4A the university daily kansan
opinion
PERSPECTIVE: STUDENT SENATE ELECTIONS
tuesday, april 13,2004
Vote no for referendum C
"Folks call me a maverick / Guess I ain't too diplomatic / I just never been the kind to go along / Just avoidin' confrontation / For the sake of conformation..."
-- Garth Brooks "Against the Grain"
From the 1998 album Limited Series
KU students love their University. Their undying belief in the crimson and blue is visible all over campus.
GUEST COMMENTARY
In recent years students have paid for the Student Fitness Recreation Center through increases in their student fees and have been major contributors to the new Multicultural Resource Center fund. We, unlike any other student body in the state, have demonstrated a commitment to our University that will last forever.
Casey Collier and Cornelius Minor opinion@kansas.com
Student Senate elections are on Wednesday and Thursday. On the ballot, we are being presented with another opportunity to invest in their University
Student Senate has proposed a Global Education Scholarship Program and is asking the student body to fund it. This program would create a limited number of study abroad scholarships. Every KU student would be required to pay an additional student fee of $4 per semester to establish this program.
Before making that decision, it is important to recognize that tuition has been increasing steadily since many of us have been here. Though we have a lot to show for the money that we have invested in the past, we as students cannot continue to carry the heavy burden of the University's enhancement. We should not be paying for student scholarships.
With the state in its current fiscal condition and with no end in sight to our country's recession, students cannot sustain the taxation of another student fee.
The idea of a Senate-initiated scholarship is underdeveloped at best. The group is asking students to fund the Global Education Scholarship Program now, yet it does not know how many scholarships will be granted. The bottom line is that not every student will be granted a scholarship.
There has been no public education on this issue, and no one has presented a model for how this scholarship would work. Do students at other schools pay for their own scholarships? Have such programs been successful? Will students even know to apply for the scholarships? By asking students to blindly approve this initiative, Student Senate is asking them to stumble forward into a financially uncertain darkness.
We want greater opportunity for international study, but we urge you to vote against this measure. It is important to know that a vote against this plan is not a vote against the idea of study abroad or of study abroad scholarships. A vote against this measure is a vote against a half-researched and poorly disseminated plan to have students spend more money
— especially when Student Senate has been so vigilant about protecting them from such fees in the past.
University offices normally do the work of establishing and granting scholarships. It is great that Student Senate wants to help with this, but it is simply not its job.
If Student Senate wants to take a proactive role in the establishment of scholarships, it does not have to do so by taxing the students. Other options that it has simply been too uncompromising to explore.
A reserve account that Student Senate can use. This account holds excess student monies from years past. That account has more than enough to get this scholarship program off the ground.
If this referendum were passed, the reserve fund has more than the approximate $190,000 that would come from the scholarship fee. The account typically funds projects that have a proven track record for success. Why not use this money? Has Student Senate even explored the possibility of organizing a capital campaign with the Kansas University Endowment Association?
Student Senate has noble intentions, but its senators must understand that asking students to pay more is not the way to go. Many student fees are necessary, but dipping into students' pockets to fund scholarships is not. Doing so right now would establish an unhealthy precedent. There should be other ways to support study abroad scholarships; asking students to fund scholarships should be a last resort. More research needs to be done, and the Student Senate needs to lead students in that effort. For now students need to vote no on Referendum C.
Corner is a Shawnee senior in communications. She is also a student senator. Minor is an Atlanta graduate student in American studies. He is a co-host of Voice Activated, 7:30 p.m. Thursdays on K.J.HK.
Dan Carino/KRT
Free for All
Free for All callers have 20 seconds to speak about any topic they wish. Kansas editors reserve the right to omit comments. Slanderous and obscene statements will not be printed. Phone numbers of all incoming calls are recorded.
Call 864-0500
For more comments, go to www.kansan.com
It is 12:26 on Saturday night. Happy Easter.
Happy birthday, Sammy.
-
I just want to thank the people at SafeRide for making my life that much easier.
□
-
Gas grills are for pansies. Real men use charcoal.
To the girl in the pink pants; You rock my world.
-
I just wanted to say that walking from McColum past Ellsworth and past the new renovated empty rooms is like a slap in the face.
I would just like to thank you to the girl that tripped and fell into the bushes in front of Snow Hall today. It made my day.
-
There are two kinds of people in this world. There are clappers and there are non-clappers. You just have to ask yourself, "What kind of person am I?"
I just walked by a table and got a free book on Jesus and a speech when all I really wanted was a Jolly Rancher. I am not saying there is anything wrong with that, but Campus Crushade rocks.
The guy who wears the wolf ears and the wolf tail called me weird. Is that normal?
图
-
What ever happened to Sisgo? The Thong song was so great in retrospect. And no, don't tell your boyfriend's best friend that you love him. That only works in movies.
图
To those random girls who gave me a ride home when I was peeing outside The Wheel! I lost my wallet in your car If you could find my phone number somehow and call me that would be great. Thanks.
图
I don't need to have a man to feel validated. I just need to be printed in the Free for All. Now that I have said that out loud that doesn't sound any better.
PERSPECTIVE
Fifth year equals more time
Some call me a fifth year. I say I am on my victory lap.
When I tell people that it has taken me five years to graduate, I am either high-
COMMENTARY
fived for the sup posed partying I have been doing or a victim of the dirty, you-don't-care about-your-education look. It is actually the opposite. I do care, and that is why I took so long.
There are a lot of reasons that students would take five years to graduate. Some of those
Cameron Koelling opinion@hansan.com
reasons include transferring schools, studying abroad, being an athlete or switching majors. All of those are academic-conscious decisions. In my case, I went to the University of North Texas for two years before realizing I wanted a better education, so I packed up and moved here. Not just to drink beer.
