THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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OPINION
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2006
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PAGE 5A
Provost candidate shares her views
Q: What about the University appeals to you?
The editorial board plans to interview each candidate for provost as they are announced during the next few weeks. On Monday, Jason Shaad, opinion editor, Josh Bickel, managing editor and Ty Beaver, editorial writer, conducted a phone interview with provost candidate, Virginia Sapiro, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on several issues. The following are the questions and her selected answers.
Q: What about the University appeals to you?
A: It's a kind of university that I know well and admire and that is a very top-level institution that's devoted to both teaching and research. I've heard great things from people who are alumni. I have colleagues here who went to KU and ever since I visited, they haven't stopped talking about it, and I've heard the area is really beautiful. I found all of that when I was there.
Virginia Sapiro
Q: How would you approach the University's four-year graduation rate?
A: The first thing is to recruit the best students we can. The next thing is to make sure that, from the very beginning, from the first point at which students say 'Yes, I'm going to KU', that we give the kind of support and advice and help that's necessary for students to be as successful as possible. I'd be really interested in going further with Living Learning Communities, which I know you've begun to do, and of doing the kind of programming that really integrates student life and academics. The other thing is to make sure along the way that we are watching out for students that are at vulnerable periods in their lives, who are having a little bit of trouble. Not waiting for students to come to faculty and advisors, but finding ways of making sure faculty and staff are very much in touch with students and can be there to help when the students need help. is another thing. One other thing is that there is adequate financial aid all the way through, because one reason that students don't complete in four years or don't complete at all can be financial difficulties they are facing. So, we always have to be keeping an eye on financial issues for students.
A: I'd have to learn more about the policy that is there. I can't support anything that would allow underage drinking on public property and at the University. I think what's much more important than that is making sure there is very good education about alcohol and its effects. The real problem we face at many institutions today, including the one I'm at, is that there are too many students engaging in high-risk behavior and that includes not just alcohol, but a whole range of other activities. That would very much be my main focus, trying to figure out how to reduce the amount of high risk behavior students engage in.
Q: What is your stance concerning alcohol on campus, for example, at the Jaybowl in the Union?
Q: How do you feel about making end-of-term teacher evaluations available to the public?
A: The problems I have with making them public - I'm not necessarily opposed to them - but let me she's some of the problems there are. First of all, different professors teach the same courses over time. One thing that happens on campuses, like my own where they're made public, is students will look and see course evaluations for a particular course and not really connect with the fact that that person is not teaching the course anymore or that person teaches every other year. They don't actually have the evaluations of the instructor teaching the course. Another issue that's a problem is for especially our youngest, most junior faculty. There's a time when they're really learning their craft and it's like any other kind of job where you need help in learning how to get better. What happens on campuses where these are publicly posted is that students start shying away from those particular professors and they're really not given an opportunity to grow and get better. There's also some research that suggests that in anonymous course evaluations, where people aren't held accountable for what they say about other people, that there can be some racism and sexism and some of those. What I'd rather do is find really good ways of working with students and student organizations to make sure teaching keeps improving and that we find out which departments and which faculty need to shape up some more.
Q: What do you want to do to fulfill Chancellor Robert Hemenway's vision of KU as a top 25 university?
A: The first thing you have to do is break down what does that mean. When people say top 25 or top 10 or top million, what does that mean? And usually what people focus on is the number of graduate and Ph.D. programs that are individually ranked in the top 25, so it means holding up the research capability at the institution, the support for research and the quality of the faculty. It also means looking at each and every graduate program to find out whether it is really high quality, how does it compare to others and what is the very special area in each program that KU in particular can bring, so people in that field say, KU just has the greatest this kind of program or that kind of program.
For me, what it means is some of the kind of things you started to talk about earlier. To what degree do we have a great student body that graduates in a good period of time? To what degree is KU a place that has not only really good scholar teachers as professors, but also has other kinds of co-curricular activities and living learning activities that make it the kind of place that make it a great education? To foster the reputation, I'd also want to be looking again at what can we do to improve the whole educational program, to make sure that there are great co-curricular activities and that when alumni turn around and look back at their college years they say "I am so glad I went there."
