OPINION
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
PUBLISHED DAILY SINCE 1912
CRAG LANG, Editor
SUSANNA LOOP, Managing editor
KIMBELBY CRTAFTER, Editorial editor
TOM EBLEN, General manager, news advisor
MARK OZMEK, Business manager
DENNIS HAIPT, Retail sales manager
JUSTIN KNUPP, Technology coordinator
JAY STENNER, Sales and marketing adviser
Friday, February 28, 1997
Jeff MacNelly / CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Editorials
Social Security should be fixed to avoid missing out on benefits
Every time you receive a paycheck, a percentage of your earnings has been removed by the Social Security Administration. Every month, millions of retired Americans receive payments from the money they placed in the system during years of work. The Social Security system is heading for trouble. And if something is not done, students and future leaders of this nation will suffer.
According to the Social Security Administration's Board of Trustees 1996 Annual Report, if the system continues without reform, the fund will be completely insolvent by 2029. The report also said that by 2012 the system would function with an annual deficit, which means that the government would send more money to Social Security recipients than it would receive from taxes. As the percentage of retired Americans rise and the
People under 30 may never receive money their Social Security benefits.
birthrate drops, the burden will be placed upon the young to finance the system.
Perhaps none of this seems imminently threatening but consider this: If you are 20 years old now, you will continue to pay a percentage of your wages to the Social Security Administration for the rest of your working life. When you reach retirement at age 65, in 2041 or 2042, you will want to collect the money the government has been taking, but that money will not be there. If the system runs out of money in 2029, people who are now less than 30 years old will never see a cent of the Social Security taxes they have paid.
Clearly, this is a problem that concerns college students.
We help finance the present system, but we will be the people who never will receive Social Security benefits. If the system is not corrected now, we will be the ones who will have to deal with the lack of Social Security funds as we enter the next millennium.
There are many ideas for how the government should handle the Social Security problem, and it is an issue Congress will address. As voters we have the power to affect what will happen with the Social Security Administration and our money.
Investigate the options being offered for the Social Security problem. Write your senators and representatives and voice your concerns. Support the plan that you think will makes the most sense. Let's deal with this problem now rather than face disaster later.
BEN SHOCKEY FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
KU wastes transferees' time, money
- Repeating 100 level courses because the University of Kansas doesn't accept your transfer hours is a frustrating and expensive reality.
Picking the best college can be one of the hardest decisions facing young adults, and it may take two or three tries. Sometimes a junior college is a necessary option because it offers an opportunity to search for the best college, and it allows students to take an inexpensive full-time class load while perhaps living at home.
Unfortunately, some transfer students feel punished for not choosing the University the first time. The University will not accredit some basic English, science and math classes because it feels they are not college level courses. But aren't junior colleges supposed to offer classes that prepare
The University should re-examine its transfer credit process.
students for a four-year University:
Even students transferring from a four-year college are finding themselves retaking introductory courses because their credits from the previous university didn't transfer. Is the curriculum of introductory level classes at other universities so beneath the 100-level class curriculum at the University of Kansas that it cannot accept these transfer hours?
students for a four-year University?
Despite these problems, transfer classes are not always a total loss. Depending on the specific course curriculum, some classes can transfer to
fulfill other subjects. For example, an English class at a different university that includes Dante and the Bible can be accepted here as a Western Civilization course even though students are reading the books as literature and writing papers as they would in an English class. Also, even though credits don't count, hours do. This can be beneficial when fulfilling the credit hours needed to graduate, but irrelevant when meeting major requirements.
Often, students transfer to the University because it offers a specific program of study. When the introductory classes don't transfer, students waste time and money while the University benefits. The University needs to examine the transfer credit process and realize that the system only hinders students who can't afford such high prices.
