4A
Monday. December 9, 1996
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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VIEWPOINT
Increasing student fees part of disturbing trend
The University of Kansas should resist the temptation to raise student fees to pay for additional educational costs not financed by the Legislature. This practice increases the cost of education but keeps tuition bills at an artificially low level.
Because the Legislature has imposed a stricter budget on higher education in the state, the University has encountered trouble operating within its budget. Of course, few students are willing to accept tuition increases, even if they are needed. KU's administration is just as reluctant to raise tuition by a large amount; the University's relatively low tuition makes it attractive when compared to other schools.
This causes a problem when the University needs additional funds to sustain programs. The administration adopted a linear tuition plan that is designed to encourage students to take fewer classes. In this way, the University avoided the stigma of increasing the tuition figure listed in college guidebooks.
--walked on stage.
An additional way the University has considered raising money is through add-on fees. The commencement committee is considering a graduation fee that would pay for a commencement ceremony.
The graduation fee, just as other add-on fees, is simply the University's way of charging students more. Perhaps the administration thinks that if tuition isn't raised, students will accept being gouged for individual programs.
Sally Frost-Mason, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, has proposed an equipment and technology fee of $3 per credit hour for college students next year.
Grey Montgomery, student body president, said students were concerned that the technology fee could set a precedent of students paying for educational tools for which the Legislature historically had paid. He said the Legislature had reduced state allocations for equipment after similar fees had been imposed.
"My one real big concern is that we don't completely sell the Legislature out of its responsibility," Montgomery said.
He said students and administrators were working to establish a list of technology items that the University needed. Administrators and students also are creating a comprehensive plan to pay for the equipment that the University needs. Montgomery said he expected the final decision to be a combination of several plans.
"It will be a compromise where everyone will have to chip in their share,"he said.
--walked on stage.
Unfortunately, these add-on fees are much harder on students' pocketbooks. Unlike tuition costs, which are known by students in advance and can be figured into their budgets, students often don't know about these incidental fees before they apply to or enroll at the University. Students who think they can afford the cost of education at the University may be unpleasantly surprised when they find that they are being charged for expenses such as graduation.
Students will be charged the same amount whether the bill for graduation is charged separately or included in tuition. To make it easier on students, administrators should avoid resorting to such fees. If the only alternative is to raise tuition, administrators may be more willing to cut the University's operating costs. If those costs cannot be curtailed, letting students know about their expenses up front by including them in tuition is the fairest way to go.
For this reason, the University should not approve the proposals for a graduation fee and the College's technology fee. Even though the fees' cost to each student might be insignificant, piling up add-on fees is not the way to solve the University's financial problems.
MARK McMASTER AND NICOLE KENNEDY FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
KANSAN STAFF
AMANDA TRAUGHBER
Editor
CRAIG LANG
Managing editor
MATT HOOD
Associate managing editor for design
KIMBERLY CRABTREE
CHARITY JEFFRIES
News editors
DARCI L. McLAIN
SARA ROSE
Public relations directors
Editors
Campus ... Suanna Lóöf
... Jason Strait
... Amy McVey
Editorial ... John Collar
... Nickle Kennedy
Features ... Adam Ward
Sports ... Petit Pelletia
Associate sports ... Carlyn Foster
Online editor ... David L. Teakus
Photo ... Rich Devinold
Graphics ... Joseph Hussein
Andy Rohrback
Special sections ... Amy McVey
Wire ... Debbie Staine
KAREN GERSCH
Business manager
HEALY SMART
Retail sales manager
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
JAY STEINER
Sales and marketing adviser
JUSTIN KNUPP
Technology coordinator
Business Staff
Campus mgr ... Mark Ozdemik
Regional mgr ... Dennis Haupt
Assistant Retail mgr ... Dana Centeno
National mgr ... Katie Nye
Administrative mgr ... Heather Manker
Production mgr ... Den Kopec
Lisa Quebberman
Marketing director ... Eric Johnson
Creative director ... Desmond Lavelle
Project manager ... Shannon
Mass Impact mgr ... Dena Pflotte
Internet mgr ... Steve Sanger
"Kansas." Rock icon Patti Smith paused in the middle of her set to reflect on the state she was in.
