4
Monday, December 3. 1990/ University Daily Kansan
Opinion
Fighting censorship
Junior high protesters took a courageous stand for responsibility when they advocated safe sex
The recent decision by several Lawrence teenagers to protest the removal of a poster in their junior high school showed courage.
Jaimes said of the poster, "I think we must have a learning situation at the school that isn't detracted by that kind of thing."
Five students at Central Junior High School taped their mouths closed Tuesday in an act of self-censorship. More students joined them briefly. Their protest occurred after a poster created for a mock presidential election was deemed inappropriate by the school's principal, Dan Jaimes. The poster, which depicted the Earth wrapped in a condom, stated, "Make the world a safer place."
He also said in a Kansan article that he would find a commercially prepared poster inappropriate if it contained similar subject matter.
Statistics show that an alarming number of teenagers engage in sexual intercourse that
often leads to unplanned and unwanted pregnancies. This is in addition to the increasing threat of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.
However, these risks can be alleviated with proper safe-sex methods, including condom use. Unfortunately, many teenagers are unaware of these options before it is too late.
Jaimes, as principal, obviously must make every effort to ensure a safe and productive learning environment. But the students suffer from the censorship of condom information.
School is indeed a "learning situation," but not just in an academic regard. And if students are experimenting with sexuality, which statistics show they are, then schools should provide realistic education in that area as well.
Changing times require changing attitudes, and Central students should be applauded for pointing this out.
Buck Taylor for the editorial board
Engineering students need fee
A great deal of discussion has resulted from dean of engineering Carl Locke's proposal for engineering students.
The proposed fee of $15 per credit hour would be used to generate the necessary funds to improve outdated laboratory and computer facilities in the school of engineering. Although we'll never get used to forking over more money at tuition time, we are in favor of an added fee for engineering students because it simply makes good sense.
The cost of a college education in the United States has gone up as much or more than the overall inflation rate. But the rate of increase for an engineering education is much higher. Who should pay for these added costs of our education? We must pay for the engineering students, the people who will benefit from the increased revenue, should pay.
Why is more money needed?
With the greatly increased use of high-performance computers in the solution of engineering problems and the existence of sophisticated equipment in the laboratories, the School of Engineering requires a disproportionate share of University resources.
Engineering by its very nature requires a large capital investment. As the engineering community takes note of the increasing need for the computer systems required to
James Ronnau
Guest columnist
solve these problems must be more and more powerful.
Lab equipment is another area of rapidly increasing cost. A single piece of modern test equipment for a microwave engineering lab can cost well more than $100,000. In addition, the cost of maintenance contracts for this equipment is increasing each year. Without this equipment, the quality of education available at the engineering school will decrease with an associated lack of interest from prospective employers.
Why we should pay for it?
Of course it would be nice if the state or federal government would come in and pay for these added costs of our education. But judging from daily headlines, they have their hands full just trying to provide basic services. It also would be nice if the rest of the student body at the University of Kansas felt kind-hearted enough to foot the bill for our tuition. But more tuition increases. This hardy seems fair when the majority of KU students won't benefit from this equipment. In the same vein, we don't want to bear the burden of the costs of education for students at the
University of Kansas Medical Center.
This is not a precedent
Currently, there are three groups of students at KU that pay more than the standard rate for tuition and fees. Law students, graduate students and medical students pay more than the normal amount. They pay more than their education. Why should it be any different for engineering students?
Other universities have had an engineering fee in place for many years. The University of Arkansas has recently proposed increasing the current engineering fee to $200 per semester. Penn State University has a program under which equipment brought into use during a particular semester is kept with each collected that semester. A little bit of financing allows students to see the benefit of their added fee in the semester they paid it.
Should we allow the quality of engineering education at KU to fall behind? Clearly, it is time we take a little more responsibility in our education and make a commitment toward the future.
- Curt Davis, Overland Park graduate student in engineering; and Rick Foster, Westmont, N.J., graduate student in architecture. Data attributed information for this column.
James Ronnau is a Kansas City, Kan., graduate student in engineering.
Alternatives should be studied
There are many issues involved in the proposal of an engineering fee, all of which should concern me. I hope to address a few of them.