Q: What is your snow day policy? We know it snows a lot up in Wisconsin and we don't set mann snow days here when it does snow
A: On snow days, if at all possible, I like to get my snow suit on and go out and make a snow person. I'm also pretty good at snow angels, and I promise if I'm there I will do a snow angel in the snow on campus.
▼ COMMENTARY
Who do you want to control your file sharing programs?
What if your Internet service provider charged for every song you downloaded off Kazaa?
Welcome to the two-tiered, segregated and controlled Internet.
The death knell of unlimited Internet freedom — and your favorite peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing network could be around the corner if certain powerful Internet service providers have their way.
According to the Boston Globe, AT&T and BellSouth have been lobbying Congress to create a two-tiered Internet -- one tier for regular traffic and another for high-priority traffic.
To create their new Internet, companies will tag information to define at what speed it should travel.
These companies want to do away with network neutrality, the overriding principle that has governed the Internet. This concept states that information on the Internet should transfer as quickly as possible without regard to content. Congress is now debating whether to make network neutrality the law or do
COURTNEY FARR opinion@kansan.com
away with it and allow the new tiered Internet to develop.
If Congress abolishes network neutrality, they hand network operators the legal power to define how data moves through the Internet. These companies would have the power to control other companies' services, determine how fast we can download data, and potentially what we can download at all. But they sincerely promise not to abuse that power. Not even when tens of billions of dollars in revenue is at stake. Nope, scout's honor, they swear to play nice.
Kiss Kazaa goodbye folks. Delete eDonkey off your machines. Why? There is no money in those file sharing programs for the ISPs. They want to charge more money for data passing through their network.
P2P networks soak up hundreds of gigabytes of bandwidth with no one to bill. That is, no one except the users. Either P2P networks will be slowed to a point of being worthless or customers will have to pony up extra dollars based on how much bandwidth they use. Either way, the file sharing networks will suffer.
Your entire Internet experience may be the final victim of corporate greed.
SBC CEO Edward Whitacre, in a Business Week interview, said that he wants to be able to charge companies like Google or Yahoo for sending information over his company's network.
"Why should they be allowed to use my pipes," asked Whitacre. "The Internet can't be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment and for a Google or Yahoo or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes [for] free is nuts!"
Never mind that data on the Internet is already paid for twice; once by the sender and once by the receiver. Network operators
wants it paid for 3, 4 or 10 times over if possible.
In a letter to Congress, Vinton Cerf, a Google vice president, warned that current legislation "would do great damage to the Internet as we know it."
"Telephone companies cannot tell consumers who they can call; network operators should not dictate what people can do online."
Network operators could effectively hold the Internet hostage by determining who gets to run the fastest. How much would Google, Yahoo or MSN pay to be the fastest search engine?
Whitacre and his ilk have missed a major point. The only reason Internet traffic exists at all is thanks to the content providers.
Without content, there is no Internet. Without content, ISPs couldn't charge anyone to move data over their networks. In their shortsighted greed, they may chop off the hand that feeds them.
Farr is a Scott City senior in journalism
GUEST COMMENTARY
Professor's passing stirs hope, memories
were a reality.
I woke up that morning with George Harrison's "All Things Must Pass" circling in my head. That morning I knew those words "all things must pass," were more than just song lyrics, but
Sitting down for a late afternoon lunch in the Union I picked up a left-behind copy of The University Daily Kansan in hopes of catching up on
Snyder
the campus news. Following a couple page turns I was shocked and saddened by the articles of those connected to the University who had passed away during the course of winter break.
I was struck most by the news of Rick Snyder's death. The distinguished professor of psychology was, hands down, one of the best teachers I had ever had the
privilege of learning from. I ended up adding his class "Individual Differences" last semester after having dropped what appeared to be a not-so-thrilling psychology course. Adding his class was the best thing I could have done. Little did I know how much hope he would instill in me.
