4A
Wednesday, April 10, 1996
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
Senate coalition leaders say nothing new in debate
The student body presidential and vice presidential candidates were given their final chance to persuade students to support their coalitions last night in a debate at Wescoe Hall.
Unfortunately, neither the Vision candidates, Grey Montgomery and Jamie Johnson, nor the Voice candidates, Cesar Millan and Samantha Bowman, had much of anything new to say.
With an audience of about 100 students, the candidates could have used the opportunity to give student voters new insights into their coalitions' platforms and more specific plans on making improvements at the University of Kansas.
Instead, the candidates basically rehashed the same information that has been heard on Wescoe beach and seen on coalition flyers during the last two weeks.
Millan repeated Voice's plan to get distributed enrollment on-line as soon as possible, something that even Richard Morrell, University registrar, has argued won't happen for several years.
THE ISSUE:
Election debate
Meanwhile, Montgomery continued to remind students of the number of returning student senators and members of the senate executive committee that could be found on Vision's ticket — an aspect that brings up a question: If these candidates have been on the Senate before, why have they not already tried to make the changes they are promising to implement next semester?
While the panel raised several good questions on issues ranging from ethics in senate campaigns to financing collegiate athletics, the candidates usually found ways to sway the discussion of their topics back to the issues they were most familiar with addressing.
The candidates had one last chance to gain the students' support and possibly convince more students to forgo their usual apathy and vote.
Unfortunately, by just repeating their platforms, the candidates probably did not change anybody's opinion about the election.
CRAIG LANG FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Accusations against StudEx chairman are not supported
Ken Martin, Student Senate executive committee chairman, has been wrongly accused by members of the Voice Coalition of acting unethically. His name is listed in the Vision coalition's election handbook as a member of the coalition's Issues Research and Development team.
The ethics accusation came because Martin, as chairman of the committee, appointed the elections commission, which is supposed to be unbiased throughout the election. Martin, however, is not a member of this commission, which he appointed in the fall. Voice coalition members seem to think that because he appointed the commission, he continues to influence its operation.
Some Voice coalition members also have said they think it was unethical for the StudEx chairman to use his position to influence elections or support candidates. Senate rules state Senate executives can endorse candidates only if the endorsement does not interfere with his or her official duties. There is no evidence that Martin's advisory role has interfered with his Senate duties.
It is true that the chairman of StudEx should not influence the election, but there is no evidence that Martin, in advising the Vision coalition, has
THE ISSUE:
Senate regulations
influenced the election.
All he probably has done is help Vision members put their campaign together. Whether they win is up to them, not Martin.
And it never can be considered unethical for a person, in any capacity, to support a particular candidate or party, in any election. That is Martin's right as an American.
Unfortunately for Martin, Senate Rules and Regulations leave any StudEx chairman open to attack from Senate coalitions.
The rules should be amended to state that the StudEx chairman cannot serve any official role on any coalition. When Vision listed Martin as an advisor to its coalition, it in a sense gave him an official position within that coalition.
It is not unethical to advocate or advise a certain coalition in an unofficial capacity. Martin's actions, which most likely were meant to support his friends in their endeavors, were not a conflict of interest until the Vision coalition printed his name in its handbook. Senate rules and regulations should be amended to protect future Senate executives from similar accusations.
PAUl TODD FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Shawn Trimble / KANSAN
In the interest of upholding the status quo, I will do my best to abstain from telling you something new.
KANSAN STAFF
New ideas, big words are not encouraged in today's society
Obtaining a liberal arts education at the University is an experience similar to depending on a loaf of Wonder Bread for sustenance. Just as the dietary staple is soft, white, and unthreatening, the ideas we interact with on campus feel preapproved. One classroom discussion rarely differs from another, and most of the opinions expressed are easily digested within the barrage of statements coming from the polarized schools of belief. Even the opinion columns of newspapers, after enduring multiple edittings, can be sanitized for your protection.
I haven't quite decided if the University of Kansas serves as a reflection of society as a whole (I'm willing to bet that it does, to an extent), but it seems that many of us here on the Hill are rather frightened of encountering previously unknown avenues of thought. This resistance to exploratory learning has culminated in the dimwittedness of our culture.
Many students refuse to be challenged. And instead of letting the student population's grade point average drop, the instructors bring the education to the whining
It is ironic that the same media that frequently laments the inadequacies of American education and the growing economic and educational superiority of Japan tends to communicate to the masses on an eighth- to tenth-grade level.
The reality is apparent: Americans, including most university students, don't think on a critical level because they don't have to. When society is devoid of challenge, and the language of the university culture, which once was the epicenter of new thoughts and ideas, also is simplified, there is little educational evolution to hope for.
HEATHER NIEAHUS
Business manager
KONAN HAUSER
Retail sales manager
JAY STEINER
Sales and marketing adviser
JUSTIN KNUPP
Technology coordinator
This letter is in regards to Friday's editorial denouncing the proposed increase of the minimum wage, claiming this raise would stunt the economy and cause growth in unemployment. The fact is: increases in the minimum wage have not eliminated, and will not eliminate, jobs.
Business Staff
Leslie Bowyer is a Lawrence senior in art
history.
