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Tuesday, March 31, 1987 / University Daily Kansan
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Opinions
By George, I think he's got it!
A stroke of genius
Gov. Mike Hayden's proposal for a cut in salary increases for KU faculty and staff has received the approval of the Kansas House. The bill would cut salary increases from 2.5 percent to 1.5 percent for fiscal year 1988. Because the raise would cover only half the fiscal year, the increase really would amount to only .75 percent.
Finally, Hayden and the Kansas Legislature are on the right track. When we just thought he was wielding his budgetary ax at anything and everything to make life financially difficult for everyone, he really had the perfect money-saving plan in mind. Only now has he revealed it to us.
Cutting salary increases to barely existent levels is a brilliantly subtle way to tell the faculty and staff to look for employment elsewhere in order for the state to save incredible amounts of money. Many other state programs need the money more than
education does.
After all, why do we really need a University staff and faculty when we can teach the classes ourselves? Yeah, we could take turns instructing on different subjects each class period — whatever we felt most comfortable and confident talking about. And we wouldn't ask for a salary, just free tuition. That would save a lot of money.
Or better yet, we could set up a system, through television, where we wouldn't even need to attend class. We could just stay at home, turn on the set and soak in some bits of knowledge during the commercial breaks on "All My Children." It could be one continuous channel of different courses that we could tune into whenever a subject that interested us came on the screen. Certainly, that will cut down on the costs of operating a big University.
And we thought Hayden was just being foolish.
Mincing words
State budget cuts, combined with an increased enrollment, have led the University administration to make some tough decisions this year. But a disturbing trend has developed from the most recent round of decisions dealing with these problems.
This trend is the use of bureaucracy to avoid dealing with the budget-enrollment problem openly and directly.
In the name of "maintaining the quality of our academic programs," the University has mandated strict deadlines for admission applications and will send potentially discouraging letters to incoming freshmen. A side benefit of the measures will be to slightly reduce enrollment.
On their own merits, both of these measures seem to make sense. Deadlines for applying
The University must deal with the question of how to handle a growing number of students on a smaller budget. If the administration thinks the University no longer can afford to accept all who apply, let it raise the issue by itself.
to the University of Kansas will be helpful in the planning of course offerings, and college life may be easier for all parties involved if incoming students were better prepared. But they should decide each on its merits and not on how many potential students they could eliminate.
This issue is too important to be skirted around. What is needed is fair, unencumbered discussion of what will be most beneficial to the University and its students. What is not needed is a bunch of temporary half-solutions.
Just add water
Drug abuse has had a big effect on society in the 1980s, and now it has added a new dimension to college basketball.
This is the first year that the NCAA is testing college athletes at championship events. Drug abuse has been a growing concern all over, not just in college athletics, and this seemed like a logical step to help curb the abuse. However, there was one problem.
Players were tested immediately following the NCAA tournament basketball games, and many were so dehydrated that attempts to fill specimen bottles proved futile. Some had to rely on soft drinks to induce the process. The University of Florida feared the tests so much that the Gators changed hotels because they thought
marijana smoke from a guest's room would seep into the players' systems.
The NCAA had a good intention, but implementation could have been better timed.
Testing athletes as soon as they enter the locker room is not only hard on the players, it also takes away from the thrill of victory.
Some coaches argue that the implementation should be before the game because players are so nervous and ready to play that they can't stay out of the bathroom.
Unfortunately, society has dictated the need for drug testing and it seems that in the future when equipment managers pack the uniforms, tape and ice packs, they also will have to leave room for the specimen bottles.
News staff
News staff
Frank Hansel...Editor
Jennifer Benjamin...Managing editor
Jul Warren...News editor
Brian Kaberline...Editorial editor
Sandra Engelland...Campus editor
Mark Siebert...Sports editor
Diane Doltmeier...Photo editor
Bill Skeet...Graphics editor
Tom Eblen...General manager, news adviser
Business staff
Lisa Weems...Business manager
Bonnie Hardy...Ad director
Denise Stephens...Retail sales manager
Kelly Scherer...Campus sales manager
Duncan Calthoun...Marketing manager
Lori Copple...Classified manager
Jennifer Lumianski...Production manager
David Nixon...National sales manager
Jeanne Hines...Sales and marketing adviser
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Coalition keeps eye on Bottom Line
Editor's note: Each of the three coalitions in this year's Student Senate election was asked to submit a short statement of their reasons. (A response is not required.) Better laws coalition appears second.
Don't be confused. Let's separate Student Senate from sports; issues from hype. The Bottom Line is a
Jason Krakow
Stephanie Quincy
Guest Shot
and as committee members. In addition, our coalition compares one-half experienced senators and one-half new blood. That's our approach — using experience to implement new ideas.
group of students concerned about the welfare of the entire campus. Bottom Line offers a presidential candidate and vice presidential candidate who have served in leadership positions such as chairman of the Student Senate Executive Committee and one who served as the director of the Associated Students of Kansas. We also have served several terms as senators, chairmen of committees
For example, many students have expressed concern about limited time available for study at Watson Library. Certainly, you find times when you need to study past midnight. The library should be available to you at those times. Because this is important to you, it's important to us.