"Kansas reminds me a lot of South Jersey." She paused again, waiting for the crowd's laughter to subside. "What? You should be proud."
On Nov. 23, the Lied Center resembled a downtown New York club, circa 1978, more than anything in Kansas or South Jersey. The Nova Convention Revisited: A Tribute to William S. Burroughs honored the 86-year-old longtime Lawrence resident, otherwise known as the Beat author of novels, poetry and spoken pieces.
Burroughs tribute reveals our lack of intellectual fire
Jeff MacNelly/ CHICAGO TRIBUNE
I attended, but with ulterior motives. While I put on as much black clothing as possible and tried to look legit, I worried that the expression "screw William S. Burroughs, I'm here to see Deborah Harry" was written all over my face. I confess, the reason I bought tickets was to see Harry, punk queen of the 1978 New York scene, the same scene from which many of the other performers originated. Some highlights:
Author, AIDS activist, and Warhol groupie John Giorno gave a solid and inspired — if not particularly inspiring — reading of his poetry, in which he called fundamentalist Christians a "virus" (the best way to describe fundamentalist Christians) and related his sexual encounters with Andy Warhol (the best way to relate one's sexual encounters with Andy Warhol).
- Performance artist Laurie Anderson was the best of the lot, using synthesizers and innovative electronic equipment in her performance of alternately hilarious and scary "digital-society" nightmare scenarios.
Deborah Harry. I seem to remember that she performed, but I vaguely recall leaving for some higher ethereal state as soon as she
STAFF COLUMNIST
Patti Smith and unan- nounced guest Michael Stipe wailed, contorted and looked tortured
— sometimes together, sometimes separately — and were fantastic.
Oh, yeah, and William S. Burroughs was
there, too.
Burroughs appeared halfway through the program to collect his applause, but his presence was perpetual. Throughout the program, videos were shown of the octogenerian saying things that octogenarians weren't supposed to say, which provided big laughs from the audience. I felt as if we were watching an America's Funniest Home Videos episode in which an infant spits up repeatedly. Despite the fact that his image loomed larger-than-life on the Lied Center's video screen, Burroughs seemed fragile and static. In the shadow of those gathered to honor him, he was strictly second-string.
As I left the convention with a headache (thanks to Patti Smith's incessant, but nevertheless cool, howling), I thought that much had been left unsaid. I found it painfully ironic that a sense of the convention's urgency, a sense of purpose beyond tribute, was left in the wings, along with its honoree. Nostalgia was the prevailing theme of the evening — of all the performers, only Laurie Anderson was forward-looking. Everyone seemed to be trapped in a vague, uncomfortable time warp, reaching for and setting for insuance.
I left the Lied Center nostalgic for
the Beat generation, the mod generation, the hippie generation; any group that represented the generation of new ideas. Nothing similar to William S. Burroughs' — or even Patti Smith's — artistic or intellectual environment exists today. We have small pockets of culture on the coasts that are completely style-oriented, producing little more than increasingly varied and complex drug deaths and really cool fashion spreads.
Another characteristic of this is the punk revival, Xeroxed and compressed.
Lack of inspiration is not entirely to blame. So much of our energy is expended in the fight against a disease that still strikes so many artists; so much of our time and money has been exhausted that we no longer belabor, elaborate, invent, critique; to simply live is enough.
A nova is a star that burns brightly at first, then gradually fades out. I worry that our society is on a fast fade-out, that we are on the tail end of the intellectual comet propelled by the anger, rebellion and growth of this century's middle decades. Patti Smith was right: Kansas is a lot like South Jersey; it's a lot like every city in America in that nothing is happening.
