OPINION
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
PUBLISHED DAILY SINCE 1912
CRAIG LANG, Editor
SUSANNA LOOF, Managing editor
KIMBELYR CRAFTERE, Editorial editor
TOM ELIEN, General manager, news advisor
MARK OZMUET, Business manager
DENNIS HAIPK, Retail sales manager
JUSTIN KNUPI, Technology coordinator
JAY STEENER, Sales and marketing adviser
Tuesday, February 18, 1997
Amy R. Miller / KANSAN
Editorials
Transcript fee causes concern but need for charge is evident
When students need a copy of their transcript, some are often dismayed to find out that it will cost them $5 a copy. However, the University uses this money to improve services to students.
Bob Turvey, associate registrar, said the before the early1990s, when transcripts were filed on paper, students had to wait up to a month to receive their transcripts, compared to the next-day service now offered.
In the early 1990s, transcripts were put on the computer system for the University. Because of the added expense to pay programmers and buy new equipment, the University began charging $5 for each copy of a transcript.
Of course, transcripts are now programmed into the system, and the University still charges $5 a copy. The reason? The money is used to defray the cost of other programs on the student database. Because the University is constantly improving the database, such as attempting to make enrollment and fee payment easier, administrators use this money to help pay salaries and buy equipment.
The $5 fee pays mailing charges, but it also helps improve student services.
In fact, Turvey said that little of the transcript money stays in the Registrar's office. It is spent elsewhere on database improvements, and what stays in the department is spent on paper costs.
Furthermore, when you purchase
more than one transcript, staff members must make more than one computer entry, since the transcripts are usually sent to different places. Your $$$ pays for this data entry and the cost to mail the transcript out.
A lot of times, students do not even need a copy of their transcript. In these cases, the registrar's office provides free copies of the Academic Record Tracking System form. And if all you need is a certification, which is a document that proves that you attend the University of Kansas, the University provides this information for free.
Although it may seem insane to pay $5 for a copy of your transcript, there is a reason. The thought of an improved student database should propel students to gladly pay $5.
NICOLE SKALLA FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Students deserve better advising
Know anyone planning their graduation only to find out that they still have another semester left? Have you ever realized that you enrolled in a class which satisfies the same requirements as one you took last semester? Judging by yearly senior survey results and an informal consensus on campus, students and faculty alike are rather displeased with advising at the University of Kansas.
But, the University seems to be taking measures to fix these problems. The Committee for the Improvement of Advising Services for Freshmen and Sophomores was established in September as part of "Vision 2020: Transforming the Kansas Regents Universities for the 21st Century," which the University adopted in May. Hopefully, this committee will provide the advising reform that the University so desperately needs.
Some major changes being proposed by the committee involve making advising a year-long process. Many students see advising as a process only used during enrollment. Also, there is no faculty training in advising. For good advising this needs to change.
Communication between students and advisers is key to good advising.
The committee recommends creating an Office of Freshman/Sophomore Advising, which would coordinate these improvements. This office is greatly needed. It would centralize all advising-related offices into one office in Strong Hall. It would also reduce the hassle of seeking advising and inform students of valuable resources such as the Career Counseling and Planning Service, which few students know exists. This new office would work with schools and departments to develop handbooks for advisors and students, and it would create an Internet site so students could access course information and department
requirements.
But even with all of these proposals, identification between adviser and student remains the most important aspect of advising. Students should be able to trust their advisers, and advisers should have a genuine interest in students' academic endeavors. The honors program has developed a mentor program, in which freshmen enroll in a one-hour tutorial. The instructor of this tutorial then becomes their adviser, creating a more intimate relationship between the student and adviser.
Hopefully, the formation of the Office of Freshmen/Sophomore Advising, which is within the University's budget plan, will allow other students to have an equally rewarding advising experience — or will at least provide students with a place they know they can rely on for help. Good advising is imperative to a successful college career, and significant effort by both advisers and students will make this program work.
