4A
Wednesday, April 24, 1996
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSA N
VIEWPOINT
Advising should be more than just getting enrolled
The advising system at the University of Kansas needs attention. Administration and faculty usually respond to students' claims that more assistance is needed by saying that what we have is adequate and that students need only take advantage of what they already have. That is not really the case.
"Advising is extremely uneven across the college," said Sandra Wick, assistant director of the College Honors Program, an advising system that many other departments could emulate. "Advising is more than just enrollment assistance."
Honors students are given personal advising within the honors program but also are encouraged to work with individual departments.
The Honors Program is not the only outstanding example of a department that chooses to do more for its students.
The School of Business also is to be commended for its efforts to help students in the advising process.
THE ISSUE:
Advising
"All students are assigned a faculty adviser which, if they wish, they can even change later. Some students even request specific faculty for advising, and they are free to do that," said Diane Mielke, associate director of undergraduate studies for the School of Business.
Advising is a two-way street, and there is need for student involvement. The purpose of advising is not to hold a student's hand all the way through college. It is about trying to teach students how to make important decisions. But to make those decisions, students must have access to information which will make those choices more than guesses. Freshmen especially are vulnerable to bad decisions because they are overwhelmed by the prospect of attending a large institution. There is a difference between a choice and an informed choice.
TOM MOORE FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Elimination of four games from Sports Combo won't solve problem
Selecting the Sports Combo Son the Options card traditionally gave students tickets to all home football games and men's basketball games. But this year, four of the basketball games which fall during Thanksgiving and winter breaks have been left out.
The price for the Sports Combo remains the same despite the fact that students are getting fewer tickets. Students can purchase tickets to the four games for $3 each, an additional $12 to the $85 they paid already.
These tickets were left out because of the poor student attendance at games during vacations. The Athletic Department wants to allow fans who don't normally get a chance to attend games access to tickets. Students who go home during the break usually take their tickets. It is a waste of an opportunity for others to see a game.
This should be the purpose of the coupon redemption system. Students should not pick up tickets they are not going to use. However, even this system does not prevent students who aren't going to be in Lawrence for games from picking up their tickets.
There is logic behind the Athletic Department's decision. Usually only 25 percent of student who pick up their tickets for home games during vacations do not show up. This leaves Allen Field House noticeably empty.
THE ISSUE:
Basketball tickets
The Athletic Department wants to ensure that the fieldhouse is full. There are 17 home games tentatively scheduled for the 1996-97 season. That is an increase from last year, but the ticket prices have not gone up substantially despite the removal of the four games.
The price of the Sports Combo should have been adjusted to fit this decision. The University has a great men's basketball program, and students want to get to as many games as they can. Paying $3 a ticket is a reasonable price. But how many students are willing to pay an extra $12 to see games during breaks?
The Athletic Department purposely took these four passes out of the Sports Combo to prevent no-shows. A price adjustment to the combo would seem in order. However, the Athletic Department is looking at the future.
The price of the Sports Combo could go up in the next few years. This decision is a indication of that. The athletic department still offers the best deal as far as sports packages go, but this decision will not solve the problem.
Instead, it will hurt the already poor student attendance to games played when school is not in session.
DEBBIE THOMPSON FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
KANSAN STAFF
ASHLEY MILLER
Editor
VIRGINIA MARGHEIM
Managing editor
ROBERT ALLEN
News editor
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news advise
Shawn Trimble / KANSAN
It all started simply enough; my women's studies class was trying to think of a movie that treats sexual harassment as a problem for women. Our goal was to find an alternative film to Disclosure, the movie where the woman, claiming sexual harassment, is lying to improve her own status in the company. We could not.
Movies and TV don't depict harassment in truthful light
Women are not always the victim; sometimes, we are the perpetrator. But often, contrary to popular depiction, women are the victims of both harassment and the system that is still run mainly by the men in power in a world that is destined not to believe us when we do raise our voices to fight back.
ANTHER NIEHAUS
Business manager
KONAN HAUSER
Retail sales manager
JAY STEINER
Sales and marketing adviser
JUSTIN KNUPP
Technology coordinator
Business Staff
Editors
Campus | Joann Birk
Philip Brownlee
Editorial | Paul Todd
Associate editorial | John Lass
Feature | Matt Hood
Sports | Tom Erickson
Associate sports | Bill Potulin
Photo | Matt Flickerman
Graphics | Noah Mussler
Special sections | Neve Burns
Tera Trennay
Illustration | Misha Leakon
Opening what turned out to be a can of worms. I branched this question out to TV programs. But unfortunately, with the possible exception of cheesy made-for-television movies, sexual harassment has not been treated as a problem for women at all.
Sexual harassment, it seems, only becomes an issue in television and films when the woman is lying or when the harassment is portrayed as so unrealistic that no one would ever believe that it could happen in real life.
Affirmative action embraces gender, too
I have to take exception to Chris Vine's April 1 editorial in which he attacks affirmative action as a discriminatory policy that he claims rewards unqualified minorities and punishes qualified whites.
Stacy Nagy is a Topeka sophomore in Russian.
Consequently, the images sent to the general public include the woman as the lying witch, the man as the victim of her plotting and the problem as one that really exists only in that people believed her.
And although some people may argue that the film and TV portrayals are just fiction, the fact of the matter is that the media does shape how the populace thinks. And it is being shaped in the wrong direction.
In fact, just the opposite is true. Decent men are shown dealing with the effects of the lying witch who is trying to ruin his life.