EVENTS
Compass ... Joan Birk
... Philip Brownies
Editorial ... Paul Todd
Associate editorial ... Craig Lang
Matt Hines
Sports ... Tom Erokson
Associate sports ... Bill Petula
Graphics ... Melissa
Graphics ... Noah Musser
Special ections ... Novellaommers
Wire ... Jan Humphrey
On-line coordinator ... Tina Fessett
Nearly two dozen recent studies confirm this; I challenge the University Daily Kansan to find a study contending otherwise, one that was not financed by the restaurant lobby, which hates paying their
ASHLEY MILLER
Editor
VIRGINIA MARGHEIM
Managing editor
ROBERT ALLEN
News editor
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
hordes. One recent art history lecture serves as an effective example; the professor mentioned the interstices present within a painting, a word he used while pointing to the said interstices. Exasperated disgust blew through the room, while two graduate stu-
you refer to images of popular culture found in literature (even if it is canonized), or if your language consists of vocabulary beyond monosyllabic fluff, you are labeled an elitist. It is arrogant of you to assume that anyone around you is culturally aware enough to understand what you have to say.
dents whimpered, "Why do you have to use those words?" Rather than learn the meaning and expand their vocabulary, by either inferring the definition from the context of the lecture or exploring a dictionary, they demanded that their graduate level education come to them.
The fact that they had not encountered this word before this point in their educational journey is sad enough. Unfortunately, the professor yielded for the time being so that everyone could be accommodated.
It is a strange and very sad state of affairs when ignorance is so protected that even the presence of a new word, a new challenge, is shunned and feared to such an extent that it is edited from the newspaper or lecture, especially on the university level.
Editors
A new word is evolving into ammunition for the patriots of ignorance: elitism. If you ever express an opinion previously unheard of, if
Campus mgr ... Karen Gersch
Regional mgr ... Kelly Connelys
Marketing manager ... David
Special Sections mgr ... Mom Blow
Production mgr ... Rehol Gellil
Marketing director ... Heather Valler
Marketing dirs rd ... Angle Adamson
Creative director ... Ed Kowaltski
Business manager ... Mike Warehill
Internship/oo-pm mgr ... T.J. Clark
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Raising minimum wage can be beneficial
STAFF COLUMNIST
One must question why the Kansan endorses proposals that would insure continuation of the increasing gap between America's rich and poor.
America now is the most economically stratified country in the industrialized world — measured as the ratio of the earnings of a worker at the 90th percentile of income distribution to earnings as a worker at the 10th percentile — and it seems the Kansan wishes us to increase our lead in this iniquitous race.
Partha Mazumdar
Pittsburgh graduate student
From 1983 to 1989, more than 60 percent of the new wealth created in America went to the top 1 percent of the population and almost 99 percent went to the top 20 percent of the population, including, one would assume, owners of lots
In the 1970s, 55 percent of young men who worked full-time earned enough to keep a family of four out of poverty. In 1994, it's only 60 percent.
of restaurant and hotel chains.
employees even minimum wage.
Kansan Student Senate endorsements for the school of fine arts were left off yesterday's opinion page. The Kansan
In 1992, New Jersey increased its minimum wage and neighboring Pennsylvania did not. The only difference now is that workers in New Jersey make more money.
editorial board endorses Trey Hohman, Voice candidate,and Susan Mayden, Vision candidate.
OUT FROM THE CRACKS
StudEx chairman should not choose sides in election
For some people, campaigning for Student Senate elections must be like heroin — an addiction that is impossible to shake.
It seems as though Ken Martin, Student Senate Executive Committee chairman, is a junkie.
Martin, as StudEx chairman, is in charge of conducting bi-weekly meetings between the chairmen of all Senate standing committees. His paying Senate job involves some of the biggest responsibilities in all of
STAFF COLUMNIST
the organization,
including the nomination of
people to the elections commission that regulates Student Senate elections. In carrying out these duties,
Martin should be a nonpartisan member of Senate; he should not side with coalitions during elections.
But on top of all this hard work. he
has found time to advise the campaign of the Vision coalition that's running for election this year.
Martin's name is in Vision's campaign handbook as a member of the Issues Research and Development department. His job? "...providing information on both the Vision coalition's issues, and by researching and providing responses to our opponent's issues."
Maybe the saddest part about this whole situation is that Martin has not broken any rules. There is no place in Student Senate Rules and Regulations and the Student Senate Elections Code that says the StudEx chair can't help a coalition campaign.
Hopefully this sad situation won't be repeated next year, and a revision can be made in Senate's rules and regulations that doesn't allow senators in paid positions to waste student money by campaigning for other people.
Some have claimed that his commission nominations could in no way be biased because he made the recommendations in the fall, before anyone knew who was running for the president slots. That is a ludicrous defense. I knew of the two candidates in the fall, and I'm not even involved in Student Senate. Martin may have bad moral judgment in this situation, but he's not that dumb.
Besides, this happens all the time in the United States government. Politicians who should be spending more time striving to improve this country's situation end up wasting all of their energy trying to get themselves and others elected for positions. The only thing that Martin really is guilty of is what most student senators and politicians in general are guilty of.
Plus, Martin nominated the two students who ran the elections commission last fall. If there are any complaints filed by one coalition against another, the commission deals with those complaints. To put it simply, there is a lot of power in those positions. Martin has opened up the possibility that the commission could be biased.
The fact that Martin has taken sides in the Senate election is pathetic and makes the credibility of Student Senate look like a complete joke to students. What we're talking about here is an election between presidential candidates who already are in Senate, people Martin deals with regularly. By taking sides and helping with a particular coalition, Martin is only contributing to the already tense atmosphere in Senate, where almost nothing often gets done because of stupid political disagreements. When it comes to election time in Senate, all legislation at meetings is put to the mercy of senators' campaigning.
Ian Ritter is a Leewood senior in English, history and journalism.
WACK!
By Jeremy Patnoi