4A
Friday. March 31. 1995
OPINION UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
THE ISSUE: THE JUDICIAL '1'
University needs 'Judicial J'
'J' would certainly not be a joke. A proposal recommended by the Committee on Undergraduate Studies and Advising to place a "judicial J" on the transcript of a student caught cheating should be approved by the University Senate Executive Committee.
The current system does not adequately punish students who attempt to cheat or plagiarize. For example, some students are likely to fail unless they cheat. No real punishment exists to stop such students because if they get caught, most likely all they would receive is a failing grade — the same they would have received if they had not cheated.
The proposal is fair in that the student would stand before a hearing board to decide the issue. If the student's transgression was serious enough and the student was going
Blemish on students records would act as a deterrent against cheating and encourage honesty across campus.
to receive a failing grade, the hearing board would decide whether to place the "J" on the transcript.
SenEx also should consider another idea. Some colleges place a "J" on a student's transcript for cheating, but they allow the student to have the mark removed if he or she attends workshops on the seriousness of academic misconduct. This is a positive addition to the proposal because otherwise the "J" would remain as a scar on the transcript.
With or without this addition, the proposal would be a sound deterrent against academic misconduct. Such a proposal discourages dishonest students from cheating and protects honest students.
TIM MUIR FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD.
THE ISSUE: CONCEALED WEAPONS BILL
Gun legislation is shot down
Yee haw. The shoot-
'em-up bill was shot
down last week. And
it's a darn good thing.
Indeed, it was this very picture of the Wild West days painted by opponents that killed the concealed-weapons legislation recently considered in Kansas.
After the House approved the measure by a fairly wide margin, the Senate voted it down 15-25, bowing to those against the bill who had claimed that it merely would add to the arsenal of firearms in the state.
The 1903 Kansas Legislature approved the state's first law prohibiting the carrying of concealed guns. And the notion that the bill, if approved, would transport the state back to a Wild-West mentality created a difficult political
Fears of pistol-packing citizens were a force that justifiably stopped legislation that would loosen gun-control laws.
spin for the proponents to overcome.
This battle consisted of two opposing viewpoints. One side was the "If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns" crowd. The other side used the battle cry "The time of the cowboy and the Wild West are over."
Each side cited statistics and experts and tried to use logical pleas, but it was the image of gunfights in the streets combined with sincere testimonies from police officials during the debate that eventually gunned down the bill.
And now there's a new sheriff in town. Common sense.
MATT GOWEN FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Robert Tapley / KANSAN
The hole of welfare requires more than political patching
After weeks of political posturing, the House of Representatives has finally managed to pass welfare reform, warts and all. Now, as usual, it is up to the Senate to fix the blernishes.
It is always easiest to find faults with the status quo but to invent something truly innovative is much harder. Unfortunately, we seldom expect innovation out of our lawmakers. Instead we are content if they politely promise to make the lazy bums work, kick out the foreigners, punish the teen mothers and sock it to the fools who have more kids while on the public dole.
During the debate, Republicans and Democrats agreed that change was long overdue but deciding what to change was like trying to pass a 10-ton truck through the eye of a needle.
At least that is the message Congress has been getting.
But if you think this attitude is innovative, think again. It sounds like the same old rhetoric to me.
This time, however, our fearless leaders think they have come up with a fool-proof plan to do something about the disabling welfare system. They stand up on the House floor in front of the C-SPAN cameras and appeal to the middle-class righteous voter by insulting welfare recipients instead of the welfare system. They then claim to "make a change" and pass the buck to state governments in the form of block grants.
It just might work. Now Congress can blame the state legislatures
when the voters come pounding on their doors.
STAFF
COLUMNIST
I'm trying to keep an open mind, but the past three years as a consumer advocate in the state Social Rehabilitation Services system have made me a skeptic when it comes to the "innovative" nature of our state government. If given a choice between the wilds of state bureaucracy or the jungles of the federal government, I'll take the feds.
But perhaps the most grotesque aspects of this bill are the ones that strive to hearken back to a "Leave-it-to-Beaver" era. We seem to think that the world would automatically be a better place if every household across America had a mother, a father, 2.5 kids and a dog, went to church every Sunday and followed all the rules. But those of us who are the products of broken homes understand that despite the best efforts, things just don't always work out that way.
Sure, things would be better if babies weren't having babies but withholding cash benefits from teen moms isn't going to help. These teens aren't having babies because they have considered the financial ramifications of having kids. If they
were thinking that far ahead, they wouldn't be having kids at all.
Requiring welfare recipients to work or obtain job skills is progress, but the notion that only "able-bodied" welfare recipients should have to work for their benefits does not serve to get some of the most expensive welfare recipients, the disabled, off the dole.
Like many other Americans, this group is often highly educated, motivated, skilled and desperately looking for work. Since the severely disabled have an unemployment rate of 60 to 70 percent, many are forced to collect federal tax dollars. Instead of exempting the disabled from contributing to society, the government should take the lead and help the disabled claim first-class citizenship by working for benefits like everyone else. It should employ the disabled in suitable programs with the rest of society.
In the end, there is more to welfare than the welfare system itself. Welfare is like patch on a giant hole in the hull of a ship. You can continually patch it up, but in the end nothing is permanent until you repair the hole itself.
We can try to fix the aspects of the system that keep people on welfare, but when we deal with the problems in society that force people to enter the welfare system in the first place, we will finally be doing something innovative instead of political.
Heather Kirkwood is a Wichita junior in journalism.
HUBIE
By Greg Hardin
Spring break actually a ploy to prevent us from studying
As you may have noticed, spring break is over.
I was doing this just the other day,
as a matter of fact, when I was
This means students probably will spend the next couple of weeks sitting in class, thinking about how they wish it wasn't.
rudely interrupted by my friend Floyd. Floyd said he had something revelatory to tell me, something important.
I decided to hear him out.
Naturally, my journalistic instincts told me to listen up there was news in the making here, and it would be my job to see that the
public was told about it.
"Did you ever notice," he asked me in a grave, hushed tone, "that there's no real reason for spring break?"
I told Floyd that he was crazy. Everybody knows that the reason for spring break is to recuperate for the second half of the spring semester.
"No, really," he told me. "If spring break is for recuperation, then we ought to get a fall break, too. Right?!" Now he was talking my language. More breaks. Go Floyd!
"Study."
"See," he said, "near as I can figure, there's not a single reason for a break right in the middle of the semester. If it was to rest up, we'd get one in the fall, too, and we don't. It can't be for the administration to catch up — enrollment doesn't begin until after break. And most teachers get midterms graded before the break. So, the only thing spring break does is screw students up.
"We go off for a week and get to do all kinds of fun stuff if we want. No class, homework or responsibility. Then what's the first thing you do when you get back?"
"Study?"
"You're lying. You sit on the couch and wonder why it had to end. You think about how much you wish you didn't have to study, how much you wish you didn't have to go to class the next day, and so on through the rest of the week. And then?"
"Wrong again, my friend. You sit around thinking about what a mess you're in now because you couldn't get motivated last week, and end up wasting another week. Pretty soon, you're in so deep that you can't get caught up. You might even fail a couple of classes."
"So the University wants you to fail?" tasked.
"Well, sort of. What they really want is your money. If you fail, it's too late to get a refund, then you have to tack on another semester to your expected graduation date, and that's what they're trying."
Floyd went on for another few minutes, but I couldn't tell you what he said.
I was too busy thinking about how I wouldn't have to be listening to him right then, if only spring break wasn't over.
Ryan McGee is a Worland, Wyo., junior in Journalism.
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