4
University Daily Kansan/Wednesday, September 4, 1991
OPINION
KU accessibility
Improving access requires attitude change
The University of Kansas is showing that it is committed to improving campus accessibility to physically challenged individuals.
Braille, printed dots which represent letters and numerals for the blind, have been added to elevators and doors in Wescoe Hall. In addition, room numbers and signs will be translated into braille within two months to ensure that visually impaired students can find classrooms.
To aid the mobility of students in wheelchairs, five wheelchair lifts have been added to Murphy Hall and automatic door openers will be installed in
Wescoe, the Computer Center and the Art and Design Building. The University also will restructure the bathrooms in Fraser and Murphy halls to provide better access for various types of wheelchairs.
However, the one factor that needs to be improved on campus cannot be done by the University. It has to be done by the students who have no respect toward the facilities designed to aid those who are physically challenged.
within two months of placing braille signs in Wescoe's elevators, the University was forced to replace the signs because they had been peeled off by students. Similarly, wheelchair lifts in Murphy have been vandalized. One wheelchair lift was destroyed, while others were rendered inoperable because students activated emergency stop buttons for no apparent reason.
Even though KU still has changes to make before the campus is totally accessible and safe for all physically challenged students, they should be praised for the changes they have made thus far. The people who should be scorned at are those students who have chosen to destroy the university's work.
Clanissa Jackson for the editorial board
Parking hassles
Student spaces disappearing little by little
Are you mad? Are you disgusted with the parking policies at the University of Kansas? Of course you are, we all are. Case in point, how many times has this happened to you? Just when you think you have found a parking space on or around campus you end up being ticketed $10 for not parking in the appropriate lot at the appropriate time.
This scenario will occur more frequently this semester for one reason. Parking services has converted several
yellow-zoned parking lots, student parking, into blue and red-zoned lots, faculty and staff parking.
One would think the University would compensate by adding additional yellow parking spaces. However, to this day the University has not done so. The University has not even decreased the amount of yellow stickers sold. In essence, parking services is selling $50 parking permits for parking spaces that do not exist.
It is ironic that the student, who already pays everincreasing tuition and fees, will be ticketed for parking in a University lot simply because there are no other adequate spaces available.
Student anger and resentment toward ticketing policies will lessen if parking services becomes more sensitive to the needs of the students instead of taking away little by little every year. After all a little can add up to a lot.
Jose Vasquez for the editorial board
LETTERS to the EDITOR
Fulchermust resign position
In Friday's Kansan, we saw columns representing two groups. They were the 75 African-American students at one extreme end of the spectrum and Students Against Violence Against Womyn (please note our radical spelling), at the other. Both groups are using this whole incident to raise awareness of their cultural needs. Now they please allow me, a typical run-the-mill middle ground student with no political axe to grind, to express my view.
If I could talk to Darren Fulcher, I would ask him to come clean, fess up. For the sake of the Student Senate he should take on the only honorable thing, step down.
Most people have been taught that the right to swing their fist ends at the tips of someone else's nose. In other words, nobody has the right to beat up on anybody else, male or female. Also, most guys have been taught well the unwritten rule that you never leave a friend's house unless ashamed that my Student Senate President apparently hasn't learned these basic values.
Rally coverage called biased
David Benintendi St. John senior
In the name of fair journalism, it is my responsibility to say that in the article in last Monday's Kansan regarding the abortion rally in Wichita, pro-lifers were treated in a biased manner and were underrepresented.
Previously, the Kansan deal with how to correctly represent Black or African-American students. I appreciate this respect given to them. However, in Monday's article, the terms "anti-abortion" and "pro-choice" were used. I as a pro-lifer, prefer pro-life. Negative connotations are connected to anti-abortion, pro abortion. Media must be bias-free. Your responsibility is to confine your opinions to the opinion page. Equal terms, such as pro-life/pro-care, should be used.
If Kansans for Life could not be reached and you could not locate pro-choices other than those in the Pro-Choice coalition, why not Pro-lifers? Everyone at KU is not pro-choice. I know many Christian groups with many pro-lifers, some whom went to Wichita. Was equal effort made to contact pro-lifers?
The headline "Pro-choice Forces Counter Rallies of Anti-abortionists," and pictures of police dealing only with pro-lifers are clearly slanted for pro-chickens. The article was a disappointment because we deserve fair and unbiased representation and expect it in the future.
Dana Wilkinson Wichita senior
Open admissions gives some a second chance
Since first enrolled in the University of Kansas in 1988, I have heard a great deal about open versus qualified admissions. The arguments presented in Thursday's Kansan covered most of what I've heard before: "Selective admissions would give KU a better reputation" (Janette Phelps), or "Kansans support KU should be able to get in" (Darren James). But haven't heard any arguments concerning what I believe is the best reason for admissions, and that is the need for a second chance.
I understand the need for a second chance. I graduated from high school in 1978, and I was (at best) a mediocre student. I did well in the classes I found interesting, and I did very poorly in the ones I didn't like. I graduated right in the middle of my 30 classmates. I didn't go to college right out of high school, because I knew I wouldn't study. Instead I decided to "be all that I could be," and I joined the Army.
