UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN editorials
Unsigned editors represent the opinion of the Kansan editorial staff. Signed columns represent the views of other members.
MAY 4,1979
GPA standard good
Academicians at the University of Kansas and elsewhere have been discussing and worrying for some time about declining academic performance in America's universities. Yet in the midst of all the talk came a firm commitment from some KU academicians this week to do something about the problem.
The College Assembly passed on Tuesday a set of academic standard requirements for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences that have been nonexistent since the early 1970s. Beginning in fall 1980, a student in the College will be placed on probation for a semester if his grade point for the previous semester is below 1.0 for freshmen, 1.5 for sophomores and 2.0 for upperclassmen.
AFTER A semester of probation, a student could be dropped from the College if both his semester and cumulative GPA's were less than the probation requirement.
The decision came on the heels of a College Assembly committee report that some students had "coveys upon coveys" of F's on their grade reports, but still continued to enroll in the College.
THE PROBLEM had gotten somewhat out of hand. So, the College Assembly has decided that a *d* average is not too much to ask of a KU freshman and that by the time a student reaches his junior year and has declared a major, he should be able to maintain a C average.
While the enrollment of many students who get F's continually may mean extra tuition dollars for the University, especially at a time when administrators are being faced with grim declining enrollment predictions, academics is still what this University is really all about.
ROBERT COBB, dean of the college,
said studies differed on whether new
requirements would mean only that
students would drop from the College
in larger numbers, or would mean that
students' grades would improve.
That question still may not be settled, but Cobb and other academicians at the University should embrace the policy as one that is trying to do something about declining academic performance instead of just worrying about the problem.
No room for mistakes in nuclear power plants
To the editor:
This is in response to Francis W. Prosser's letter of April 19. In it he accuses the Kansan and "many others" not of reacting to the "facts" of the Three Mile Island incident. He then lists these "facts." Let's look at them.
First, Prof. Prosser claims that "the exposure to people outside the plant to radiation was less than that airline employees, pilots and cabin attendants receive in a year during a plane's trip to Denver." Received by those living in Denver ... How can he make such an assertion as 'a fact' is beyond me, since it is not known how much radiation was spewed into the atmosphere unknowingly for three hours during the day in a building (eite instance of "unknown" ambient radiation spillage—and if you consult the news reports there were many).
It is also true that there were differences in the levels of radiation detected by government agencies and Metropolitan Edison, and that some people undertaking detection training had been reading in recording the radiation levels or both (see current Village Voice).
Our man moves on to the "fact" that this was a case of "the worst possible incident, a loss of cool accident, and almost all the resulting release of radioactivity was confined, as designed, to the interior of the reactor building."
Those are the facts as far as radiation levels are concerned. Now for some more of the professor's "facts": He cites studies indicating that low-level radiation is not harmful, but it can be a very important but, there are scientists who claim that any amount of radiation is dangerous. No one knows for sure what the proverbial "safe" limits of exposure is—as a matter of fact, the "safe" levels are decreased dramatically in the last 20 years.
Well, sir, where did the rest of the radiation go? "Almost all" is not all, and if it was designed to be that only "almost all" the radiation was to be contained, then I would say there is a very big problem in the design.
Furthermore, as Bernard Cohen pointed out in National Review, we have about 700 nuclear reactors that are capable of energy. Didn't the often-tqueled and much-christened Rasmussen report say something about the possibility of a loss-of-coalant accident being about 1-3 in-1 million reactor fires?
Granted, the total catastrophe did not occur. Yet, it almost did, and that is what is required. It has no room for error in nuclear power production. Such an accident is not a chemical spill or flood. The area surrounding the plant will be completely flooded or two years, but 30 to 60 years, if not more.
I would go on to the other points made by the professor, but my last point is more important. The consequences of a nuclear accident are profound and very much in the realm of possibility.
The nuclear power industry and the government cannot experiment on the American people because they are from such mistake. We need 100 percent error-free plants. We're not on television, do. You can't change the channel to the Bernau travelogue after the crash.
eavenworth sophomore
Nuclear accidents
kill realistic outlook
To the editor:
Be realistic, hah. I'm scared. What's
KANSAN letters
be realistic anymore? A company invests millions in a nuclear power plant, has an accident, and watch out, it all hits the fan-media blowups, political meltdowns,
I can't buy realism anymore. In a recent Kansa, there was one-half page of letters calling your staff propaganda writers, along with gems like, "Nuclear power, on an industry-wide scale, is one of the satient industries." That sounds like propaganda to me.