Another problem we think needs to be addressed are discrepancies which may occur between grades that appear on students' report cards and the grades they rightfully deserve. Our proposed solution is to provide a grade appeals board where students can file legitimate complaints. The board will comprise faculty members, administrators, and members of the student body. This plan will help to insure that you
receive the grade you deserve.
Parking is a perennial problem for students and faculty. While faculty members have had their opinions represented fairly by parking services, we would like to see more student input in the planning stages of parking improvements. It just makes sense that students should get parking services relative to their needs. You pay $35 to parking services and deserve $35 worth of service.
We also will take a realistic approach to solving the problem of closed classes. We will lobby to the Senate to increase the number of study sessions concerning the issue.
We have a headstart through legislative means on offering more classes. We already have worked towards offering a full slate of summer classes and stabilizing the state funding process without sacrificing your student activity fee. Because sacrifice your activity fee will sacrifice KU on Wheels, SecureCab, the Umi-
versity Daily Kansan and the budgets of all student organizations and services. You deserve leaders with practical solutions.
These are feasible solutions to problems facing KU students. It's responsible student government — recognizing a problem and solving it
These issues affect every student. But certainly, there are others that also are important to you. We'd like to know what these are by hearing from you at "town meetings." Here's an opportunity for you to tell the student body president and vice president exactly what's on your mind. In addition, we want to be more in the mainstream of the campus, so our senators will conduct office hours on Wescoe Beach or in the rotunda in Strong Hall. We'll come to you instead of forcing you to come to us.
Again, don't be misled. When you vote April 8 and 9, vote for informed and experienced student leaders. That's what we offer you. That's the Bottom Line.
Study proves cheery people are clueless
One of my fondest curbstone theories has recently been confirmed by genuine scientific research.
It has to do with why some people are chronically grouchy and depressed while others are always bubbling with enthusiasm and looking at the bright side of life.
Mike Royko Columnist
A psychologist took a close look at students who fell into both groups. He wanted to see how they reacted when they got poor grades.
He found that those who had the gloomier outlook on life generally blamed only themselves for their sub-par performances.
In contrast, those who bounce happily through life with big smiles on their faces usually found some other reason for their failings. They blamed teachers for not doing a good job or for being unfair, or they said that something had distracted them, prevented them from doing their best work. In other words, it wasn't their fault.
After analyzing the excuses of both groups, the psychologist found that those who tended to be gloomy were right — they had been at fault.
In contrast, the happiness-mongers were kidding themselves. They, too, were at fault, but they couldn't accept it, so they found someone else
to blame.
Thus, the study came to the conclusion that those who were gloomy and depressed had a far more realistic view of themselves and life in general.
But the happiness-mongers had a tendency to be unrealistic.
This is what I ve always believed:
Show me somebody who is always smiling, always cheerful, always optimistic, and I will show you somebody who hasn't the faintest idea what the heck is really going on.
And that maltigened creature, the chronic grouch, is depressed because he knows that there's a lot to be depressed about. He knows that every dark cloud doesn't necessarily have a silver lining. It's more likely that the cloud contains acid rain.
Slats Groblik once put it neatly when a happiness-monger looked at his gloomy face and said, "Hey, you must have always had a way of getting better."
Slats said, "If things always have a way of getting better, how come funeral parlorors do so much business?"
And he had an answer when another happiness-monger told him, "Remember, it's always darkest before the dawn."
Slats said, "Then how come they waited until the sun came up to bomb Pearl Harbor?"
Just look in the history books. I defy anyone to show me a picture of Abe Lincoln with a big smile on his face. He may have been the most depressed, gloom-filled man ever to
hold the office of president. That's because he knew what was going on and that there was a lot to be depressed about.
In contrast, we have Ronald Reagan, who is seldom seen without a shap-happy smile. That's because — as Reagan himself recently told us he doesn't always know what's going on.
So we had one president who was gloomy when the most terrible weapon known to man was a short-range cannon. Now we have another who can't stop chuckling at a time when mankind has the capacity to vaporize itself
And that should be enough to make the rest of us stop grimming.
Or try looking at the pictures of the happy show-biz people who are always being shown in People magazine attending parties. Of course they look happy. Between the hooch and the powder they're snorting, they don't know which of their ends is up.
Contrast their facial expressions with those you see in the morning on commuter trains, buses or behind the wheels of cars. These people know exactly where they are and where they are going. They are going to work. That is reality. And that's why they're not giggling.
The scientists might even consider Slats Grobnik's theory that smiling is unnatural, that it defies nature, while pushing gravity pulls our faces downward.
"If nature wanted us to smile all the time," he has said, "then we would have been born with our heads upside down."
That is something to think about.
Mailbox
Protection lacking
In this country, many minority sects of society are protected by law from discrimination, but there is still at least one group that is being overlooked — homosexuals. Until discrimination against homosexuals and all other groups is put to an end, our nation will continue to reek with bigotry.
Many people use the scapegap of immorality to justify their prejudices against homosexuals. Who
is to say what is moral? Can one sect of the populous determine that another is immoral? Should we have a single code of morals to live by? We cannot. Everyone is an individual, and has a right to express this individualism. Is it moral to ridicule or to dislike someone because they are different and have the guts to be themselves? I think not. Disapproval is acceptable, but not when it leads to the physical, emotional or any other form of abuse of another individual.
Lauren Crain
Memphis, Tenn., sophomore
BLOOM COUNTY
by Berke Breathed