CATHY PIERCE FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
KANSAN STAFF
LA TINA SULLIVAN . . . Associate Editorial
KRISTIE BLASI . . . News
NOVELDA SOMMERS . . . News
LESLEY TAYLOR . . . News
AMANDA TRAUGHBER . . . News
TARA TRENARY . . . News
DAVID TESKA . . . Online
SPENCER DUNCAN . . . Sports
GINA THORNBURG . . . Associate Sports
BRADLEE BROOBS . . . Campus
LINDEE HENRY . . . Campus
DAVE BIETENSTEIN . . Features
PAM DISHMAN . . . Photo
TYLER WIRKEN . . Photo
BRYAN VOLK . . . Design
ANDY ROHBACK . . . Graphics
ANDREA ALRIGHT . . . Wire
LIZ MOSSER . . Special sections
AERICA VEAZEY . . . News clerk
NEWS EDITORS
ADVERTISING MANAGERS
ADVERTISING MANAGERS
HEATHER VALLEY . . . . . . Assistant retail
JULIE PEDLAR . . . . . . Campus
DANA CENTENO . . . . . . Regional
ANNETTE HOVER . . . . . . National
BRIAN PAGEL . . . . . . Marketing
SARAH SCHERWINSKI . . . . . Internet
DARCI MCLAIN . . . . . Production
DENA PISCIOTTE . . . . . Production
ALLISON PIERCE . . . Special sections
SARA ROSE . . . . . . Creative
DANA LAUVETZ . . . . Public relations
BRIAN LEFEVRE . . . . Classified
RACHEL RUBIN . . . Assistant classified
BRIDGE COLLYER . . . . Zone
JULIE DEWITT . . . . . Zone
CHRIS HAGHIRIAN . . . Zone
LIZ HESS . . . . . . Zone
ANTHONY MIGLIAZZO . . . . Zone
MARIA CRIST . . . Senior account executive
Letters: Should be double-spaced typed and fewer than 200 words. Letters must include the author's signature, name, address and telephone number plus class and hometown if a University student. Faculty or staff must identify their positions.
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Guest columns: Should be double-spaced typed with fewer than 700 words. The writer must be willing to be photographed for the column to run.
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Column
Non-native English speakers need justice
I have a simple but marvelous idea for those who feel frustrated with other languages spoken in this country and who those feel like forcing everyone to speak English.
Convince your lawmakers to pass a policy that allows police to arrest anyone with limited English proficiency. Then these people would be so scared that they would abandon not only their ethnic languages but also their own cultures.
Does this sound wicked and funny? Never mind that.
Just be encouraged that some powerful Americans already have been rehearsing and practicing this idea.
One day in the Johnson County courtroom, I was waiting for my client, whom I interpret for.
I saw something I had never seen before: a chain gang. A group of prisoners were chained together by their ankles were walking toward the courtroom. Every time they moved, their chains produced an awful metallic sound.
I thought that they must have committed horrible crimes, like murder, and it scared me to see them in chains.
Then I noticed one of them who looked scared to death, and I sensed he was my client although I knew nothing about him except his name and ethnicity. He was the only Asian prisoner on the chain gang.
As I was interpreting for him to the judge, he begged me to get him out of jail, not knowing I had no power as an interpreter. Later he went to jail and endured many hardships because he could not speak English.
He had come to this country a few months earlier, and he lived with his father. He was mentally ill, and one day when he was having a fit, his father, who also had limited proficiency in English, panicked and called the police for help. The police came, and the father failed to properly explain what had happened. The police arrested both of them on charges of domestic battery, and because of a lack of money, only his father got out on bail.
Neither of them were provided with an interpreter until the judge ordered that they have one.
I cannot imagine how scared the man must have been, locked in a cell and then in chains. He finally was freed but only after several hearings.
Both of the men opted for diversion programs after their public defenders advised them to plead guilty. My job was only to interpret for them.
Being frustrated to see them advised to plead guilty to crimes they never had committed, I went beyond my duties as an interpreter to address the necessity to clarify the victims' innocence.
However, their attorneys told them that it would take too long to clarify every detail in the case and that admitting guilt and accepting diversion would be quicker for them. In the end, both of them plead guilty to crimes they hadn't committed.
This incident is too serious to be classified as simply another misunderstanding caused by lack of English proficiency. An interpreter immediately should have been provided for them. But obviously, the police weren't sensitive enough to the situation and or their desperate linguistic needs.
There are millions of people in this country who can't speak English well. Would arresting all of them solve the problem?
Guest column
Namkyu Park is a Ph.D candidate specializing in teaching English as a second language.
I have heard people say, "It takes a while to realize what you've learned from Israel."
