Friday February 5, 1988
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Published since 1889 by the students of the University of Kansas
Vol. 98, No. 90 (USPS 650-640)
Bennett says colleges are growing lax
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Higher education is losing credibility because of "faculty trashing of Plato and Shakespeare" in trendy, soft-headed courses that are displacing the classics, Secretary of Education William J. Bennett charged yesterday.
In a speech that drew sparks from college presidents, Bennett warned that the nation's campuses were "at a crossroads (and) may soon face a day of reckoning.
"The American people are beginning to wonder whether the emperor, higher education, has any clothes," the former philosophy professor told 400 presidents and deans at the
National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.
He said that newspapers are "chock-full of truly astonishing accounts of curricular debasement at our colleges and universities," including Stanford University's debate over whether to alter a Western civilizaton requirement.
Bennett also cited a Wall Street Journal article that quoted an assistant English professor at Duke University as saying students are no longer taught that literary excellence exists.
"is this what parents are being asked to pay $18,000 a year for?" Bennett asked.
He said many institutions did a good job of
discharging the educational responsibilities they bear but that the serious voices were being drowned out by the trendy lightweights in our midst.
Some of these intellectual movements claim to spring from "serious thinkers as Karl Marx but . . . look more like they spring from Groucho Marx in collaboration with Daffy Duck," said Bennett.
He said that a university president once offered him money to help that new knowledge gain more than old knowledge.
"Iis the faculty trashing of Plato and Shakespeare the kind of new knowledge to which he was referring? George Orwell once referred to
nonsense so bad only an intellectual could believe it. Welcome to some of our universities," said Bennett.
Bennett charged last month that "academic intimidation" was going on at Stanford, where officials are considering changing the Western
"No one here is talking about trashing Shakespeare or Plato or any of the other fine authors." said Stanford news director Bob Beyers. "They are talking about how best to incorporate the intellectual interests of women and minorities in our curriculum in ways that will benefit all students."
Joe Wilkins II/KANSAN
Snowv spot
Change by Sony lauded
Doug Wells, Kansas City, Mo., junior, plays with his seven-month-old Dalmation, Jake, behind Spencer Museum of Art, Wells, who was walking Jake on Wednesday
morning, said his dog loved the snow and was very playful in cold weather. KU leather Service expects clear skies and a high of 13.
By Donna Stokes
"VHS is here to stay. Sony is finally getting on the bandwagon by producing VHS-format recorders. I think they'll do well with it," said Chuck Taylor, owner of Mission Electronics Inc. in Kansas City, Kan.
Area video store owners said yesterday that the Sony Corporation's recent decision to make and sell VHS recorders was a smart move.
Kansan staff writer
In 1975, Sony introduced Betamax, the first successful video home recorder. A year later, Matsushita Electric Industrial Company, a Sony rival, introduced the VHS format, which was less expensive and had a longer recording time.
Sony officials said the popularity of VHS in America made them decide to produce the recorder in VHS.
Jeff Brahler, an employee at University Audio, 2319 Louisiana St., said the store had not carried Beta recorders or equipment for about two years.
"Nothing is wrong with Beta. It just didn't catch," he said. "VHS gained more market value, and we just can't carry something that doesn't sell."
Brahler said he thought making VHS recorders was a smart move for Sony but contradictory to the belief that it supported the Beta format in the past.
"They're going to eat a little crow on this one," Brahler said.
Many industry analysts said that Sony was, in effect, conceding defeat in the video war.
But Sony insisted that it would not abandon its Beta recording system or any customers who owned Betamax recorders.
Beta products are not being phased out, said David Kawakami, manager of corporate communications for Sony, Park Ridge, N.J.
See VIDEO, p. 5, col. 1
KU professor now a TV host
By Regan Brown
Kansan staff writer
Through the years, Dick Wright has brought the joy of jazz to KU students through his jazz history classes, to radio audiences through his popular KANU-FM jazz program, and to concert-goers through his promotion and position as host of local jazz events.
Wright's jazz influence will extend to television next week with the debut of a three-part series, "Kansas City Jazz." The series, hosted by Wright and beginning Monday, will run at 8 p.m. Mondays on KTWU-11 in Topeka.
See related stories
The program deals with important bands and artists on the Kansas City jazz scene from the 1920s to the present, Wright said, including performers such as Count Basie, Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, Jay McSham, and Pat Metheny.
A photograph of Wright and the late handleader Count Basie accompanies a description of the series in the Feb. 6-12 TV Guide.
Wright, an associate professor of theater and media arts, said his one previous experience with television was a cable advertisement for a local record store. People around town often spot him from the ad, he said, and friends around the country called after seeing him on their cable channels.
"But I still get an awful lot of people at the grocery checkout asking, 'Don't I know you from the radio?' "
Wright's award-winning radio show, "The Jazz Scene," has been on KANU-FM for the last 28
years. The Introduction to Jazz course at the University of Kansas that he launched in the early 1970s has grown from a handful of students to a spring 1988 enrollment of 300.
"Most of my students haven't been exposed to real honest-to-God jazz," he said. "They've grown up on Gus."
Crossover music has jazz roots but is heavily influenced by other types of music, such as rock or new age.
Describing himself as a jazz purist, Wright said he had trouble categorizing today's fusion music as jazz.
"The jazz umbrella has grown very wide," he said. "He's not going anywhere where else to put a record, it gets filed under jazz."