The idea of attending college didn't occur to me for several years, and when it did, I dismissed such thoughts by remembering what a terrible student I had been in high school. In addition, my husband and I had two small bowstroaise.
In 1988, my husband's company transferred him to Lawrence, and my younger son enrolled in kindergarten. With great trepidation, I applied for admission at the University of Kansas. If a selective admissions policy had been in effect, I would never have been admitted to the University.
Elizabeth Shear
Guest columnist
But because of the less stringent admissions policy currently in effect, I was admitted, and my second chance has been a wonderful opportunity for me. I've maintained a 3.76 GPA over the last two and a half years. I'm a member of the College Honors Program and I am a University Scholar (Class X). I am in the University Symphony Orchestra, and I am a sergeant in the U.S. Army Reserve.
Lisa Golzar argues against open admissions because, she says, that policy "takes away from everyone's opportunities. Students should be here because they deserve to and want to learn." To that I can only say, please keep in mind that although I may not have deserved to be here regularly, my class is stronger, than many of my classmates. If you doubt that desire, come watch me study algebra in the math tutoring room this semester.
I do not believe I am unique; there are many other students attending this University who were not ready for college when they were 18 or 19. Don't eliminate that second opportunity for any of us.
I realize that what I am about to say is not going to make me many friends in what has been termed the "women's community" of the KU campus. However, I feel an obligation to call attention to what I see as a dangerous attitude being perpetrated on campus by certain representatives of the woman's community of Lawrence. In the column dated Aug. 30, an anonymous writer claimed that most batters of women are "normal" men. I believe that most batters of women, children or other men are anything but
- Elizabeth Shear is a Lawrence junior majoring in English and political science
People who make mistakes really need help and understanding, not condemnation
"normal" men. I think that any male or female, who has such a disturbed perception of what constitutes a normal, healthy way of relating to another human being has serious problems, but they are problems that cannot be resolved by disowning or otherwise personally persecuting an offending person or, for that matter, an offending gender.
People make mistakes. Sometimes they make very serious and barbaric mistakes. When I was 17 years old, during one of the death threats of a marriage that was later to end in an explosive divorce, my father beat and seriously injured my older brother. I a lot of soul searching after this event, which left me with scars very deep.
Jean Carter
Guest columnist
Sometimes I believe they will never heal. However, the conclusion to which I came was to try to understand and to help this man, my father, who had been driven to such a despicable act by forces that I will never understand. After a lot of time and some therapy, my family is a lot better. I can walk without having believed that that would have happened if I had chosen to walk away from my father during the time when he probably needed me most.
I realize that the crime that has been
committed by Darren Fulcher is a very serious one. Possibly Mr. Fulcher should be impeached from his position on Student Senate. However, I don't believe that a violent and senseless act performed on the part of Mr. Fulcher calls for a gross condemnation of his person or of his entire gender.
I wish I had $1 for every time I've heard a man say, during my two plus years of work for the KU Pro-Choice Coalition, that he didn't feel that he had a right to make a comment or to
take an action that might be construed as work toward a "woman's goal." I realize, and I think that a lot of other women do, too, that just because you happen to be born white or a male doesn't necessarily mean that you are a bad person. I just hope that someday, those people who fight oppressors with nothing but more oppression will realize that, too.
Jean Carter is a Wichita senior majoring in fine arts.
KANSAN STAFF
HOLLY LAWTON Editor
JENNIFERREYNOLDS Managing editor
TOMERLEN
TOM EBLEN General manager, news adviser
Editors
News Erik Schutz
Editorial Karen Park
Planning Sarah Davis
Campus Eric Gorski
Sports Mike Andrews
Photo Brian Schoenii
Features Tiffany Harness
Graphics Melissa Unterberg
KATIESTADER Business manager
RICHHARSHBARGER Retail sales manager
Business Staff
Campus sales mgr | Leanne Bryant
Regional sales mgr | Jennifer Claxton
National sales mgr | David McWilhne
Co-op sales mgr | Laike Keeper
Production mgrs | Jay Steiner,
Wendy Stertz
Marketing director,
Creative director | David Habiger
Classified mgr | Jennifer Jacquoin
JEANNE HINES Sales and marketing adviser
Letters should be typeed, double-spaced and fewer than 200 words. They must include the writer's signature, name, address and telephone number. Writers affiliated with the University of Kansas must include class and homeetown, or faculty or staff position.
Great columns should be typeed, double-spaced and fewer than 700 words. The writer will be phonetic.
Loco Locals
top
The Kavan reserves the right to reject or edit letters, guest columns and cartoons. They can be mailed or brought to the Kavan newroom, 111 Stuart-Fint Hall.
NOW IN OUR K BLAB
STUDIO IS ADAM QUINN,
OUR SPORTS,
STATISTICS, AND
INFORMATION...I UNDERSTAND
A PREDICION IS AT HAND?
THIS YEARS, FOOTBALL TEAM LOOKS LIKE THE BEST IN SOME YEARS...
HOWVER, THE ODDS ON A BOUND BID.
by Tom Michaud
WELL,LET'S JUST SAY IF THE TITANIC COULD SINK...
MicuimO