The Nova Convention convinced me that our challenge is to develop a new intellectual climate based on being young and angry, which is historically the most reliable and productive source of inspiration. We no longer can settle for smiling bemusedly at gracefully aged anger, applauding politely at appropriate moments. It is our duty to challenge artistic and intellectual convention, not simply to sit in the audience.
Michael Martin is a Lenexa sophomore In English.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Government should not regulate tobacco further
Contrary to popular belief, tobacco companies have not gained their tremendous lobbying power through back-room bargains and deceit.
The tobacco companies certainly do engage in clandestine activities, but so does almost every lobbying group from Greenpeace to General Motors.
Big tobacco is so powerful
Timothy Burger
Lenexa freshman
Even if tobacco giants control the level of nicotine in cigarettes, this is no reason to restrict access to cigarettes. Declaring nicotine an addictive drug is the first step toward making tobacco illegal. It seems ridiculous to make tobacco illegal while we are contemplating legalizing marijuana.
because so many people on our campus and across the world smoke every day and funnel billions of dollars into this huge political machine.
People who smoke know that nicotine is addictive and that smoking causes cancer and rots their lungs. However, they still choose to smoke. So let them; what right do we have to say people must keep their bodies in good condition? That is a choice that should be left up to each individual's discretion.
Fast-food job frays nerves of strongest
A couple of weeks ago, I made a bold move (well, for me anyway) — I applied for a job at the St. Louis Bread Co.
While most of my friends have been working for years, I have held only one job in my fairly short life. I was a summer camp counselor, which really doesn't provide helpful experience for any of the many exciting jobs available to a starving college undergraduate in this town.
Walking into the interview, I worried about my lack of experience
and decided to make up for it by smiling a lot and attempting to present myself as someone who was dying to serve the citizens of this town by taking their sandwich orders. Apparently it worked. I walked out of the interview eagerly clutching a tax form while dollar
signs flashed through my head.
I figure I'll pick it up after a few days, though. So if you come into the restaurant and are fortunate enough to need my services as a cashier, cut me some slack — I'm learning. And whatever you do, please don't tell me I smell like roast beef!
Steph Brewer is a Chester, Conn., soph
That soon changed. Apparently, my employers are in league with my friends in that they obviously are determined to burst my happy bubble. The first thing they handed me was a large, green, boxy thing they refer to as a hat. I am supposed to wear said hat all the time. No matter that it smashes my bangs against my forehead in a very unattractive manner. No matter it causes me slightly to resemble a demented truck driver. Maybe the purpose of the hat is to amuse the customer. If that is the case, then I'm in great shape.
The next aspect of training was learning how to work the cash registers. Contrary to my original belief that I would work the sandwich line, instead will be a cashier, reducing the possibility of smelling like roast beef or losing my fingers. Needless to say, this restored some of that optimism everyone had been trying to rid me of. I have cashiering down to a science, too. When one of my fellow trainees pretends to be my customer, I take his order with a big smile and then stare blankly at the register. After a minute of trying to find the correct buttons, I yell for help. This eventually results in my "customer" getting a receipt. I think I'm natural.
Upon returning home, I excitedly broadcast the news to my friends, who proceeded to bring me back to harsh reality. "I worked in a deli once," one friend informed me. "And you know what? I came home each day smelling like roast beef." Roast beef. Ugh. Still, I was determined to remain optimistic. "You guys don't understand," I told them. "This is a job. A real job that I get paychecks for. I'm not used to this. I'm excited." They weren't. My former-deli worker friend continued to offer me nifty facts about his job. "I used to cut myself a lot, too. You could lose your fingers, you know."
steph Brewer is a Chester, Conn., sophomore in journalism and French.
The first day of training consisted of memorizing the names, sizes, contents and toppings of all of the products we sell. I have this down to a science. When the trainer quizzes us on toppings, I just shout out "oats" for every product. Eventually I'm right and appear as if I actually have a clue.
Miraculously, I survived the onslaught of negative energy brought by those cheerful people I call my friends and retained excitement for my new position. When I walked into training on the first day, the dopey smile of anticipation was still on my face.
By Greg Hardin
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