4A
Monday, May 6, 1996
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
Chancellor's lawn a good place to start cutting costs
The University of Kansas spent $55,000 on campus landscaping last fiscal year.
Of that amount, $24,000 was spent on landscaping the area around the Chancellor's house. The amount spent on the Chancellor's residence is about 44 percent of the University's main campus landscaping expenditures.
It is understandable that the Chancellor's lawn needs to look nice and that it is an area of particularly vital importance to visitors of the University. If VIP's are going to be staying in the Chancellor's guest house, then the grounds ought to look nice. But if it costs only $39,000 to maintain the entire main campus, why does it cost so much to maintain the Chancellor's yard?
At a time when the University is cutting costs in all departments, raising tuition and trying to develop better ways to use and increase its resources, it only seems logical to question this exorbitant amount.
Superior Lawn Mowing
THE ISSUE:
financial responsibility
Service, 2720 Maverick Lane, estimated that total lawn care, flower garden upkeep, bush trimming, tree pruning, sprinkler setting and snow removal would cost between $3,000 and $4,000 per year.
Assuming the Chancellor has reasonable amounts of new flowers and shrubs added each year and the service came out twice as often as needed, the cost only rises to about $5,000 or $6,000 per year.
Now, even if we allow a miscellaneous category equal to the quoted amount for what should be complete service of a comparably sized estate, the grand total still comes in at $12,000 — half of what the University spent last year.
If the Chancellor is serious about saving the University money and is cutting programs and maintaining a hiring freeze to do so, perhaps he should look a little closer to home to be just.
CHRIS VINE FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Crumbling classrooms passes with little help from students
The Kansas Legislature finally has passed a conference report on crumbling classrooms, no thanks to the Student Senate. It is as if student leadership decided long ago simply to let things transpire as they have without student involvement.
Kim Cocks, student body president, thinks that making sure the Kansas Legislature knows how students feel is a good idea.
But she said Student Senate had done little else to keep the Legislature informed of student opinion about crumbling classrooms.
Where is the proactive student government that students are promised during election campaigns?
This is not just the fault of the student body president, but it also is the fault of students in general. Student Senate probably would have responded if only students had taken a more active stance. Lobbying is not the exclusive job of student senators, student body presidents and their attendant court of committees and handlers. Everyone can
THE ISSUE:
Crumbling classrooms
KU students and Student Senate should have been more active in supporting the crumbling classrooms bill.
participate, but the message needs to be sent to them if they are to respond.
Public policymaking largely is a process of deciding who gets what. To get what is needed, people
— average people — must participate in the process.
But some blame does rest on the elected leadership of the student body.
Without a louder cry from Student Senate, we can expect to see less notice taken by representatives and senators in Topeka. Student Senate is the largest voice for student concerns. In the future, it should take its responsibilities more seriously and pursue them more actively. If not, this institution will suffer from greater negation without student representation.
TOM MOORE FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Jeff MacNelly / CHICAGO TRIBUNE
People magazine defines beauty unfairly for readers
This past week, the annual People's 50 Most Beautiful People issue hit the stores. In a display of consumerism that I am somewhat unaccustomed to, I went out and bought one as soon as I heard about it. I opened up the pages and became more and more distraught as I looked through — I wasn't in it.
Or maybe not. Perhaps they mean to send the message that beauty comes in a 6-foot tall, 110-pound package for women and in a 6-foot-4-inch, 200-pound package for men. Or perhaps they think that you must be famous to be beautiful. Or maybe they did not think at all. In any event, I have no room to complain, as I did spend my precious lunch money on the magazine myself.
I am certain that this was just an oversight on the part of the editors. After all, it makes no sense to me that all 50 are famous. And had the editors realized the precedent they were setting, I am sure they would have made some new choices using more realistic, everyday people.
This may come as a surprise to many of you; it certainly was a surprise to me. Nonetheless, I looked again, this time to find some of my friends, who I am certain rank among the top 10, let alone the top 50.
You can imagine how disturbed I was to find that no one I know made it this year.
STAFF COLUMNIST
This year, the editors included a special section on famous pinups. It ranges from Marilyn Monroe to Farrah Fawcett in brief sections about why each of these women has been drooled over by thousands of men in her time. For most women highlighted the
answer seems to be her measurements.
One of the women included here is the star of television's Lois and Clark, Teri Hatcher, who has received a lot of press lately for being the woman whose picture is downloaded most often on the Internet. The article makes a point to note (as did a similar article in Newsweek) that the 5-foot-6 actress weighs only 106 pounds.
I understand that the people highlighted in the magazine are beautiful. I also understand that to be beautiful, you must be thin. It is a fact that I do not need pointed out by People, or by anyone else for that matter. They are rich, famous, beautiful and thin. OK, I have got it. Let's move on.
as the 50 Most Beautiful People is that they promote an unreasonable standard of "beauty" among men and women to which not everyone can live up. However, that does not stop society as a whole from expecting it. Consequently, problems such as anorexia, bulimia and suicide have become increasingly prevalent, especially among teenagers. And the ages of children with this problem are getting younger and younger.