There are a handful of other reaasons why this fee shouldn't be implemented. The engineering school cannot be guaranteed a net increase in its budget by the amount of money the fee will generate. The central administration may use the fee as an excuse to subsidize other underfunded programs by reallocating dollars from the engineering school. Another problem is that the Legislature may reduce the University of Kansas' appropriation by the amount of the fee, as it threatened to do in 1984, when KU had an academic services restricted fee.
Kirsten
Hoalund
My primary concern deals with the financial impact on students. To my knowledge, no effort has been made to assure that those students who are faced with an unbearable financial burden will find any assistance. Financial aid packages are established prior to the beginning of the academic year. If the engineering fee were implemented next semester as proposed, students would face an unanticipated financial burden.
The lack of communication regarding financial aid is symbol of the overall lack of communication with the students. Carl Locke, dean of engineering, did not initiate communication with students until long after this proposal was completed, and even then, only on a limited basis. At this point, the students have received so many differing facts and figures that they surely cannot know the actual effect of the fee. If for no other reason, the engineering fee should be defeated on the basis that students were not consulted in formulating the plan for an engineering fee.
Guest columnist
Another very important issue deals with the fee/cost ratio. If the fee is implemented, it will not be reflected in the fee/cost ratio. This will incurately reflect the cost of an education. Furthermore, the legislature must be required to appropriate more rent fees for education rent费/cost ratio. This will shift more of the burden of the cost of an education onto students.
The implementation of this fee would lead to a proliferation of restricted fees. Engineering students would be required to not only pay a fee but also to take other physics courses, chemistry courses, computer science courses, etc.
The engineering fee is not the only solution! There are other very feasible options toward which little or no attention has been paid. One option that is being looked at seriously is a campus-wide equipment fee that
would address the equipment needs in all departments in the University. Another option would be to request a line item in the budget for engineering equipment. The University of Nebraska currently receives $525,000 using this approach. Why haven't these solutions been looked into more thoroughly and what should have been done to study the effects a comparable engineering fee has had at other schools that have implemented one?
At a time when this country is in need of more engineers and our engineering school is in need of an increased enrollment, it seems that an engineering fee is compounding this problem. A student leaning toward an engineering degree might be turned away by the cost factor associated with the fee. This engineering fee is, by no means, a long-term answer to the serious underfunding problems of the entire University. It can only be a distraction to solving this problem. I hope that engineering students will realize the extent of the questions this fee brings up and vote against the fee. Then the students and the administration can work together in finding a feasible long-range solution.
Kirsten Hoglund is a Wichita sophomore majoring in engineering.
Vince Calthoun, Kansas City, Mo.
senior in engineering; and Nicole
Reams, Goddard sophomore in engi-
nistry who distributed information
for this column.
LETTERS to the EDITOR
zens.
Morality in the family
Society should teach morality. How individuals choose to interpret, personalize, and apply that morality in their lives is not for a democratic society to decide. Pam Peek seems to be a member of an unfortunately cloaked-minded conservative, "remember when" American citi-
Families should pass down their unique traditions and teachings. By knowing one's past, a person will have less trouble advancing in the future. A problem arises, however, when those traditions of yesterday are branded in the minds of young adults as an outline of how they should act oddly. Maybe if youthing so not brawnaded into being that sex, condoms and a naked body were so evil that they should not be thought or talked about, there would not be so many unplanned pregnancies.
By the time these young people are college-age, they are legally adults. Some of these adults who decide to go
to college are independently financing their educations and therefore paying the University of Kansas the money it needs to operate. What is wrong with these adults demanding "that rules designed to uphold conventional standards be abolished?" as Peek stated. We should not allow such a conventional "children should be seen and not heard" fashion.
In short, family and social morality should be taught to children. Whether that child decides to become atheist, Christian, conservative and closed-minded towards different cultures should be up to him.
Richard Mancinelli Junction City sophomore
Guiltfree: the designer conscience made to spice up the soul wardrobe
Are you growing tired of your old, skinny intelligence? Are you looking for a looser, more comfortable code of ethics? If the answer is "Yes," then here at SpiritCo have just the thing for you. GuiltTree line of designer consciences.
Other people's consciences are all alike. Gray and narrow, they're the kind of conscience you wear to do the dishes in. They languish, patched and darned, in your closet where they've been used for years because they're so servicable. They may be useful, but they're certainly not glamorous.