However, the makers of TV programs and films do not seem to have caught on.
Portrayals such as this teach the viewer that sexual harassment is not really a problem. It rather is just an annoying mode of fighting back when a woman does not get her way. When children and teenagers see this, it sends them the message that it really does not happen that often.
Whether or not the media choose to recognize it, sexual harassment does happen. It happens in the workplace and in schools. It happens on college campuses, and it happens on the streets.
Campus mgr ... Karen Gorsch
Regional mgr ... Kelly Connelyse
National mgr ... Mark Coulter
Production mgr ... Rachel龚鸿
Production mgr ... Rachel龚鸿
Marketing director ... Cary Bwelfow
Public Relations dir ... Angle Adamson
Creative director ... Ed Kowalski
Staff member ... Steve Warner
Internship/o-cp mgr .. T.J. Glark
I am beginning to think that if a movie were made about the life of Bob Packwood, even he would be treated as the victim.
No intelligent supporter of affirmative action — or social justice in general — believes that race and gender should be taken into account in college admissions decisions to provide some partial restitution for past bias, and more importantly, to provide some leveling for a field that is clearly unleveled by persistent forms of race and gender discrimination, both within the universities and throughout the society.
The hearings for Clarence Thomas' Supreme Court nomination began a crusade against sexual harassment that never will stop. They brought the problem into the public eye, where it has remained since. Spurred on by women's
groups, laws have been changed to protect women and men from behavior from bothersome to dangerous in both the workplace and schools.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
People are free, of course, to either support or oppose programs designed to provide for some degree of social justice. But they should arrive at their decision based on a thorough presentation of facts, not on biased and half-informed editorializing.
STAFF COLUMNIST
It also deepens and widens the chasm already dividing this country along lines of race and ethnicity.
Eric T.L. Love
This strategy and rhetoric keep the Caucasian community united, though clearly at the expense of Caucasian women — a sacrifice anti-affirmative action forces seem quite comfortable.
assistant professor of history
This is significant because it is well-established that Caucasian women have been the greatest beneficiaries of affirmative action policies, not racial minorities.
mative action policies embrace gender as well as race.
The tendency to emphasize race while excluding the truth concerning how much Caucasian women (and, therefore, the Caucasian community as a whole) have gained from these forward-looking policies reveals a political and social agenda that is divisive, hypocritical, and at its bottom, corrupt.
Vine's singular focus on the race question betrays a much more disturbing ignorance that affir-
If the political right's refrain about the beleaguered Caucasian male was substantial in any way, opponents of affirmative action would exploit the facts concerning Caucasian women's progress as often, and more loudly, as they shout about race. But instead, they deal in an uglier game of
division. They ignore the truth and deliberately choose to play on racist stereotypes that immediately equate Caucasian with the word qualified and non-Caucasian with unqualified.
OUT FROM THE CRACKS
5A
There is nothing more frightening to a parent than realizing his or her child may be in danger. That is exactly what happened to me last week, when I took my 4-year-old daughter to the America's Smithsonian exhibit at Bartle Hall in Kansas City, Mo.
Police officer's quick response helps restore faith in system
We had gone through the entire exhibit and seen the ruby slippers,
STAFF COLUMNIST
And it felt good to tell my daughter that the man in the blue uniform was our friend. I only hope I can always tell her that.
How to submit letters
Lincoln's top hat and Kermit the Frog. But when we were winding down our visit, a man approached us in the exhibit gift shop and tried to play with my daughter. He showed her a fuzzy stuffed animal and tried to get her to laugh. At first I thought he was just being a nice man, he
I come from Los Angeles, and I've lived through the riots. I know firsthand that some police officers can do unspeakable things. Corruption exists, and that makes it hard for me to trust uniformed police officers. But my experience at Bartle Hall taught me something. This officer could have ignored me, could have let me fend for myself, but he didn't.
when I gave the obligatory polite smile, took my daughter's hand and moved away, he followed us. He walked a few feet behind us for about five minutes.
In fact, I just try not to think about it at all. But what I do think about is how wonderful it was to have that officer there. He took my fears seriously and acted promptly.
He assured me that the idiot who bothered us probably was being followed and escorted out himself — by several armed policemen.
When I think of how that man simply was waiting for someone, waiting for me, to slip up — to let go of my daughter's hand for a minute or turn my back for just an instant — I shudder.
Letters: Should be double-spaced, typed and fewer than 200 words. Letters must include the author's signature, name, address and telephone number plus class and hometown if a University student. All letters should be submitted to the Kansas newsroom, 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall.
Shockingly, the man continued to follow us. He stood eerily behind the police officer, trying to figure out what I was saying. The officer told me to walk with him, and he alerted his partner and other officers at the exhibit of the situation. The officer escorted us to our car, which was parked a great distance from Bartle Hall.
Donna Davis is an Overland Park graduate student in education.
When we moved across the room, he'd watch us with sinister eyes. He'd creep closer in on our heels at times, ducking in and out of poster displays and bookshelves. For nearly 20 minutes, this weirdo stuck to us. Needless to say, I was a frazzled, nervous wreck.
My first instinct was to tell the chump he'd better clear out, but with my daughter holding my hand, I couldn't risk his becoming violent. So I did the next best thing. I walked over to a Kansas City, Mo., police officer and quietly told him my dilemma.
By Jeremy Patnoi
BIRNARD, W. H. | HEATH, E. D.