KANSAN STAFF
CODY SIMMS FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
NEWS EDITORS
LA TINA SULLIVAN . . . Associate Editorial
KRISTIE BLASH . . . News
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AMANDA TRAUGHBER . . News
TARA TRENARY . . . News
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LNDSHE HENRY . . . Campus
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**Lettera:** 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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'Faducation'is finally losing its following
The bell has toled for "faducation." Even students themselves have caught on to the hoax.
All letter and guest columns should be submitted to the Kansan newsroom, 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit, cut to length or reject all submissions. For any questions, call Kimberly Crabtree (opinion@kansan.com) or LaTina Sullivan (isulvain@kansan.com) at 864-4810.
Columns
What I call fadication is the modern system of applying trendy, experimental schemes to education. Fadication includes such flascoes as subjective grading, where students are convinced that there really are no right or wrong answers, to sensitivity training, where tolerance and happiness take a higher priority than mathematics and grammar. Fadication is the unfair exploitation of Americans' students any
icas teachers, students and parents by a politically motivated bureaucracy that cares little for them. And fadducation is on the way out.
Kids in America's schools, long the victims of faduction's watering down of education, have at last begun to recognize the injustice they are suffering.
School too easy, teens say, declared a Kansas City Star headline on Feb. 11: More challenges and better teachers are needed.
The article reported that students think they need to be pushed harder and find it extremely important to learn the value of hard work.
Yet, at the same time, survey after survey shows that kids aren't learning. Today's high school graduates are increasingly dependent on calculators and computers to check their math and spelling.
Each year, more students are illiterate or can't find the United States on an unmarked globe. The schools' focus on real-world skills like teamwork and free thinking takes precedence. Funny how such real-world skills have little importance in the real world.
How is it, then, that students find school so easy, yet aren't learning such basic skills as math,
It's really a shame, too. America is blessed with high-caliber students and teachers. The trouble lies in the social engineering behind those teachers. We're wasting great teachers and students, and they know it.
It's not all that surprising to see kids wake up and find that they aren't being pushed to excel. The system just doesn't reward excellence anymore. We're all convinced that although Joe works harder than Johnny, we shouldn't treat them differently. If Joe studies for three hours every night to get straight A's, he shouldn't be given any special privileges. But Johnny is obviously crying out for attention, so we have to give him lots of encouragement. It might hurt his self-esteem to say, "Johnny, it might help if you studied once in a while."
It's sad that the students have to pay the price. Sure, a few of them will provide their own motivation. They'll push themselves just because they seek excellence for its own sake. But education is like buying a used car—you get what you pay for. Because we're not paying for bright, hard-working students, we won't get them. Such students will become rarer as the years go by—unless education is brought to a grinding halt.
That grinding halt will occur when parents, teachers, and students all realize that the public education emperor has no clothes. Parents have been shouting and pointing for years. Now that the students have come around, it's only a matter of time until the faduation bandwagon runs out, of steam.
Andy Rohrback is an Andover Junior in Journalism.
E-mail: arohback@kansan.com
Power of Pez is a force to be reckoned with
Last semester, a fellow University Daily Kansan writer wrote an article about the Treat to Eat in a Toy That's Neat, Pez. However, that article did Pez collectors an injustice. The article gave a nice history of Pez, but avoided an in-depth analysis that would have given readers a grasp of the obsession behind every Pez collection.
I have been collecting Pez dispensers for only three years, and I already have more than 60 different characters. Last semester's article quoted a variety of Pez advocates, but together, these so-called collectors owned fewer than 20 dispensers. Obviously, these Pez people have yet to succumb to the power of Pez.
When I came to the University, I had no idea how many people collected Pez. I
naively thought I was one of the few. However, a friend was quick to introduce me to a fellow collector. Ryan also has more than 60 different dispensers. He has succumbed to the power of Pez. In fact, he even attended a Pez convention in St. Louis last year. The convention was started by "The Cool Pez Man," John Devlin, in 1993. Devlin has been collecting Pez since 1988. When Ryan attended the convention, Devlin had amassed nearly 700 dispensers, some of which are worth more than $3,000.
