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Wednesday, July 17, 1996
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
Graduation rate will rise when students reprioritize
The NCAA reported last week that only 31 percent of the football players enrolled at the University of Kansas during the 1989-90 school year had graduated by last summer. Although it's easy to point fingers at the Athletic Department or administration for the low graduation rate, football players aren't the only students who have difficulty competing in the classroom.
Only 57 percent of all students who enrolled at the University during the 1989-90 school year had graduated six years after beginning their college careers, according to the Office of Institutional Research and Planning.
Perhaps football players and other student athletes have trouble balancing athletics and academia. To contend with the problem, Student Support Services in the Athletic Department helps student athletes deal with the pressures of sports and school.
THE ISSUE:
Graduation rate
Students,including student athletes,should take the initiative in completing their college educations.
The graduation rate won't improve unless students make their educations a priority and take advantage of the available resources. Students need to take the initiative and seek the appropriate assistance. The University shouldn't have to coddle them.
KIM BECKA FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
The University also offers advising, counseling and tutoring services for all students. Despite the available services too many students at the University are slipping through the cracks.
The department assesses the academic needs of all freshmen and tailors an academic program for each student athlete.
Proposed tuition increase may stem University troubles
The Board of Regents proposal to increase tuition by 4 percent for 1997-98 school year is necessary to provide University students with a quality education.
Tuition accounts for 23 percent of the University's budget.
Denise Musser, communications director for the Board of Regents, said 3.5 percent of the tuition increase accounts only for a corresponding increase in inflation. The additional .5 percent increase is applicable only for one year and will be used to improve technology on campus.
This minimal increase attests to the Regents' commitment to keeping tuition affordable while maintaining its educational standards.
The University's tuition is less expensive than tuition at peer research
THE ISSUE:
Tuition increase
The proposed increase in tuition is minimal and necessary to maintain educational standards at the University.
institutions. In-state tuition last year was $2,182 at the University, compared to $2,558 at the University of Iowa, $2,763 at the University of Colorado and $3,381 at the University of Oregon.
Although the University has a reputation for providing an affordable education, it is plagued by decaying classrooms and an alarming flight of distinguished faculty.
The tuition increase will not solve these problems, but it may prevent them from getting worse.
JEREMY LIND FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARI
KANSAN STAFF
SARAH WIESE
Editor
CRAIG LANG Managing editor
TOM EBLEN General manager, news adviser
Campus...Jason Stratt
Associate Campus...Dan Gelston
Editorial...Kim Becka
Photo...Edmee Rodriguez
Wire...Craig Lang
Design...Robert Allen
Chief...Julie King
KAREN GERSCH
Business manager
SARA ROSE
Director of Client Services
JAY STEINER
Sales and marketing adviser
JUSTIN KNUPP
Technology coordinator
business Staff
Campus / Regional mgr...Shelly Wachter
Special Sections mgr ...Rachel Gahill
Production mgr ...Karen Gorsch
Assistent Creative dir ...Dena Plecicite
Classified mgr ...Stacey Weingarten
Zone mgr ...Troy Sauer
Shawn Trimble / KANSAN
Whenever I tell people I babysit, I can tell by the looks on their faces they're thinking, "get a real job." Quite frankly, I don't want a real job. I've tried them, and they're boring.
But hopefully there will be a little person in his life to slow him down and make him smile.
Although he spends most of his time playing, Colin makes plenty of plans. His year is structured around the major holidays. He already knows what he wants for Christmas and his next birthday. He has even asked where I'll be living on Halloween so that he can be sure to drop by.
Children can give students a fresh perspective on life
I babysit everyday, and for a few hours I get to escape my deadline-oriented college life and go to a world where homework is nonexistent, summer seems to last forever and a trip to McDonald's is a 10 on the excitement scale. The only objective is to have fun.
Even if you have a 10-page paper due the next day, there's no way to avoid relaxing. Children make you walk slower because their legs are shorter. They help you think differently about things.
deadlines loom ominously, taking a lazy stroll home from the elementary school with Colin is practically therapeutic. After a snack of cheese and crackers, we spend a few hours riding bikes, playing with Matchbox cars or drawing pictures.
Of course, Colin will not always be 8 years old. Eventually, he too will become a college student and lose the carefree happiness particular to childhood.
Unlike most 20-something college students, children have little angst. They don't worry about what they'll do with their lives. If anything goes wrong, cookies and Band-Aids make it all better. They're just happy people.
Many of us spend so much time going to classes, working or studying, that it's easy to forget life exists beyond our daily regimes. If you're looking for a way to expand your horizons, I suggest spending time with a child.
