical homosexual community" is a threat to "our children." Gramm's surprise success evidently has scared Dole straight. so to speak.
The Dole campaign's statement on returning contributions only counts when the money comes from queer folks. Dole has received more than $21,000 in contributions from Time Warner Inc. since 1987, but he refuses to return these contributions in spite of his diatribes against entertainment giants for debasing America.
Dole's people invited Tafel to attend a $1,000-a-person campaign fundraiser in Washington, D.C. two months ago, Tafel said. Tafel said that, sporting a Log Cabin Republicians name tag, he spoke extensively with Dole at the fundraiser.
Surely Bob Dole and his fellow Republican presidential candidates haven't forgotten how the radical right bigotry of the 1992 campaign derailed a once-popular George Bush's re-election effort. Nonetheless, Dole — who last spring had enough guts to say he thought employment discrimination against gays, lesbians and bisexuals was wrong — is quickly learning to spout tired "special rights" rhetoric like a good little old boy. I guess we all know what Dole is now. All that's left to do is quibble over the price.
Chris Hampton is a Lawrence graduate student in higher education.
MARS
By Mike Boast