Devlin also has a small collection of "Fantasy Pez," fake Pez made by mounting faux heads on real dispensers, including Mr. Spock and the Cat in the Hat. Devlin embodies the obsession of Pez to the extreme.
Pez is an art. Each dispenser has its own personality and its own story. I get excited when I walk into Mr. Bulky's and see a new Pez dispenser on display. I can spend 96 cents and leave the store holding a piece of history in my hand.
My friends help feed my obsession by buying me
dispensers and other Pez products. Thanks to the love of my friends, I now own a Pez-dispensing watch, a Pez t-shirt, cherry flavor Pez candy direct from Canada, a supply of peppermint-flavored Pez, and a wide assortment of Pez dispensers, in triplicate.
Pez has suddenly popped up (again) as a fashionable novelty, like Beanie Babies and Tickle. El Moslim did this Christmas. But unlike most novelties, Pez has a history of endurance.
Pez candy originated in Vienna, Austria, in 1927. The name Pez derived from the German word for peppermint, pfeffernminz. The Pez company entered the U.S. market in 1952 with five fruit flavors: lemon, grape, orange, strawberry and cherry. Today, you can only find cherry outside the U.S. in countries like Canada or Australia.
To expand their sales in the U.S., Pez decided to market the candy for children and place a character head on top of the dispenser. Pez fanatics are still debating whether the first dispenser was Popeye or Mickey Mouse.
Pez is a marketing phenomenon in that it has never advertised on television. The only Pez advertisements I have ever heard of were in comic books in the 1960s. However, even with this lack of advertising Pez has become a household name.
You see Pez mentioned on television shows, in movies, in comic books. If you've ever seen Stand by Me, The Client, or Seinfeld, or read the comic book The Maxx or even this column, you've seen Pez's free advertising.
So, to the Pezhheads of the University of Kansas I know how it feels to be obsessed with a small piece of plastic filled with chalky tasting candy. You're not alone. And, no, Mr. Bulky's not carrying Star Wars dispensers yet, so don't drive out there and be disappointed. They should have them by March or April.
Mary Corcoran is an Overland Park sophomore in Journalism.
Letter
Marching does little to further SLT cause
In a rare show of solidarity on Friday, protesters fighting for the preservation of the not-so-sacred, and not-so-wetlands south of Lawrence marched from the Kansas Union to Wescoe Hall. I heard their call to action. Nothing really demonstrates a group's dedication to an issue like walking a block and a half on a sunny, February day.
Sitting at the bus stop across from the Union, I was reading about the protest in the University Daily Kansan and almost missed it completely. I do hope, however, that the all-important message of this march did not fall on deaf ears.
We should inform all city and county planners out there that roads are a bad idea. If we stop building and improving roads, we won't have to worry about
I did think, however, "What could a little road hurt?"
Certainly these four lanes of traffic aren't going to dry up those wetlands. Surely an inanimate object like a road isn't going to take away anyone's right to pray.
traffic because everyone will move. That would solve the traffic problem easily. Sure, it's not a short-range solution, but I am more of a long-term planner.
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It's not like they're building the road right down the middle of Haskell Stadium. We could never do that. Where would Lawrence High School play football?
Don't get me wrong. I am sympathetic to the cause of saving our empty, open pastures here in Kansas. If we develop too much infrastructure, what will people think? We can't allow a sudden, easy way to drive out of Lawrence on K-10 at 5
o'clock each night, or after a basketball game, to be built. After all, 23rd street isn't that bad, right? Sure, if you're in the left lane heading east at the intersection of Massachusetts and 23rd streets you might as well park, but at least we're keeping out lands wet and our culture sacred.
Maybe we just need a good march every now and then to keep things interesting. I myself march from my apartment to the nearby bus stop every day to protest the parking department, and yet, my voice goes unheard.
Maybe if I ask about 20 more people to join my efforts and walk a block and a half, instead of just a block, I can really change the world. Congratulations, Trafficway marchers ... one more ally on your side.
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Chris Gallaway
Dwight sophomore
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