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Friday, February 12, 1988 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Making proper class choices is the true key to education
Mom always said you couldn't have dessert until you ate all your veggies.
it was advice that made good dietary sense but might not have appealed too readily to an immature palate.
Secretary of Education William J. Bennett's recent charge that higher education is losing credibility because trendy, soft-headed courses are displacing the classics is on target — even at the University of Kansas.
But at KU, faculty aren't "trashing" Plato and Shakespeare. Some students just tend to pick a schedule of snacks and desserts.
The electives that students choose to flesh out their schedules make the difference between a junk-food education and one that is well-balanced.
Some may argue that courses such as human sexuality, gemstones, football officiating, the psychology of satisfaction and interpersonal communication between men and women have no place in the University curriculum. But those courses, when taken in small doses, are legitimate supplements to a solid academic curriculum.
Plato and Shakespeare are just part of what a university education has to offer. The University must be able to offer selections that blend the old and the new and allow for the diverse interests of its students.
KU administrators and faculty have provided a balanced spread of courses. It is each student's responsibility to select a balanced course of studies.
Alison Young for the editorial board
Alcohol ban helps sororities
Last week, the 14 sororities at the University of Kansas signed a resolution banning alcoholic beverages at sorority pledge parties. The decision was unpopular with some, but the sororites should be commended.
with the signing of the resolution, which was unanimously approved by a December vote, each sorority will be responsible for enforcing its own individual drinking policy.
Molly Wanstall, president of the Panhellenic Association, sees several immediate benefits of the drinking ban. For example, liability is lessened for officers of sorority chapters, who would be ultimately responsible for pledges who suffered drinking-related accidents. Also, insurance companies will be more receptive to sororities that prohibit drinking at pledge parties.
As can be expected, some sorority members opposed the bill, voicing the common college-age opinion that "you can't have fun without alcohol." Luckily, such poor reasoning did not interfere with the passage of the resolution. College students are resourceful enough to have fun without drinking.
And perhaps more importantly, the new resolution takes pressure off pledges who don't want to drink but feel compelled to do so by their drinking peers. The drinking ban will encourage them to enjoy alternative activities at KU.
By banning alcohol at pledge parties, the KU sororites have proven that common sense can triumph over common opinion.
implum over common opinion:
Alan Player for the editorial board
Editorials in this column are the opinions of the editorial board.
Other Voices
Desegregation needs court order
"Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!" — George Wallace, in his 1963 inauguration speech as Alabama's new governor.
These are hard words to swallow in 1988. But in December 1987, U.S. District Court Judge John Pratt dismissed a mandate that required 14 states to desegregate their higher education systems and the fate of the mandate now rests with the Office of Civil Rights and the individual state. The mandate has lost its punch.
Without the court order, we are left to rely on the "good-faith" efforts of state and University administrators, efforts in the past that have helped us.
were spurred on primarily by court mandates. The Braff decision should be appealed and overturned.
The Daily Collegian Pennsylvania State University
News staff
Alison Young...Editor
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Atlan Player...Editorial editor
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Students come first
Call it freshman naivete, but I just don't understand the current admission policies. I'm not referring to the program that the Board of Regents has recently been considering, but rather to the even more stifling policy governing entrance into Allen Field House.
Initially, I referred to the attending of the games as a "privilege." Indeed, this must be so, for as past articles of the Kansan have reminded me, there are some students who could not obtain tickets to this campus event of their own University. It is true that the arena is sold out, but it must be wondered why students aren't the ones filling it instead of the masses of "jayammin" "" sweatshirt-clad alumni, season ticket holders and their families.
Granted, the University does owe a great deal to its supportive alumni, especially for their contributions, but it is my understanding that these "donations" are meant to benefit the University as a whole, thereby benefiting those attending it. Within this motive, contributions should not be utilized as a down payment on basketball tickets, at least not at the expense of a student's chance to obtain them.
It is illogical that students of this University, no matter how small a group, be denied access
to tickets for such an event before they are released to non-student groups. Certainly the arena would not be standing today if it were not for the student body that composes the "college" in "college basketball."
Rick Radakovich
Overland Park freshman
it may seem that this problem is trivial, especially if your tickets are already secured for the next game. This is not the case for all of the University's students however. The current policy seems to be unjustly exclusionary, and it is keeping students from perhaps the most exciting games in college basketball. It is excluding them from Allen Field House, where a larger group of people yelling in the name of school pride can have its most devastating effect. It is time to give the Jayhawks' true "sixth man" his full playing time.
Mind your own business
I am indeed amused that on Feb. 2 two articles appeared in the University Daily Kansan that should have been printed right next to each other. I am referring to Gordon Gruber's guest column and "Religious teens answer sex survey" (Associated Press, Washington).
I will not attempt to prove Gruber or the Alliance of Citizens for Traditional Values as informed; their ignorance, bigotry, hatefulness and, to my mind, non-Christian beliefs and
I now refer to the second above-mentioned article where it is reported that 43 percent of the teenage members of eight different evangelical church denominations had sexual intercourse by the time they were 18, and one-third of the 1,438 participants in the survey thought that sex outside of marriage was OK. I sincerely hope that these teenagers don't think that because they are not homosexual they don't have to worry about AIDS. But according to Gruber, and I'm sure many of those teenagers and their parents feel the same way, AIDS is caused, carried and delivered by homosexuals and by homosexuals alone. Am I, therefore, to deduce that these same sexually active teenagers are not practicing responsible and safe sex?
way of life, clearly speak for themselves. I will draw attention, however, to something that I have noticed throughout the course of my life. Apparently it seems, in my experience, and I have had plenty, that radically conservative people have two codes of morality: one for themselves and one for everyone else.
My message to Gruber and the other members of the Alliance of Citizens for Traditional Values is this: your own children aren't listening to you, so why should anyone else. Clean up your backyard before you complain about mine. Mind your own business — you will have plenty to keep you busy — and you'll need more than a shovel to get the job done.
Jewell Courtney Hay Office Assistant III Department of English
BLOOM COUNTY
by Berke Breathed