The problem with features such
In society, we have built a standard for appearance that is impossible for the greater portion of society to live up to.
This standard is visible throughout mass media, including television and films, advertisements and in general on places such as street corners. When it comes down to it, this standard is visible everywhere, except on a normal, average, everyday person.
Until we stop expecting the whole world to live up to this standard, the problems facing the next generation and how people deal with appearance are only going to get worse. It is unfair to expect our children to grow up to be 5-6 and 106 pounds. We need to learn to keep in mind that in reality, beauty is only skin deep. And then, we need to learn to live it.
Stacy Nagy is a Topeka sophomore in Russian.
QUOTES OF THE WEEK
"DOGS CAN RUN AROUND CAMPUS NUDE ALL DAY, WHY CAN'T PEOPLE?"
Ed White, Chicago junior, who witnessed two naked men sprint from the Chi Omega fountain to the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity house, 1540 Louisiana St.
"NORMALLY, IF YOU'RE TRAVELING AT 300 MILES PER HOUR, IT'S NOT A SAFE LANDING."
Joe Eagleman, professor of meteorology, on why the chances of surviving a tornado are not good.
"THERE'S NOTHING BETTER THAN TAKING THEM OFF AT THE END OF THE DAY."
"YOU GET SOME STRANGE LOOKS WHEN YOU WALK OUT OF THERE."
Canyon Knop, Lawrence junior, on his experience as a research subject at the labs of the Lenexa pharmaceutical company IMTCI.
"PEOPLE HAVE TO HAVE IT, AND THE UNIVERSITY KNOWS THEY CAN GET THE MONEY FROM YOU. YOU HAVE NO CHOICE."
Stephanie Guerin, Lenexa senior, on the positive aspects of wearing pantyhose.
Chris Frati, Los Angeles sophomore, on why he believes the University of Kansas charges $5 per transcript, the largest transcript fee of the Big Eight schools.
"WE HAVE AT LEAST ONE NAKED GUY TIED TO A CHAIR ON OUR PROPERTY ABOUT ONCE A MONTH, AND I KNOW HE IS NOT THERE BY CHOICE."
Gina McClain, vice president for external relations for the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority, who was not surprised to learn of the New Member Education Committee's discovery that hazing still occurs at the University.
"STUDENTS NEED TO RECOGNIZE HOW IMPORTANT GIVING BACK TO THE COMMUNITY IS. IT'S PART OF BEING A COMMUNITY MEMBER. I'M HOPING THAT, EVEN IF IT'S JUST A FEW PEOPLE, TO INSTILN THE IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNITY SERVICE. IT CREATES EMPATHY FOR OTHERS INSTEAD OF APATHY."
Julie Harris, Student Senator of the Year and a coordinator of the KU Center for Community Outreach, on why she wants to get students interested in helping the community.
Brevity in term papers should be rewarded, not punished
This column is for those who plan to impress their professors with research papers loaded with big words and long sentences.
pound sentences at every juncture.
You are on page ten of your 12-page paper on mediating political theories, and you need to bloat the piece another two pages. You have used the word "plethora" eight times, and you have added compound sentences.
STAFF COLUMNIST
In short, your goal is to make your point in as many words as possible. What is worse is that your professor expects you to do just that.
It is too bad that academia is the only institution in our society that punishes people for being
concise. Many of us have had a professor return a paper with a comment like, "You've made some good points here, but your paper wasn't long and ponderous enough."
Being wordy may boost your grade on a philosophy paper, but it won't help you land a job. I can't think of any bosses who want to read a 20-page opus of a business report.
Here are some tips for students and professors as paper deadlines approach:
Don't start a paper like this:
"Throughout the course of human history there have been many trials that have tested our collective resolve, and in light of those forces that wage war in men's souls, this paper will focus on . . ."
- Communicate to express, not impress.
I used to think I was pretty smart when I started a sentence with a word like henceforth, moreover, or nevertheless. Now, the word "but" usually works just fine. If you get that "I want to flex my muscles in front of the mirror" feeling and start using pretentious words, go flex your muscles in front of the mirror and relax.
Take a journalism course
One recovering word addict recently offered me a stirring confession.
"I used to think I was really smart for using big words," she said with a glazed look in her eyes, "but then I came to the School of Journalism."
Another student said, "Once,
after staying up all night, I printed
out my paper only to have it float
away because it was full of hot
gas."
One more student said, "I used to approach writing with the self-indulgence of a heavy metal guitar soloist. When I graduated I couldn't find a job, so I joined a band that played only old Van Halen covers."
■ In light of these budget-conscious times, professors should reduce the required length of papers by 20 percent. This would put the responsibility back on students to communicate clearly.
Be simple, not simplistic.
People in other disciplines criticize journalists for being simplistic. While I agree that USA Today is the Debbie Gibson of newspapers, learning to communicate the same idea in fewer words works toward, not against, the development of critical thinking skills.
Of course, there is one final solution if you have to write an 18 page paper that could be written in 12 pages:
Geneva font, 18-point type.
John Hart is a Shawnee graduate student in Journalism.
KANSAN STAFF
OUT FROM THE CRACKS
By Jeremy Patnoi