There are approximately 1,328 fifth-year students here at the University of Kansas, said Joann Williams, senior principal analyst at the Office of Institutional Research and Planning. This does not include transfers and those who go beyond the fifth year. There is no need for them to feel ashamed—actually they should be proud of themselves.
Anson Jackson, Bedford, Texas, senior is finally graduating after five years at the University. He is graduating with a major in mathematics and a minor in philosophy. No one should call him a slacker. In addition to his strenuous academic load, Jackson also ran track for four years and regularly traveled and had a daily workout routine.
"I don't feel like taking five years was a bad decision. I had the time to take the classes I wanted and to get something out of my classes rather then rushing through them," Jackson said.
Patty Noland, career adviser for the journalism school, said there are plenty of reasons to take a fifth year. If a student transferred to a school with different prerequisites, studied abroad or changed majors, he or she shouldn't feel ashamed, she said. Although, as a parent, she would hope students are responsible in getting out in a timely manner. She said that students should be happy with their degree rather than trying to rush to graduate.
We have the rest of our lives to get up at 6 a.m., work a long day and then repeat it the next tedious day. This year, I will admit, I do go out on the town more than I should, but I keep remembering that this is the last year I have to be somewhat irresponsible. We should live it up while we can.
Cameron Koelling is a Bedford, Texas senior in journalism.
ON POLITICS
College campuses provide place for academic freedom
The other day on National Public Radio I heard a piece about the Academic Bill of Rights. This is an idea being batted around legislatures in Colorado and Missouri by those who see universities as centers of "leftist bias and indoctrination," in the words of the NPR story. The author of the Academic Bill of Rights, conservative activist David Horowitz, thinks that such bias is real, apparent and dangerous. Does such a Bill of Rights have a place at Kansas?
Several examples are cited in the story. There was the girl at the University of Colorado who missed class to attend a conservative political rally and was told by teacher that she was going to fail because of it. There was the midterm on which the essay question asked students to explain why President George W. Bush was a war criminal; a student who refused to paint the president in such colors was given an "F." Finally, there was a
Matt Pirotte
opinion@kansan.com
COMMENTARY
There are places in American academia where conservative students are indeed being treated like "second-class citizens" as Horowitz believes. Much of this must be due to the fact that university faculty are a notoriously liberal bunch.
politically liberal professor at Brandeis University in Massachusetts who told his students that they would be graded based on their "political growth."
A study by the American Enterprise
In some cases such as at UC-Santa Barbara the study found only one officially registered member of a conservative party out of 73 examined faculty. Opponents of the Academic Bill Rights argue that these disparities are not the result of biased hiring practices, and I would tend to believe them. For whatever reason, academia is an area that attracts people on the political left.
Institute in 2000 looked at political party registration of university professors at "top institutions." What they found was that even the most favorable balance, at the University of Houston, was still 3 to 1 in favor of liberal parties.
I see no reason to suspect that Kansas does not follow the tradition of a liberal faculty. Just remember that your professors are allowed to have their views on any subject, and you are allowed to disagree with them. We call this "academic freedom," and it is good.
Michelle Rombeck
editor
864-4854 or mburhenn@kansan.com
The most egregious example from my personal experience occurred in a psychology class; I'll leave out the name of the instructor in the interests of politeness. We were discussing various mental defects and how it is possible to detect them before birth. When one particularly tragic condition came up the instructor said, "If you find out you're going to have a kid with X disease, you need to consider a therapeutic abortion." (Calm down, people, this isn't another abortion column.)
KANSAN
What you should not tolerate is blatant propagation of a political agenda. Regardless of how you view a particular issue, you must see such action as antithetical to the mission of a university. When you see this happening, raise your hand and suggest that the teacher make stump speeches on their own time, you're paying for the credit hours.
The problem was not that I personally disagreed with this professor's conclusion,
I can't speak for Colorado and Brandeis, but I am not convinced that Kansas needs an Academic Bill of Rights. The University is certainly liberal, but I'm not sure I would call it a center of indoctrination.
Andrew Vaupel
managing editor
864-4854 or vaupel@kansan.com
Meghan Brune and Johanna M. Maska
opinion editors
864-4924 or opinion@kansan.com
Just be smart. You are on a college campus;college campuses generally lean to the left. The views you hear in class do not represent the only belief system you can hold.
Guard yourself against thinking that the insular experience of university life is a good example of the real world.
On the other side, I have sat and listened to a history professor essentially argue for the conversion of the United States into a socialist system without ever feeling like he was out of order. The instructor simply presented his views rationally.
Danielle Bose
business manager
864-4358 or addreder@kansan.com
Stephanie Graham
retail sales manager
864-4359 or adsales@kansan.com
but I did take issue with the fact he was dropping one side of a hotly debated political issue down as if it were gospel truth.
Pirote is a Joplin, Mo., senior in history.
Matt Fisher
sales and marketing adviser
864-7665 or mfisker@kansan.com
Malcolm Gibson
general manager and news adviser
864-7667 or mgibson@kansan.com
Editorial Board Members
A
Editorial Board Members
Kendall Dix **Lynzee Ford** Laura Francoviglia
Amy Hammontree **Kelly Hollowell** Teresa Loa
Mindy Osborne **Ryan Scarrow** Eribbath
Willy **Paul Whitmoretum** Zach Stinson Zach
Newton **Wes Benson** Sara Behnek Kevin
Flaherity **Brandon Gay** Zack Hemenway
Alex Hoffman Kevin Kampwirth Anna Kelly
Cameron Koilling Courtney Kuhlen Brandi
Matheisen Travis Metcalf Mike Norris
Jonathan Reeder Erin Rifley Alea Smith
Kalimerman
A