SECTION TWO
Campus boom helps support Earth Day '90
College Press Service
Building on a year of increased environmental activism on campuses, students and national organizers are gearing up for what is being billed as the environmental event of the decade: the 20th anniversary of Earth Day.
Organizers expect about 2,000 campuses to participate, and they are hoping that collegians will provide the backbone for the April 22 event.
"The environment is a hot issue," said Owen Byrd, national student coordinator of the group Earth Day 1990, headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif. "Students have a pretty sophisticated understanding that the environment touches on all other issues."
Environmental marketing p.3b
A 1989 national survey of college freshmen conducted by the University of California at Los Angeles found that 26.1 percent — the highest percentage in the 24 years of conducting the survey — said that getting involved in programs that clean up the environment was "very important."
"The Exxon spill probably helped renew environmental issues, but environmentalists also see more possibility for activism because President Bush is taking the issue more seriously than Reagan ever did," Gillette said.
It is hard to say why students have become active, said Howard Gillette, George Washington University political science professor.
Collegians planning to be part of this month's Earth Day say that it is a way to draw attention to the environment.
"We see so much damage all around us," said Brenda Johnston, University of Cincinnati student. "People get tired of waiting for politicians and companies to take the initiative to do what should be done."
The original Earth Day was planned for much the same reasons 20 years ago.
"This is going to start a chain reaction," promised J. Burger, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln student and member of Ecology Now. "We're trying to get prepared for new (members)."
"For 10 years I was trying to figure out some sort of device to get the environment into the political arena," recalled originator Gaylord Nelson. "Politicians weren't paying attention to the issue, and I thought that it was important."
"I was reading an article about an anti-Vietnam teach-in, and the idea popped into my head to hold an environment teach-in," said Nelson, then a U.S. senator from Wisconsin and now an employee of the Wilderness Society in Washington.
The teach-in proved successful. For the next decade, environmentalists won several small battles, when federal lawmakers started the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and passed the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act.
But during the Reagan years, environmental progress suffered greatly, Nelson said.
A slick promotional campaign has helped put the environment back in the spotlight. Sponsorships for this year's Earth Day range from $10,000 for a parade banner to $250,000 for a concert in New York's Central Park, compared with a total $190,000 budget in 1970.
Of the few corporations that have offered their sponsorship, many have been turned away because of a policy against accepting money from chemical, oil or timber companies. Even Exxon, the company behind the biggest oil spill in history, in which 11 million gallons of crude oil spilled into the waters surrounding Alaska in March 1989, wanted to sponsor Earth Day.
Some of the sponsors that have been accepted include Coca Cola,
See EARTHDAY, p. 7b
College Press Service
Lofty ideals
This University of Nebraska student climbed a tree in an attempt to save it.
Greeks work to improve image
College Press Service
The reported attack on a Black pizza delivery woman and the campus protests and unrest that followed are not a phenomenon unique to the University of Kansas.
Fraternities across the country have been charged with racism because of the actions of their members. The charges have led some to say that some schools are punishing fraternities not only for dangerous practices and policies but also for the unrelated actions of individual students who belong to the organizations.
"I have a real problem with the notion of collective responsibility," said Alan Kors, professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania. "I couldn't imagine applying it elsewhere. If someone from the women's center threw an egg at an anti-abortion speaker,
earlier in March, for instance, officials at Santa Clara University in California suspended the entire Sigma Phi Epsilon chapter because the house's internal newsletter included racist and sexist comments.
Some fear that the incidents at KU, Santa Clara and other universities signal a growing willingness among campus officials to escalate their war on greeks by holding the whole fraternity system responsible for the actions of individual members.
Actions of individuals have houses defending themselves
the university is not going to hold the whole center responsible."
Fraternity members. Maddox said, reflect the values and morals of the university.
"It's their students we're talking about." he said.
Nevertheless, said Barbara Brodsky, assistant director of student activities at Santa Clara, the whole house is to blame because the offending item was in a fraternal letter on fraternity letterhead.
At Santa Clara, the newsletter was written by an individual member of the fraternity and was circulated, said Ken Maddox, executive director of Sigma Phi Epsilon, which has headquarters in Richmond, Va.
"Certainly, it wasn't the chapter's effort," Maddox said. The national office has suspended the Santa Clara chapter because of the incident.
But Kors said the event was part of a nationwide crackdown on greeks.
"The notion of collective responsibility is often used as an agency of opposition to fraternities," he said.
Unless evidence exists that shows everybody had a part in the action, holding a group responsible is false, unfair and probably illegal, Kors said.
The notion of guilt by association is patently unfair, said Jonathon Brant, head of the National Interfraternity Conference based in Indiana.
"Fraternity members have diverse behaviors and attitudes just like the rest of the university," Brant said.
"We tout our individual successes, and we must live with our individual failures," Maddox said, noting that Tau Kappa Epsilon, for one, regularly used the face of its most famous alumnus, Ronald Reagan, in promotional material.
Maddox said that being blamed for the actions of one person came with the territory.
Also, Maddox said, many people simnlv love to hate greeks.
