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* University Daily Kansan/Monday, September 9, 1991
OPINION
Bureaucracy blues
Financial aid process is smooth as can be
Before you march down to the Office of Financial Aid to vent your frustrations, realize one thing: they are doing everything possible to make the process of receiving your money fast,smooth and correct.
The process of receiving financial assistance through the Office of Financial Aid may seem cumbersome to many, but the current application and distribution process is the simplest way to handle thousands of students' financial matters. If one briefly reviews the Office of Financial Aid's organizational
chart, many misconceptions may be cleared up
The office processes the grants, loans and scholarships awarded to qualified applicants. In no way does the office determine the amount of money awarded, nor does it write checks to individual students. Only the federal government has the power to decide what type of and how much financial assistance is needed.
If the application for financial assistance is turned in late to the government, the University has no way of
speeding up the process. Unfortunately, late applications mean late checks, and late checks mean a crunch for money on or near fee payment time. Instead of getting mad, just stop and think. Such hierarchy is common in all organizations and, in the long run, will benefit all students. With such a large financial aid network, more applications are able to be processed, allowing equal opportunity for financial assistance.
Jose Vasquez for the editorial board
Class-notes service good idea if not abused
Professional notes
One reaction to learning that a service now exists from which students can purchase class notes might be "What is this world coming to?" After two seconds of thought, however, the next thing is to check and see if the notes are available for one of your classes. Nope? Darn.
Jon's Notes, located in the Jayhawk Bookstore, 1420 Crescent Road, has obtained faculty permission to print and sell notes from six different classes. Teaching assistants, graduate students and those who have shown proficiency in a given field have been hired as note-takers.
For $23.50, you can get an entire semester of notes. It's $1.50 for individual lectures. Students who have limited financial resources may be able to get them at reduced rates.
Although we are skeptical because we see the possibility of abuse, we certainly are not opposed to the concept. The instructor has given permission, and the instructor - just like mother-knows best. Every two weeks the notes are given to the instructor as a check against errors.
Most of the courses that Jon's now services are freshman and sophomore level, such as Sociology 104. Yes, younger students will benefit from seeing how notes are taken by the more experienced and be able to assimilate the material better. But are they gaining
or losing experience in note-taking by buying better ones? Buy them,but take your own as well.
As anyone who has used someone else's notes knows, there is no substitution for being in class. Some ideas simply cannot be passed via notes. This service is used best when it functions as a supplement to your notes or as a substitute in case of emergency.
So Jon's Notes is here, and that's OK, for it can be a powerful learning tool. It is everyone's responsibility to make sure it stays a positive one.
Michael Dick for the editorial board
LETTERS to the EDITOR
Give Fulcher chancetolearn
Student-body president Darren Fulcher made a mistake. He is not denying the fact that he has made a mistake. Darren should not resign or be removed from his position as student-body president. Mistakes are a part of learning. There is information which can be learned from textbooks and there is information and experience which can be gained from life events. Darren appears to have learned that certain behavior is inappropriate and intolerable. The mission of the University is not only to give us textbook knowledge but also knowledge of how to function as a respectable adult. The least we can do is to give Darren the opportunity to learn from his mistake. Darren needs our support now more than ever. Walk a mile in Darren's shoes and I suspect you would feel great remorse. If Darren proves to us that he has not learned from his mistake by repeating his aberrant behavior, then it would be time to question his ability to be a leader and role mode.
'Let's help Daren grow and prosper from his mistakes by giving him the chance to be a great leader, and we will be enriched by it.
Lee Alderman Topeka graduate student
Media biased in Wichita protest
This is just one example of how the press does not always give the entire perspective (whether intentionally or not). So let me encourage you, as readers, to take what they tell you with a grain of salt. It's not always the way it appears.
For instance, when you watch the anti-abortion battles on television, you could easily come to the conclusion that the demonstrators are a bunch of Bible-bouncing fanatics ready to take up arms to defend a "tissue-blob." This is a liberal's view of the rally and is not entirely the case. Most of the meetings are spent in prayer and planning the next day's protest with an occasional touch of "hell-fire and brimstone." Yet, when television reporters cover the rally, they show only a few minutes of the rally. They show the exciting stuff. It would be very boring to watch hundreds of people kneeling and praying.
As we all sit back in the comfort of our dorm rooms, it is important to remember how limited the picture of the abortion protests in Wichita is to us. All we see or hear from the media comes secondhand from someone who chooses on which aspect to report. For the most part, the people who choose this perspective tend to exhibit a liberal bias – not intentionally, they just call it as they see it (through liberal eyes).
Dan Zimmerman Wichita freshman
Engineering fee is too taxing to degree
While paying tuition and fees the other week, the predominant thought on the minds of KU students, of course, was how to dodge the lines of solicitors. Not widely told of were the effects of two recent catastrophes that hit the University of Kansas. The unfortunate loss of Hoch Auditorium has engulfed the spirits of all students. The other catastrophe surfaced on the minds of only a few, especially as the tuition checks were being written. The second catastrophe is the engineering equipment fee.
This fee has several tiers of catastrophe. The pilot flame was the state's dwindling level of financial support to the University's equipment needs during the last few years. The second level was the engineering administration's inability to solve the problem sufficiently and appropriately. Despite its genuine efforts to improve the quality of the students' education, the administration demonstrated a lack of research, communication and understanding of the obvious consequences of restricted-use academic fees. It, instead, became reassured by the fact that other universities had initiated such fees, despite their unpopularity with students and faculty. The competition among the academic programs of different universities is quite real, but the bandwagon approach does not work when it relies on wrong solutions.
The actual implementation of the fee is the catastrophe felt in the pocket-books of every engineering student. This includes the engineering students who will graduate soon and those whose coursework does not even benefit from the fee. It also is felt by the students who decided not to pursue an engineering degree because of the increased financial burden.
The opposition to the fee, spearheaded by Student Senate, warned that the fee would become a permanent fixture, rather than a temporary measure. After the Board of Regents approved the fee Dec. 20, it agreed to extend the fee April 18. The Legislature even voted in February to place the fees funds into the state's general budget—a measure that would have allowed the money to be appropriated in whatever manner the Legislature saw fit. This move, feared and forewarned, was luckily reversed the following day.
David
Suroff
Guest
columnist
Now that KU's academic programs have been price-tagged, several other schools and departments are planning to establish academic fees. Soon, students will be shopping for a degree in addition to choosing a degree based on education interests.
Proponents of the fee claim that our society is in an era of specialty-taxation - if you want a product or service, you must be willing to be taxed specifically for that product or service. This is true in a municipality context, where the subscribers are working adults, but not in the environment of a state university, where the philosophy of public higher education is to provide its vast array of opportunities equally and without regard to the financial status of the individual student.
If any student has a grievance in a matter relating to the engineering equipment fee, you are encouraged to contact Student Senate.
David Suroff is a Leawood senior majoring inengineering.
KANSAN STAFF
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