OPINION
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
PUBLISHED DAILY SINCE 1912
CRAIG LANG, *Editor*
SUSANA LOOP, *Managing editor*
KIMBERLY CRAFTREE, *Editorial editor*
TOM EULEN, *General manager, news admin*
MARK OZIMER, *Business manager*
DENNIS HAUPT, *Retail sales manager*
JUSTIN KNUPP, *Technology coordinator*
JAY STEINER, *Sales and marketing adviser*
Wednesday, January 22, 1997
Amy R. Miller / KANSAN
Editorials
Semester should begin with more than reading of syllabus
The first day of classes is a day that most of us have dreaded since most of our work too young to write. At the University of Kansas, the miserable trek through piercing winds and across broom sidewalks may inspire the most students. After the 10-minute blunders through the winter wonderland of Lawrence, we are treated to a 50- to 80-minute word for-word recitation of a nurse's oblivious by instructors who think they must give us our money's
money must give us our money's worth with full-length class periods.
Whats it ships the instructors' minds to require college students. The ability to lead is within our capabilities. Distributing a syllabus with the course's notes and calling off the first day of leave would be more reasonable than leading the entire period going through every aspect of the syllabus.
Mortunately, that is probably not an
The first day of classes should be productive for the students, instructors.
acceptable alternative. The instructors' motives are understandable—many students are not enrolled in all of their classes on the first day. Starting into class could mean that the same material would need to be reviewed again in the next class period.
But with the new enrollment procedures, many students are forced to have a set schedule. On the first day of classes, students who want to add a class will be there even if they are not enrolled.
Instructors are obligated to distribute syllabi so that students will know what to expect in the class from the first day
This syllabus should be verbally presented to the students — but it should not take longer than five minutes. Within that time, we can establish what we need to know: what the teacher is like, how much work we are going to have and whether the class will be interesting.
The first day should end in one of two possible ways. Those instructors who wish to use the whole class period could do something productive — like showing a video related to the class subject. It would be far more interesting than hearing an hour-long presentation on the grading scale, and it would not penalize students who don't attend the first day.
If the instructor does not plan to use the entire period, the syllabus should be handed out and discussed briefly, after which the class would be dismissed. Therefore, the first day of the class would continue to be considered futile.
CODY SIMMS FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Traffic causes residents problems
battle problems after University of Kansas men's basketball games are not a concern to those attending it, but also to the more than 4,000 who live in Ithaca town.
Booster Place Apartments and University residence halls.
for those students, campus is not just a
class to attend class — it is home.
basketball game, home for these
could be virtually inaccessible.
after the Iowa State game on Jan. 13, patients of Jayhawker Towers who had to drive home found roads to the waters as barricaded as the roads and the White House.
south Drive, 15th Street and 19th et were closed to traffic heading to north.
at 11 p.m. 25 minutes after the game, Naismith Drive still
After basketball game, on campus homes become inaccessible.
was blocked by police, according to KLZR broadcast records.
Debbie Carpenter, a Lawrence resident and season ticket holder, said she usually parked on 20th Street Terrace, south of campus. Carpenter said she usually arrived home about 20 minutes after a game ended.
Although some traffic after games is unavoidable, traffic problems 25 minutes after a game's conclusion are not severe enough to justify closed streets.
crack down on illegal parking during games. Extra cars parked on campus increases traffic after games.
The University should provide most game parking off-campus, instead of in campus lots. People attending games can park at the Lied Center. The University then can arrange a shuttle bus to take ticket holders to Allen Field House.
It seems unreasonable that students must take detours to reach their campus homes.
This would move traffic problems across to Iowa Street away from campus and would encourage post-game traffic to flow in both directions, allowing students access to their homes.
To ease this situation, it would help to
University officials need to make students a primary concern in handling traffic after games.
Taking measures to make campus, a place some students call home, more accessible should not be just a courtesy. It should be an obligation.
KELLI RAYBERN FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
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I must be the only one on campus who is fed up with Robinson Center.
Columns
It's difficult to understand how 25,300 intelligent, health-conscious people can passively accept this inadequate facility as our main source of exercise at the University of Kansas. Everything in that claustrophobic, decaying 31-year-old building is ready to crumble to the ground at any moment.
Robinson remains inadequate facility
Four bench presses for 25,300 people? Six stairmasters for 25,300 people? And, in the most basketball-crazy town west of Chapel Hill, we have a whopping total of six indoor courts, which fill up faster than Dennis Dailey's Human Sexuality class.
Anyone for a game of 2,108 on-2.108?
That seemed to be what got students so upright. Next thing we knew, our precious student fees would have skyrocketed to pay for facilities many of us would not be around to enjoy. The idea of some ungrateful kids born in 1981 getting what I paid for now is hard to swallow while I'm exercising in a building six years older than I am.