Whether it's right or not, holding an entire responsibility for one member's abberance is normal, said Myron Rothbart, professor of psychology at the University of Oregon. Rothbart specializes in studying stereotyping and group
behavior.
behavior. "Oftentimes the most extreme activity of any group will be taken as the norm," he said.
Fraternity members say they are tired of being singled out.
The Board of Trustees of Bucknell University Lewisburg, Pa., will decide in May whether to abolish the school's fraternities and sororites. Its faculty voted in Fall 1998 to dismantle the Greek system, calling it racist, elitist, sexist and anti-intellectual.
In January, Middlebury College trustees ordered fraternities to go coed or be eliminated. Bowdion College and Westley University also are pressuring their fraternities to go coed.
Critics of Greek organizations who say they should be banned cite the hundreds of hazing deaths, instances of group sex and individual rape, heavy drinking, unneighborly rowdiness and intolerant behavior that have stemmed from houses' policies and lack of supervision with distressing frequency.
Most recently, West Virginia Wesleyan College President Thomas Courtice on April 5 ordered Kappa Alpha fraternity to stop recruiting pledges for six months and forbade the house's current pledges from becoming active members. Courtice, trying to rid the school of symbols of oppression, was angered when KA members wore Confederate garb
Variety of activities set for hall carnival
By Christine Reinolds
Kansan staff writer
A fashion show, basketball tournament and talent show are a few of the activities planned this week for the first All Hall Carnival, which is intended to encourage involvement in the residence halls.
The carnival started yesterday evening with a pictory game sponsored by Oliver Hall. Prizes were donated by the Lawrence business community, said Chris Briggs, Ellsworth Hall president.
Briggs is coordinating the carnival in conjunction with Residence Hall Month. April's theme is "Hooray for Hall-wood."
"A lot of the events were going to happen anyway," Briggs said, "so they were incorporated into the carnival."
The Association of University Residence Halls paid half of the $1,550 total cost for the carnival, and hall governments paid the rest, she said. AURH also paid for a videocassette recorder that will be awarded to the residence hall that has the highest attendance at its event.
"Last year we just had Residence Hall month,and there were not this many activities." Regerny said.
Briggs said the following events were scheduled for this week:
■ Gertrude Sellard Pearson-Corbin Hall will have a fashion show at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow in Corbin's lobby. The show is sponsored by Steinmart, and
The Association of University Residence Halls paid half of the $1,550 cost of the carnival and hall governments paid the rest.
the models are hall residents. Door prizes also will be given at the show.
Elsworth will put on a talent show at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Templin Hall cafeteria.
Templin and Joseph R. Pearson Hall will sponsor a basketball tournament Friday and Saturday at the JRP courts.
Students can sway their hips and the limbo on real sand at the Lewis Hall Lauu from 7 to 11 p.m in front of Lewis
Hashinger Hall will put on the play "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" at 8 p.m. Friday, Saturday and Sunday in the Hashinger Theater. Admission is free.
- To round out the All Hall Carnival, the third annual Battle of the Bands will be from 4:30 to 11 p.m. Sunday behind McCollum Hall in the back parking lot.
Five hands will compete for the $200 first prize, $150 second prize and a $100 third prize, said Karen Naleif, McColum government social chairman. Scheduled bands are Mixed Emotion, Malakai, Which Doctors? Modern Saints, and X Rioted.
Many fail self-taught courses, report finds
By Anita Meyer Special to the Kansan
Steff Martinez passed Math 002 and 101 and thought she was lucky to get through.
Martinez, Liberal sophomore, was one of 1,032 students enrolled in Math 002 classes in Fall 1988. Of these students, 47 percent completed the course, and 26 percent passed, according to a report submitted recently to the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Of 2,198 enrolled in Math 101, 48 percent finished the course and 39 percent passed.
Fall 1988 was one of the 10 semesters since Fall 1984 during which fewer than half of the
students enrolled in Math 101 and 002 passed,
the study reported. The courses are taught
through the Self-Instructed Mastery Plan
(SIMPL).
The SIMPL program was studied by a seven-member committee appointed by the college. Don Bushell, chairman of the committee, said it studied SIMPL for about a year and half and submitted the 97-page report to the college for review by the department of mathematics.
The report made four primary recommendations:
Admission to all algebra courses would be based on a placement test. Phil Montgomery,
Bushell said students had access to such materials as video- taped lectures. Math instructors also give optional lectures several times a week.
- The committee recommended that the math department revise materials for SIMPL courses.
The committee recommended that students be given more personal attention.
member of the committee, said a test now was given to help predict a student's success in Math 101.
be given the answer.
The report stated that each student should be assigned a tutor and required to meet with that tutor throughout the semester.
Free math tutors are available on the third floor of Strong Hall. Although Montgomery said that about 80 tutors were available, Pari Smart, Omaha, Neb., freshman, said she was unable to get help.
until we got to help." "Every time I went in to get help, the room was full of people wanting help," she said. "They just didn't have enough tutors."
They just than it is necessary. The report recommended that a committee of non-mathematicians be appointed by the college to conduct an annual audit.
The report stated that the audit should include enrollment and attrition data, class progress records, placement test scores and measures of students' satisfaction.