4A
Tuesday, February 28, 1995
OPINION UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
THE ISSUE: SOUTH LAWRENCE TRAFFICWAY
Student voices may not be heard
U unless they're living in Lawrence during the summer,students
will not have the opportunity to comment on the environmental effects of the South Lawrence Trafficway.
The Federal Highway Administration has proposed conducting a public hearing about the project on July 20.
Haskell Indian Nations University requested that it have until May 5 to submit information to be included and presented in the public hearing, and this request was honored. They were hopeful that the public hearing would then be scheduled during the fall. Instead, the hearing was scheduled during the summer, when the majority of KU, Haskell and Baker students will not be in Lawrence to make their voices heard.
The administration's decision reeks of injustice. Students make up a large portion of the town's population, and their thoughts and arguments should be heard. John Pasley, Douglas County's trafficway
The Federal Highway Administration's proposal to hold a public hearing over the summer limits discourse on effects.
project director, said trafficway planners had given Haskell's students the opportunity to give their input during the spring and that students could give comments before they leave for the summer. How generous.
The hearing will cover the possible routing options for the trafficway and will determine if the route east of U.S. Highway 59 will invade the southern end of Haskell's campus and surrounding areas of importance to Native Americans.
Trafficway planners are not being reasonable. They have given Haskell until spring to submit its input on the environmental impact of the trafficway but that isn't enough. The hearing should be moved back to the fall. If it is not, the students, who provided some of the loudest voices in the debate, may barely be heard when it matters the most.
JOY MARIE LOFTON FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Playing for the love of the game
THE ISSUE: REPLACEMENT PLAYERS
The longest player strike in the history of baseball will make this year's season interesting,to say the least.
The Toronto Blue Jays temporarily have relocated to Florida. Baltimore may not have a team at all. And most importantly, as everyone knows by now, the positions held by major league players are being filled by replacement players from the minor leagues, living rooms, offices and trucks.
Many fans see this as a disappointment. But really, it is a chance to experience baseball in a new light. For the first time in years, ticket prices have fallen so low that fans who seldom attend games finally will have the chance to do so.
For replacement players, it's a job. But it's a temp job, so these guys will be playing for the love of the game more than a steady paycheck. The competition in the minor leagues is fierce. To those players, playing well is more important than getting paid well. Many
If the there is no Major League settlement, replacements and fans will have a good time getting back to basics.
minor leaguers don't want to jeopardize the opportunity to play after the strike, but there are quite a few grabbing the opportunity.
Ken Griffey Jr. won't be coveringthe earthtotracka fly ball, and Frank "Big Hurt" Thomas won't be smashing sliders into the stands, but the season will be enjoyable for anyone who loves baseball.
Also, the reduced ticket prices will allow every Royals fan to see Kauffman Stadium with its new natural grass.
While Donald Fehr and the players he represents are locking horns with the owners, minor leaguers, truck drivers and others who have never had the chance to play big-time baseball — and fans who may never have been able to see a game — can enjoy baseball in a whole new way.
CRAIG LANG FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
KANSAN STAFF
STEPHEN MARTINO
Editor
DENISE NEIL
Managing editor
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
Editors
JENNIFER PERRIER
Business manager
MARK MASTRO
Retail sales manager
CATHERINE ELLSWORTH
Technology coordinator
News...Carlos Tejada
Planning...Mark Martin
Editorial...Matt Gowen
Associate Editorial...Heather LawRENZ
Campus...David Wilson
Colleen McCain
Sports...Gerry Fey
Associate Sports...Ashley Miller
Photo...Jarrett Lane
Features...Nathan Olean
Design...Brian James
Freelance...Susan White
Business Staff
Campus mgr ...Beth Pole
Regional mgr ...Chris Branaman
National mgr ...Shelly Falevits
Coop mgr ...Kelly Connealy
Special Sections mgr ...Brigg Bloomquist
Production mgr ...JJ Cook
...Kim Hyman
Marketing director ...Mindy Blum
Promotions director ..Justin Frosolone
Creative director ...Dan Gier
Classified mgr ...Lissa Kulseh
Jeff MacNeily / CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Study for your midterms; cheating isn't always 'easyer'
"I know I shouldn't involve other people in this, but that's why I did it, because she dared me to . . . If you want me to, I'll write I will not cheat a hundred times because I can't finish this page. I'm very sorry I cheated. I won't do it again. I relaise my mistake."
Depressed? Love life dead? Still can't get R.E.M. tickets? Prime rate have you down?
"I was standing right there, and the page was open . . . I was frusterated because I wanted to get the answers. I knew cheating was wrong, and I've learned that, but sometimes I just make myself do things I don't want to do to make things a lot easier and so I cheated. Then I thought it was OK, but it wasn't, and that's the first time I've ever cheated, and I won't do it again. Candice dared me to do it.
"I'm sorry I didn't get this when I was spotted to, but it was at home in a pile of papers. My dad suggested since it was late I write I will not cheat a few times on the back."
Fearnot.
("I will not cheat" is written 20 times on the back of the paper.)
Seriously, if you're studying and worrying about mid-terms, you should feel good.
(The essay resumes in a much lighter shade of pencil gray.)
Because, you see, not everybody studies. You might stay up all night — repeatedly — to get things done. You might sweat a little during your first mid-tem when you don't even understand the directions to the essay. Afterwards, you might not have time for a shower because you've got a paper due (and haven't started the research) on the "Aristotelian elements of post-modern, one-legged, Russian dance." It might even be worse than that. And still you'll get it all done, more or less.