Last spring, KU officials addressed the problem and pitched an idea for a new, amazing-sounding $21 million complex to be built on campus. If approved, the shiny modern recreation center would not have opened until 1999.
Nevertheless, I would have accepted it. In fact, I did. I was one of the seven or eight morons who actually voted for the new rec center to be built. Most of campus disagreed with me, and the plans to build our fitness shangri-la were put into some dusty file cabinet until the next time the issue arises
With that out of the way, I feel no guilt in criticizing what we're now stuck with. And I simply
cannot accept the current Robinson Center weight room schedule.
The all-powerful Robinson keymaster shows up at 5 to unlock the doors, and it's a stampede. In a blur of spandex and muscle shirts, run to their respective machines, and tend to stay there awhile. Stroll in at 5:15, and it's Grand Central Station. And it's just as packed at 8 p.m. as it is at 5. Maybe even more so.
It's open from the generous hours of 6 to 8 a.m. I'm about as motivated as Roger Ebert to lift weights at 6 a.m. Then the room is closed from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Thursday, the main hours students tend to be on campus for those pesky classes.
Closing a campus weight room to students for nine hours in the middle of the day makes about as much sense as putting a "back in 30 minutes" sign on a concession stand during halftime at Allen Field House.
Why do people accept this ridiculous situation here at KU? Am I the lone aggravated, inconvenienced student? I want to keep my body in shape, but figuring out a way to work around. Robinson's backward hours is a workout in itself.
The Rec Center at the University of Colorado, apart from being approximately a zillion times larger and newer than Robinson, is open all day, every day. What a novel idea. The Buffs can lift weights any time they want: before class, between class, after class, whenever. They don't have to organize their workout schedules around the hours of their rec center.
If someone had the nerve to tell CU students that they couldn't pump a little iron between 8 and 5—as we are being told here — there would be some serious problems involving a lot of angry, tuition-paying Coloradans. So why do we just accept it at KU? I guess I should just shut up and get back in line.
Jeff Ruby is a Wichita graduate student in journalism.
Silent discrimination worse than open racism
An open letter to sneaky racial discriminators:
thought he needed to do something before serving me. That's fine.
I was there alone, waiting to be served by a librarian. Noticing my presence, the librarian who was sitting there, doing nothing in particular, glanced at me. I was expecting him to come to serve me. But he began doing something else. I
Tick...tick...tick... Still waiting... Tick...tick...tick...
He glanced at me again and got back to what he was doing. I began to wonder what he was doing and what was more important than serving a patron.
Meanwhile, a white female student was forming a line
behind me. The librarian glanced at us and finally approached us with a smile. I kind of regretted my impatience for a moment. He came to us and asked, 'Can I help you?' looking not at me at all but at the woman behind me. For a moment, I thought he must have been attracted by the female student. Young blood! Again, that's fine. But then I could not believe my eyes. He was helping her, even though I was in line first.
Don't people like this realize that their cowardly sneakiness makes their ugly discriminatory attitude even lighter? If you're going to discriminate, I would prefer that you express your hatred for
When he returned from helping her 20 minutes later, I was happy to tell him exactly what I thought. I yelled at him and finally made him beg me to write something about sneaky racial discriminators like him. Responding to people like him, here is what I have to tell you, the sneaky racial discriminators.
others out loud. I am sure they would feel much better to have a chance to overtly hurt the feelings of people they don't like.
At the same time, that action would be a favor to the discriminated, giving them a chance to fight back. Anyone who has been discriminated against is sick of having to live with prejudiced people disguising themselves as polite ladies or gentlemen.
They are disguised with subtle discrimination against them, and they want to help the prejudiced be less cowardly. Being blatantly discriminated against, the discriminated would be hurt more at the moment.
If you are going to be discriminatory, then you have the option to reveal your sneaky selves to the discriminated. If you don't have that kind of courage, get rid of your nasty, ugly, stinky, discriminatory attitude and repent for what you have done.
But even with such a scar in their heart, the discriminated would definitely appreciate that honesty, since they have scarcely seen blatant discrimination. And don't worry about being sued for discrimination. Even if the prejudiced were unlucky enough to be forced to go to court because of their honest discrimination efforts, they would not be convicted thanks to the Constitution, which guarantees each of us freedom of speech. Doesn't that sound like they have nothing to lose? They should spit out their hatred. The discriminated really want to fight back. Hey, don't they feel obligated to correct people's misbelief by revealing themselves?
Come on, act like real discriminators, you cowards. I don't care about the color of your skin. What I care about is your sneakiness, which deceives innocent people.
Namkyu Park a Ph.D. candidate specializing in teaching English as a second language.
Jeff MacNelly / CHICAGO TRIBUNE