Overseas experience will influence later life
Now I realize that these people were right. Last month, I returned from a semester abroad in Israel, and now I'm wondering what my Israel experience means in my life.
I think it will be months before I can effectively stand back and watch everything from my experience fall into place.
Whenever people ask me how it was, I say that like life, there were good times and there were bad times. That's true.
I think of the experience more in terms of my being a non-Jew in Israel, of stumbling into some sort of realization about myself.
It came through a crisis and love rather than the experience of a different culture or greater sensitivity to American culture.
It's funny that, as I once said to a friend, "I came to some realization of African-American identity in the Jewish homeland. This shouldn't be surprising." With questions of Israeli identity swirling around me, naturally, I wondered who I was as an African-American.
I remember saying in Israel that I would kill for a Multicultural Resource Center. There is no political correctness in Israel. The dominant culture is Jewish Israeli, and there is little room for anything else. Now that I am back at the University of Kansas, the Multicultural Resource Center
and the Office of Minority Affairs seem like wel coming friends.
"The Holy Land's not very holy," I shot back.
When I attended my home church for the first time since my return, someone asked me, "How was the Promised Land?" I think I went into autogrime.
The particular unholiness I'm thinking of is the situation of the Palestinian Arabs. Whether or not it's an exact parallel, Thomas Jefferson's words about tigers and slavery come to mind when I think of the relationship between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs. The Middle Eastern situation is a complex, multifaceted one that I am too amateurish to sort out.
"The Holy Land's not very holy," I shot back. Something else I often told the curious: "Jerusalem's full of hate."
But I did come to admire the Palestinians in one aspect. Despite the fact that Palestinians are a landless, exploited minority, I perceived that they have pride in their culture. This is a valuable lesson: Love your group and refuse to be ashamed of that group, no matter what its status is in the world's hierarchy.
Unfortunately, these are all half-formed thoughts and outlines of the whole picture I'm starting to see.
One day, all the lessons I've learned will drop into place, and I will see clearly the things I only can suspect now. I have no doubt, however, that the things I am to learn as the result of having gone to Israel will stand as foundations for the pillars I will build up during the course of my life.
Courtney Becks is a Lawrence senior in history.
Letters
University allows us to learn from mistakes
Students attend a university to learn and to be given the opportunity to make mistakes that can help them learn. I was glad to talk with The University Daily Kansan reporter Kevin Bates about faculty evaluations, but I have to point out that his article contained a mistake.
My quote was not a quote; it was Bates' summary of what he thought I said. I do not have an objection to a feedback system, as I was quoted as saying. I think it is essential, and students must have an opportunity to portray the learning experience that has occurred in the classroom.
I also do not believe that a popularity contest may result; I teach a required class, and I know that no matter how proud I am of my teaching, I will never win any popularity contests.
I believe that Bates' article paints a picture of faculty vs. students with regards to course evaluation, which is inaccurate The object-
I agree with Larry Draper: "I strongly recommend that everyone get together and hammer something out."
The dilemma of course evaluation is the same dilemma when being interviewed by a newspaper reporter. we suffer the possibility of being misquoted.
tions raised by University Council to Grey Montgomery's proposed evaluation form were the identical objections expressed by University Council to its own sub-committee evaluation form two weeks earlier. The issue is not the existence of a course evaluation form, but its substance.
But just because we have trouble communicating should in no way prevent communication. Perhaps in talking with Bates I was not as clear as I thought I was. Bates and I have both learned something from this experience, which is exactly what an effective course evaluation form should provide.
Chris Hepp Associate Professor of Fine Arts
Real world experience can come from University
I am writing in response to Karen Chandler's editorial concerning attendance policies.
I went to law school after I graduated from KU in 1989. My law school had a strict attendance policy like most law schools that are ABA approved.
This was new to me since KU had no attendance policy. In time, the policy was used to eliminate marginal students. The policy also created practices that are important to everyday practice. Clients and judges are entitled to cancel or be absent; the attorney is never allowed to miss. All students who prepare for life beyond the University will be assisted by a meaningful attendance policy. A University education should be more than information and examination. Responsibility is a necessary to the University experience.
Jason Ginsberg
1989 KU graduate
Los Angeles, Calif.