One person said that many of us are not experts, so how do we know that there have not been other major or minor accidents? It is often the case that radiation is like getting chest x-rays, why should they release that information? Why give their million dollar investment a bad chance?
These are questions that need to be answered! But what really blows my mind is that nobody even mentioned the waste produced and its tremendous environmental hazards that arise. They're a long time to have to deal with radioactive gunk. Did you know they (whoever "they" is) is have been dumping barrels of this radioactive gunk into the oceans and that recently it has been discovered that 25 percent of them have become dangerously mutated. What are pro-makes going to do with the waste?
Put that in your "realistic" pipes and smoke it.
Barry Bernstein
Overland Park sophomore
Does the Kansan provide free advertising to the bus company? Still, your editorial says it is selfish for us not to want to spend money on bus company advertising. Are the editors of the Kansan interested enough in saving energy that they would be willing to give up their campus parking passes behind Fint Hall and use more transportation to get to their all-important job?
it was entirely predictable that a newspaper that survives only by confiscating $a semester from each student on campus would support the proposed increase in the student privilege fee to keep KU on Wheels running. If the students who supposedly need it so bad aren't willing to pave enough to keep it alive, let it die.
Bus-taking students should pay for rides
To the editor:
Student Senate wastes enough of our sparse money as it is. When they are finished subsizing the un-markable budget, they need so badly, maybe they could support a fee increase to buy every student who wants a subscription to the National Enquirer. It would improve the quality of journalism KU should have to do, and that something we really need.
Are the students who live on campus so enebleed that they cannot walk a half-mile to class? I walk to class because it saves me money. For those who want the luxurious of school, we need the scaled KU on Wheels, they live there, let them pay for the bus.
Andy Warren Mission senior
Another ghost from the Vietnam era has returned to haunt another generation of young men and women. The draft, a symbol of scorn and protest to many young people during the Sixties, is trying to make a comeback.
Draft just a tool to crank up military
A House Military Personnel Subcommittee approved a measure Monday that would require men turning 18 after Dec. 31, 1980, to register in case a draft is reinstated. The measure must be approved by both houses of Congress
And on the same day the committee barely defeated a proposal to draft up to 200,000 young men a year into ready
THAT PROPOSAL WAS made by Rep. G.V. Montgomery, D-Miss., who argued that the reserves now had only 200,000 of the 700,000 people the military wanted, and if there is a need to the time to do it "now," he said.
The Committee's action is only the latest in a series of ill-conceived plays to crank up the old military-might
Of the youth service proposals receiving the most attention is the one sponsored by Rep. Pete McCloskey, R-Calfi. His proposal, which he claims is the alternative to full-time work, calls for an annual yearbook where young register within 10 days after their 17th birthday.
Currently there are five biveis in Congress that would either revive draft registration, or at their wildest, create a national "youth corps" devoted to "community service" at home.
AT 18, THEY COULD choose among several options: two years of active military duty with full GI benefits; six months of active service and 5½ years in the reserves; or one year in civilian service. Or they could game on staying in a lottery pool for six years without getting called up. Some alternative.
But there are also some military motives behind all the jobs for the disadvantaged youth and the neighborhood dochter.
An article in the Army Times quoted the Secretary of Defense as saying, "The armed services will take a more active role in the management of Youth Conservation Corus and similar programs."
Also, such a program would control and contain the 40 percent of black teenagers who are currently unemployed. For an old "anti-war" liberal who campaigned for the anti-war battle, the proposal marks a disheartening about face.
THE ARGUMENTS USED by McCloskey and others in favor of the draft are a combination of Pentagon propaganda, fear and racism. They all fail to hold a drop of water when placed under scrutiny.
For example, pro-drafters, or militarians, as they are sometimes called, argue that the all-volunteer army could not be mobilized quick enough to respond to a military attack.
But the major question here is, mobilized for what? Most people upon hearing such a statement would think the lack of mobilization ability concerned the defense of the United States. Wrong. The defensive posture of the United States is not exactly what the militarists have in mind when they talk about mobilization.
AS ONE ARMY REPORT STATED, the all-vulnerable force, as presently constituted, "will be unable to defend successfully in both Europe and Korea at the same time because in Europe could endanger U.S. interest in the Pacific."
So, only 30 percent of our military is for the defense of the United States while the rest of our 2.1 million armed forces and $130 billion budget goes to support a global military presence with a value that is highly questionable.
Volunteer forces critics also argue that because of economic realities a large percentage of the poor, black, and uneducated are left defending the country, whereas a craft would spread the burden equally among all of society.