So feel good about yourself. Some people don't stay up all night to study. They cheat.
You might be aware that cheating occurs at American universities. It's happened on a large scale from Annapolis to Cal Berkeley and back again. Why, it's even rumored to happen here at KU.
Chris Reedy is a Topeka junior in English and philosophy.
It loses a little effect when typed, but imagine it as it's written, in scrawling pencil on a tattered piece of notebook paper.
"No, no," you protest. "Surely not
STAFF COLUMNIST
Cheaterstake heed:
here. I haven't done it. And neither has my roommate. And neither has my boyfriend or any of his pledge brothers."
Well, I'm nothere to argue. I won't distinguish rumor from reality when it comes to academic dishonesty at KU. But I will give a few thoughts on the
Actually, I lied. What I'll do is tell you what someone else has to say on the subject.
That someone is a fourth-girl grade. This girl — who, for reasons of guilt and youth, we shall call "Rachel" — is in a class taught by a friend of mine and got the answers to her math worksheet by looking at the answer key on my friend's desk. My friend, an old-school stickler for labels, found out and called this cheating.
subject.
In addition to putting a rightfully punitive score (in big red ink) on Rachel's worksheet, my friend asked Rachel to write a one-page essay on what she did and why it was wrong. Here — edited only for length and basic readability — is Rachel's essay.
'Mere' secretary sees comments as offensive
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Henri Blanc's editorial regarding teaching assistants being paid instead of earning credit, while noteworthy, contained a phrase which was insulting to a group of the most hard-working employees on the KU campus. The comment: "The teaching assistant's job is academically related; the assistants are not merely secretaries." MERELY secretaries?? MERELY? When Blanc enters the Real World, he will find that if it were not for the MERE secretaries, no business would be able to function. Blanc's implication that student assistants are more important than secretaries is hogwash. The role of the secretary is one of the most stressful, thankless and underpaid jobs in the business world today.
Without secretaries, people
Shirley Cormack secretary Student Assistance Center
would not be hired, salaries would not be paid, budgets would not be handled, telephones would not be answered, letters would not be sent out, bills would not be paid, confidentiality would not be kept, travel would not be processed and inner office situations would not be delicately handled. In other words, the University would not operate. MERELY? Blanc owes the entire group of KU secretaries an apology.
Editor's note:
Due to computer malfunctions over the weekend, the wrong version of David Reidy's guest column titled "Administrators' memo to GTAs misses union's point" was printed in yesterday's issue of the Kansan.
Information in the 10th paragraph was not factually correct, but Reidy
had submitted a corrected version that was not registered by our computers in time. The paragraph should have read:
"They (Andrew Debicki, dean of graduate studies; and David Shulenburger, vice chancellor for academic affairs) argued that collective bargaining will adversely impact collegiality. This is false. Administrators have provided no credible evidence to support this claim. Collective bargaining has not adversely impacted collegiality at other universities, and it will not substantially impact relations among GTAs and faculty or mentors at KU. And assuming reasonable persons operating in good faith, collective bargaining will not damage relations among GTAs and administrators."
Matt Gowen
Kansan editorial editor
So much for a world where color does not matter; it does
When I saw the latest issue of Newsweek, I snatched it away from the shocked librarian at the Watson periodicals desk. Across the front the headline read: What color is Black? Good question.
I held the magazine out, looking at the collage of faces on the cover, each
STAFF COLUMNIST
We work toward some sort of color goal, the ideal shade at which acceptability is gained. Everyone struggles to be
light or dark enough, that is everyone except me.
a different shade of Black, and I scratched my head. For a society supposedly striving to be color blind, we are obsessed with the nature of color.
I am albino, thus my skin lacks the necessary pigment to do anything but burn.
As far as color goes, I am stuck. I can not lie in the spring sun and make myself darker, nor can I sit inside and become lighter. My only color option is a painful bright red.
As I pondered the headline, I wondered if anyone had ever written an article about what color white is supposed to be?
Throughout my childhood I felt color isolated. I still do.
A few years ago in a sociology discussion class, a Black classmate told us what it felt like to live in a culture that expected her to look lighter. You're kidding me, I responded. They want me to look darker. So much for a world where color doesn't matter.
To this day I get invitations to sunbathe with comments like, you could use some sun. You look so pale. As the weather gets warmer I know it is only a matter of time before I am sitting on the bus, wearing shorts and noticing how pale my legs look compared to the others.
I dread waiting for class to start while listening to people whine about how horrible they look because they need to get some sun.
While color shouldn't matter, the fact is it does. In a truly color-blind society, people would be darker because they would have been working in their yards, not because they have spent hours trying to look darker. People will be lighter because they have spent the afternoon surfing the Internet, not because they were trying to look lighter.
Society is filled with political, economical and ethical questions about color. Policy makers argue about whether color matters. They speculate about issues such as affirmative action and busing as though these were purely matters of law and not identity. Somehow the deeper issues of color are reduced to the status of external things, like tax cuts or defense spending. Yet these issues encompass much more than politics or money.
Color is an ironic subject. The very people who tote banners of racial equality don't think twice about spending a fortune to change their natural color and look better. Likewise those that think color equality has arrived are the same ones marching out the door with sun tan lotion, beach towels and sunglasses in hand to spend the afternoon tanning.
Issues related to color are tied to our very identity. They are gauges of who we are and who we want to be.
As we contemplate political, ethical or economic issues of color, we must ask ourselves, are we a color-blind society? The truth is: not yet.
Heather Kirkwood is a Wichita Junior in magazine journalism.
MIXED MEDIA
By Jack Ohman