I'm not talking high school or junior high age. I'm talking young. Four to 10 years old, free from middle-school cynicism and the teen rebellion, gotta-be-cool
Rachel Wiese is a Stanley apophore in
Japanese and political science.
STAFF COLUMNIST
phase. A few hours a week spent with a child puts life in a refreshing perspective that you just can't get in the job-prep world of the University.
summer. Out of nowhere he said,
"Rachel, you're lucky." When I asked why, he answered,
"Because you live so close to the park," as if it were obvious.
The other day, I took 8-year-old Colin, the child I babysit, to see the place I'm subleaving this
If you spend enough time with children, that positive outlook is contagious.
The place I'm living this summer is a temporary dwelling, not a home. The front room is void of furnishings, and the living room has two chairs and a worn couch. From my perspective, it's just a place to live. My parents think it's a dump. From Colin's perspective, it is a palace because of all the open space.
When my schedule is hectic and
Bigotry has no place in balanced reporting
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
When reporters at the University Daily Kansan cover stories related to lesbigay issues, they are told to seek out dissenting opinions for balance. This practice is considered good journalism. Apparently someone believes it makes for better reading.
That's why in the recent article on gay marriage (July 3) reasoned statements of the lesbish people interviewed were balanced by the inclusion of a few personal bigoted opinions. This editorial position of the Kansan is inappropriate and foolish. Do opinions really balance factual observations? In any of the countless inane articles which run every semester on the joys and
thrills of heterosexual dating, do you seek out some cynical queer to opine that they were sickened by the constant sight of straight people flagrantly pushing their lifestyle on them? Of course not.
If the Kansan were so interested in balance, it would have asked for an opinion of the incredibly moderate Sandy Praeger's untimely regret for supporting the anti-gay marriage bill in the Kansas Senate (July 10). Now she says it's the one vote she wishes she could change. Had you asked one of the lesbigay people targeted by that hate legislation, we might have been able to add, in the name of balance, that she expressed a similar regret for having voted against adding sexual orientation to the Lawrence Human Relations ordinance in 1987.
What does it mean to have a senator who votes against you and then compassionately regrets her votes? What does it mean to have to be constantly confronted with slanderous and uninformed personal opinions in the guise of balanced reporting? Opinions belong on the opinion page, but in the Kansan they are liable to pop up just about anywhere, all in the name of good journalism.
Please stop veiling your petty bigotry in the name of journalistic integrity. It just doesn't wash.
Scott Manning Lawrence graduate student
Lesbigay voters should support the president for re-election
I'm disappointed that Bill Clinton has come out against same-sex marriages. I believe that legal marriage should be a fundamental right, regardless of sexual orientation. As long as our nation gives economic and legal benefits to civil marriages, denying those same benefits to same-sex couples who choose to marry is discrimination.
STAFF COLUMNIST
However, I am disturbed by the awalows of many lesbigay people abandoning Clinton in the 1996 presidential election as I am by Clinton's support of the Defense of Marriage Act. As a lesbian, I will vote again for Bill Clinton.
There is no question that Clinton has alienated many lesbigay voters, but he still has done more than any president to advance civil rights for lesbigay people. Abandoning Clinton could undermine progress toward greater equality beyond the next four years.
Clinton's attempt to ban discrimination in the military was limited by members of Congress. The "don't ask, don't tell" compromise was not his idea; he wanted to lift the military ban entirely. Since then, he has opened doors long closed in government to lesbigay people.
Clinton banned discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in the federal bureaucracy outside the military. He ended the practice of denying lesbigay people security clearances, and he supports the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. This bill, which would ban job discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in the public sector, awaits congressional action. Clinton also has appointed more than a dozen lesbigay people to high-level posts, including Roberta Achtenberg, assistant secretary in the Department of Housing and Urban Development, an assistant secretary in the Department of Commerce.
Congressional opposition to broader civil rights for all people, regardless of sexual orientation, has increased since Republicans assumed the majority in Congress in 1994. Clinton has said he would continue to press for expanded civil rights for lesbigay people, particularly for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.
Lesbigay people need Bill Clinton in the White House in 1996 if they hope to progress legislatively and judicially. Remember, Clinton appointed Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer to the Supreme Court, both of whom helped declare the antlesbigay Colorado law unconstitutional. It's important that Clinton, and not Bob Dole, appoint justices to the Supreme Court.
I hope that lesbigay people and our straight allies will support Clinton in the next election because he needs our vote, and we ultimately will fare better.
OUT FROM THE CRACKS
Christine Robinson is a Lawrence doctoral candidate in sociology.
By Jeremy Patnoi