THIS IS A MOST interesting argument. If ever there was a system that discriminated against blacks and underprivileged, it was the draft. The procedure rated people according to their "value to society," and the selective deferment of the Sixties was not readily apparent without the necessary financial or social resources.
"If the draft isn't resumed readiness will continue to decline, and then stabilize at a dangerously low level in Reserve forces," Beard said. "Cost will continue to dictate all major decisions. Force composition will include more women, more blacks and continuing growth of lower mental category personnel."
Further still, behind this argument is a racist fear that pervades the military establishment and was exhibited in a pro-draft article by Rep. Robin Beard, R-Tenn., in the October 1978 The National Guardman:
SOMEONE SHOULD CHECK Beard's "mental category." The fear is that a non-caucasian army would be less willing to fight senseless wars in Africa, Asia or elsewhere. If this prospect has the generals uptight, then good. Maybe with such a force we would think before we put our noses where they did not belong.
Essentially, what is needed is a re-evaluation of our current foreign policy and of our country's global role, not a revival of the draft. The memories of Vietnam remain much to vivid and too painful for us to fail to do otherwise.
HOW 'BOUT A NEW TOY?
Buses can run without fee increase
To the editor:
(1) There exist other means of subsidizing the KU on Wheels bus program. To wit, subsidies from Traffic and Security (instead of the same Kanan) at front page of the same Kanan ("Parking lot plan faces opposition"); subsidies from downtown merchants or other people served by the bases; etc. I never suggested that there should be no subsidies of the bus
I would like to comment on the Kansan editorial of April 30, 1979, titled, "Bus Invasion." I did not understand the editorial staff did not understand the thrust of my arguments against the $2.50 increase in the Campus Transportation Privilege and tossing them off as selflessly motivated.
(3) Furthermore, I wholeheartedly agree with the Kansan's stand on conserving energy by encouraging mass transportation. Why not, instead, subsidize the buses by a surcharge on parking permits, encourage ride-sharing services, 'cost-effective' and discouraging driving to campus, without charging bike riders who already save energy. With this proposal, bus riders might replace car drivers and eventually the bus system might stand on its own. And maybe, just as it happened in the past, we have a true mass transportation system.
(2) Instead I objected to foisting the costs off on students who accrue little benefit from the bus system, i.e., those who walk or ride bikes. I objected, not just for myself, which the Kanian suggested, but rather for parents. I objected, too, that they know they paid $3.50 a semester this year.
Bruce Leban Lawrence junior
UNIVERSITY DAILY letters KANSAN
Biking, walking are best energy-savers
best energy-savers
To the editor:
It seems that the Kansas has entered into the quamquire of University transportation, via its April 30 editorial praising the proposed student-fee increase. I would fainn suggest that the editors have entered in a bit too deeply.
Contray to popular opinion, the form of transportation that wastes the least amount of oil and gas is not bus-riding, but waking it up. It is important to mind maps to grasp, a bike-ride actually consumes less gasoline than does a bus-rider or an auto-driver. Now the truth is: God
The editors are doubtlessly wise when they assert that "much of the opposition to the fee increase is based on purely selfish reasons." But they also want to spend the money I have earned in ways in which I might (conceivably) benefit, just as it is selfish of me to want to get rich by not saving enough for myself to selfish to get a good night's sleep each night. None of these activities is of direct benefit to anyone else, ergo, they must be insisted on by the editors' website: www.haimlms.com
Reading further, we learn that "the energy-saving potential of mass-
As everyone knows, we must pay taxes in order to have public services provided for us; moreover, living in the Twentieth century as we do, we must sometimes sacrifice part of our earnings for the benefit of the indigent. The sagacious editors would
transportation is well documented." I suppose this must mean that the energy-saving potential of walking (undocumented) does not exist. It makes sense to me. I would reckon that this is especially true in such large sprawling towns as, well, Lawrence, where the huge distances involved preclude the possibility of walking.
The resid screa
we have add a third category of capitination: benefaction for the lazy, in order that they may be toed to campus each day, escaping the strenuous perils of climbing the stairs at the 12th Street. This is reasonable. Our assert- would you want your sister to have to do it?
It is, then, obvious to all but the painfully dull-witted that those students who still do bike riding are not too excited by bike-riding owe $2.50 per semester to their more enlightened companions who are gallantly saving energy by riding the bus or taking a ride to school themselves like kids to be getting off so easy.
After all, if we really want to conserve energy, people, we're just going to have to use it in a different form, I, for one, simply don't understand this loose talk of "doing without," whatever that is supposed, to mean.
Bernard Johnston
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