Rick's class was an unusual one: It was one that students actually wanted to attend. The Wescoe auditorium was holding warm bodies in nearly every seat each Tuesday and Thursday. He did not take attendance because he didn't have to. People simply wanted to come. His lectures were engaging and quite amusing, from his display of chewing on a girl's notes to putting on lip balm. He did what he had to do and more to make a point.
I was always amazed at his ability to pull me into his realm by beginning each day with a simple: "Welcome to Individual Differences day #___." The end of each
lecture was just as touching. He would wrap up with some grand finale, bring some life lesson in at the last minute and then send you out of the classroom and back into the world. Once, at the end of class, he had a student take his all powerful microphone and dismiss the class for the day. Another time he displayed his favorite childhood book, "Tootles the Train," and even once told us how all graduating students walking down the hill were bottles of Dr. Pepper to him. There was an imaginative story or an awe inspiring hopeful message from the start of class all the way to the end.
Snyder had said that this past semester was the hardest semester he had in all his years of teaching. If he had not said that, I don't think anyone would have ever known. I can only imagine how brilliant a teacher he was when he didn't have life's obstacles occupying his mind.
I wrote Snyder an e-mail last
semester wanting the privilege of meeting him outside of lecture in hopes of using him as a great resource for psychological knowledge and life in general. Rick responded that he was unable to meet with me at that time because of the worsening health conditions of his father and father-in-law.
To learn that Rick himself was recently diagnosed with cancer and lost the battle leaves me feeling quite lost, but at the same time, still in a mind-set of hopefulness. The primary area of his research was hope and he exemplified that better than anyone I had ever seen. He once demonstrated hope on "Good Morning America" for all television viewers to appreciate. Luckily though, I got to experience this hope firsthand right in the classroom and, as a result, feel forever sure that you can get there from here.
Courtney McKay Sioux City, Iowa, junior
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I bet Bob Knight is angry and furious during sex almost to the point of violence.
Darnell Jackson, how about Baby Shaq? Look at that. We are coming together. Go Jayhawks. Look good.
You know, if your cat hisses at me one more time, I
Darnell Jackson equals Baby Shaq. Theude abides.
I'd just like to say that we've messed with Texas twice now, and KU basketball doesn't care about George Bush.
Do you think that when Christian Moody brings a girl to climax she moans Mooody? I do.
To the people who watched as the guy stole my girlfriend's bike tire, what were you thinking? Did you think he would come back later for the rest of this bike? You suck just as much as the guy who stole the drama.
stole the damn tire.
am going to bite its head off.
Math? Math, my dear, is nothing more than the lesbian stepster of biology.
Darnell Jackson looks exactly like Shaq,except
Patrick Rose, associate opinion editor
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KUJH-TV, please go back to the old format of nothing but old KU sports games and cruddy TV shows.
I almost nunchucked you, you don't even realize.
Isn't it a little over-conceited for an athlete to be a member of their own fan club on facebook? I don't know, just a thought.
Hey Free-For-All, I just wanted to call and see if anybody noticed that the assistant manager at the Underground's name is Roy Williams. What are the odds
Haha, Chester Giles, haha.
smaller. I know, Darnell Jack.
son is Baby Shaq.
You better whack it up.
Whack it up.
of that? Click.
Dear Heather at Steak and Shake, thanks a lot for the great service. I especially enjoyed the hair in my turkey club and the water I had for the entire meal, which took an hour and a half. I hope you enjoyed your lack of tip.
Definition of a productive day: school, gym, pizza buffet, stripper.
Just wanted to say whoever was ripping ass on the tail side of the student section, you need to cut that shit out. That was pretty bad.
That was p
Jennifer Weaver, sales and marketing adviser
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You know it's really, really depressing when you sleep with a girl named Nicole and she tells you after three times she has eight STDs.
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