Wright named his love for mainstream jazz from the period 1945 to 1965 was shared by the
New restaurants in Kansas Union will be open in February, March
"They idolize American jazz, especially Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker." Owens, jazz. Jazz. "In front of me, I turn around."
With a television show, a radio program, a full teaching schedule, a huge record collection, and all the jazz emcee work he can handle, Wright appears to be fully immersed in his first love, jazz. Right?
Wrong, he said. Jazz is the second love of his life.
"Belle it or not, I'd rather be known as an opera singer."
Wright sings often at the piano in his office and performs in local recitals. His academic degrees are in
Wrong, he said. Jazz is the second love of his life.
"For me, singing is the only thing above jazz," he said.
singer than anything else," he said.
By the end of February, students passing level 3 of the Kansas Union will smell food instead of paint when Union Square, the first of three new food service areas, opens for business
Kansan staff writer
By Donna Stokes
The new Hawk's Nest and Prairie Room food services will open soon afterwards, said James A. Long, director of the Kansas and Burge unions.
Long said the three services can't be opened at the same time because gas and electricity serving the prepaid account may not be disconnected with each stage.
The Prairie Room, a restaurant-style service, will be the last to open. It will have waiters and a private dining area available for reservation.
After all three food service areas are open in late March, the Union will have a grand opening, he said. The
Union Square is a scatter-type cafeteria with several stations. It will include a dessert and prepared salads station, hot and cold drinks, especially entrees, such as Mexican or Italian foods, and grilled items.
process may take a month to complete.
Union Square will also have a soup and salad bar and a delicatessen bar.
See FOOD, p. 5, col. 2
Contra advocates persist Help planned for rebels despite House vote
The Associated Press
MIAMI — Congressional rejection of contra aid was a body blow to the Nicaraguan rebels' finances, supporters acknowledged yesterday, but they vowed to step up fund-raising efforts to continue the war against the Sandinistas.
"We have taken this kind of blow before and we have survived, and we are going to survive again," rebel leader Adolfo Calero said in reaction to Wednesday night's 219-211 House vote rejecting contra aid.
Alvaro Rizo, whose Nicaraguan-American National Foundation in Washington has helped exiles in the past, said he met with some of his members yesterday and expected to have a strategy within a few days.
"I hope we can help them," said Rizo, "but I cannot say that we are going to replace the aid."
Some supporters were already meeting yesterday to discuss a fund drive.
"We will make a, 1,000-percent effort to raise money," said Miami businessman Carlos Perez, who heads the pro-contra group Concerned Business for Democracy. "We do everything that is legal to provide help."
In Washington, L. Francis Bouchier, president of the Council for Inter-American Security, told a news conference that he sent a letter to contra leaders offering support in a bondselling effort. Anti-contra aid protesters briefly interrupted the session by splashing blood toward Bouchey.
Bouchey said that the council, which claims 165,000 supporters, was prepared to set up a committee of prominent U.S. citizens to assist in the sale of bonds.
Former Tennessee congressman
Dan Kuykendall's Gulf and Caribbean
tourism department
Peter Flaherty, chairman of Citizens for Reagan, said at the same news conference that his organization endorsed the bond effort.
Marta Sacasa, the contra spokesman in Miami, said she was worried that potential donors would close
"But frankly, it's been very difficult to raise money because of Irangate," he said. "People have been scared off."
pro-contra publicity campaign, and he said yesterday that he would redouble his efforts in the next 90 to 120 days.
their purses, taking their lead from the Congress.
The contra's Washington fund-raising consultant, David Lane, estimated that just feeding the 15,000 rebel troops would cost about $1.3 million a month.
"Who is going to want to support the Nicaraguan Resistance if the country which can afford to is not going to do it?" she asked.
Profs react to vote
Kansan staff writer
Bv Christine Martin
Some KU professors expressed different opinions on the House of Representative's rejection of aid for the contra.
Wednesday, the House voted 219-21 against President Reagan's $37.2 million aid package to the contra, which included more than $3 million for military aid.
Charles Stansifer, KU director of Latin American studies and professor of history, said he had opposed contra aid for seven years and was glad that Congress had finally voted against it.
Rep. Jim Slattery, D-Kan., is a member of a democratic task
"I've a little late," Stansifer said. "The Nicaraguan economy is practically in ruins and the war has reduced Nicaragua to its knees."
"It's more of a fork in the road," he said. "It could be revived, likely in the proposal for humanitarian aid.
Stanisler said the vote against contra aid was not a dramatic turnaround in U.S. policy.
"The best approach would be to remove the contrast altogether and work strictly in diplomatic areas," Stansifer said.
force that will draw up a $32 million humanitarian aid package for the contra, said Cynthia Rapp. Slattery's press secretary.
Rapp said the House would vote on the new package by Feb. 29, the date the current aid runs out. Humanitarian aid does not jeopardize the Central American peace process, she said.
"Congressman Slattery feels very strongly that although the peace process is moving forward, we should not be offering any type of assistance that goes against the peace plan," Rapp said.
Roy Laird, professor of political science, said that while cutting off all aid was a mistake, giving the contras humanitarian aid was better than nothing at all.
"I think that the Sandistas are a Marxist-Leninist; foothold on the North American continent," he said.
Carl Lande, professor of political science, agreed that Congress had made a mistake.
"I'm sorry Congress defeated the aid," Lande said. "In my view, Nicaragua cannot be democratized without pressure on the Sandinistas."