Guilffree is designed to change all that. No longer will you have to refuse party invitations because your conscience won't let you. Instead, you can slip into a new Guilffree conscience and dance the night away, paying litter and the weary call of your old, gray conscience.
Guiltfree consciences are designed with
Eric Swanson Staff columnist
you in mind. Loose-fitting and comfortable, they'll allow you to glide easily through today's maze of temptations. When temptation sidets up to you and purrs, "Come up and see what you're hiding." You'll acclimb with a grace and polish that will make you the envy of your hidebound friends.
Gullifee consciences are designed for luxury. Slip into a Gullifee and feel the sinful sibther of silk on your skin. Try on a fur Gullifee and be caressed by the finest minnow. Slip into a Gullifee and wear the shirt's prickles, none of the sackcloth's dullness. Try on a Gullife and feel wickedly
comfortable.
No other conscience boasts the versatility of a Guiltfree.
Other consciences are heavy and cold as anvils. Try wearing any other conscience and feel the weight settle slowly on your soul. A Guiltfree conscience, by comparison, is
Any other conscience is hard to care for. Stain it once, and you can't rest until it's been washed clean. With Gulftree, there's no need to worry. All Gulftree consciences are designed so that no stain, no matter how black, will show. Imagine the freedom of living to clean your conscience! With Gulftree, you'll never have to say you're sorry.
Guiltfire goes with everything,
everywhere. Wear a Guiltfire to the office,
then take it dancing on Friday night. Wear a
Guiltfire with your Sunday suit and tie, or
pair it with jeans for a roll in the hay.
Guiltfire goes with everything, everywhere.
”
Feel like telling a little white lie? Slip into our Ivory Innocence conscience.
"
sheer gossamer Try wearing a Guiltflec conscience and feel the delicious freedom of weightlessness. Guiltflec consciences are so light, you'll forget you're wearing one.
Other people's consciences come in only one color — ash gray. Guiltfree scorns such dull, draint consciences. Instead, Guiltfree offers you a tapestry of colors, all skillfully dyed to conceal your sins. Feel like telling a little white hee? Slip into our Ivy Immonec conscience. Yearning for a night of passionate abandon? Recline in our Purple purity conscience, and enjoy pleasure without guilt. Guiltfree consciences aren't designed
to make you suffer; they're designed to let you live.
Any other conscience is tight and narrow, tripping you up every time you go out. Guiltfree consciences, with their special Sintex design, are loose and flowing, with no trace of narrowness about them. No longer will you be shackled by the weight of repentance because you'll be wearing Guiltfree, the conscience that lets you move.
All Guildfree consciences are cheerfully guaranteed to collapse under the first heavy stain. No longer will you have to wear the same dull sackletholt, year in and year out. Just reach into your closet and pull out a new Guildfree, and you'll be ready to sin.
The next time you're shopping to replenish your soul wardrobe, just remember one thing.
*Eric Swanson is an Arvada, Colo., senior,
majoring in English and journalism.
KANSAN STAFF
DEREK SCHMIDT
Editor
KJERSTIN GABRIELSON
General manager, news adviser
TOM EBLEN
Editors
News. Julie Mettenburg
Editorial Mary Neubauer
Planning Pam Solliner
Campus Holly Lawson
Broadway Maryseko
Photo Andrew Morrison
Graphics Brett Bronner
Features Stacy Smith
MARGARET TOWNSEND Business manager
JEANNE HINES Sales and marketing adviser
Editors
business sales
Campus sales mgr. Christian Dool
Regional sales mgr. Jackie Schmalzmarl
National sales mgr. David Price
Co-op sales mgr. Deborah Salzer
Production mgr. Masy Miller
Production assistant. Julie Aikland
Marketing director. Audra Langford
Creative director. Gail Einbinder
Business staff
MINDY MORRIS Retail sales manager
Letters should be double, double-spaced and fewer than 200 words. They must include the writer's signature, name, address and telephone number. Writers affiliated with the University of Kansas are required to provide their email address.
Guest columns should be typed, double-spaced and fewer than 700 words. The writer will be photographed.
The Kanaan reserves the right to reject or edit letters, guest conversations and cartoons. They can be mailed or brought to the Kanaan newsroom, 111 Slaiver-Flint Hall, Laten, columns and cartoons are the opinion of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Kanaan. Editorials are the opinion of the Kanaan editorial board.
Three Imaginary Girls
By Tom Avery