4 Tuesday, December 3, 1996 OPINION UN I V E R S I T Y D A L I Y K A N S A N VIEWPOINT Online courses cannot replace classroom time The University of Kansas offers 35 online classes. As online curriculum continues to expand, the traditional university education will be greatly As online curriculum continues to expand, the traditional university education will be greatly affected. Although online courses can be beneficial, they cannot be used as substitutes for traditional classes. If the primary goal of a university is to transmit information to students, then online classes can be used as supplements to university education. The University can reach out to a broad variety of students who have extraordinary circumstances that prevent them from physically attending college classes. But the primary goal of a university is not merely to transmit ideas. Information alone is fairly worthless. It is the conceptual understanding of the applications of information that leads to intellectual growth. Online classes fail to teach this conceptual understanding. Many subjects require deep insight for understanding. This deep insight has an inseparable human element that no computer can replace. For example, a computer cannot be programmed to determine human ethics or morality. These topics must be discussed through human discourse. The purpose of a college education is to promote intellectual growth. Computers do not promote that growth, they only transmit information. It is up to the students to decide if they want to take online classes and to decide if they want their diplomas to represent the information they have received or the intellectual growth they have achieved. NICK ZALLER FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD Departments should offer recycled paper for faculty Biology department instructors and staff choose from several different types of copy paper. For student handouts and other high-volume jobs, they can use environmentally friendly — but still high-quality — 50-percent recycled stock. For personal use, note-taking and correspondence with environmental groups, 100-percent recycled paper is available. Pure virgin paper is available for projects such as theses and dissertations. Unfortunately, the freedom of choice given to biology faculty is rarely found at other University departments. According to Kathy Johnson, manager of the Office Supply Center in Strong Hall, unrecycled paper is purchased by the vast majority of departments within the University. Unfortunately, 100-percent recycled paper isn't even available at the Office Supply Center because the University's paper contract does not allow for its purchase. Departments must buy 100-percent recycled paper from off-campus sources. Why don't more departments offer recycled paper? Cost is the bottom line. Whereas virgin stock costs $3 per ream of 500 sheets, 50-percent recycled paper costs 65 cents more per ream. Few departments are willing to pay extra for recycled paper, much less find an off-campus distributor for 100-percent recycled stock. This is unfortunate for both the University and the environment. Recycled paper is clearly better for the environment — purchasing a ton of recycled paper would save 17 trees and 6,000 gallons of water, according to KU environmental specialist Victoria Silva. Although the University has encouraged recycling efforts, it has done little to promote the use of recycled paper, which is just as important. Departments should at least provide the choice of 50 percent recycled paper for their staffs. Although it would cost more money, the short-term expense is needed to protect the environment and to respond to the wishes of staff and students. MARK McMASTER FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD 1994 TAKE NO PRISONERS! Gingrich Khan 1996 1600 LET'S DO LUNCH. Gingrich Calm Jeff MacNelly/ CHICAGO TRIBUNE Criminal profiles hamper people,racial relations WASHINGTON — My friend Ray Hanania has a problem that is indicative of our times. He looks like a terrorist. His accent is pure Chicago, which is where he was born and raised. But his parents were Palestinian, and they passed on to him looks that tend to make some of his fellow airline passengers nervous — dark eyes, dark complexion, prominent nose, long hair and a bushy mustache. In modern security parlance, Hanania, 43, "fits the profile." This sometimes causes inconveniences. "When I walk through airports, people look at me funny," he says, with a sardonic chuckle. "I don't get mad. I don't hate 'em. I know i look like one of those guys. What can you do? "There's an alert out at airports now for people who take bags at curbside check-in. They're supposed to send anyone inside who fits the profile. But, once they decide you're OK, you get first-class treatment. Once they find out who you aren't, you get to go right inside, ahead of the line." It really annoyed him when immigration agents pulled him out of a long line in Miami's airport as he returned with his family from a vacation outside the country. But once they cleared him, they allowed him to proceed to the exit, ahead of the crowd. "I don't know what's worse — suffering through the long line or suffering through new huaraches, only to tell me to go ahead of everyone else who is in line." Fortunately, Ray has been able to keep his sense of humor about this predicament. Perhaps his years as a political reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times have given him a keen sense of the absurd. Freelancing from his home, he decided to write the story of his life and publish it CLARENCE PAGE SYNDICATED COLUMNIST Its title: I'm Glad I Look Like a Terrorist: Growing Up Abain America. look like convicts Its cover features a close-up picture of his passport. The photo makes him look like a convict, in the way most passport photos make their subjects himself. "It gets double takes from passport checkers," he recalls. "They look at the picture. Then they suddenly look up at me. Then back to the picture. Then back at me. This can go on for a while." After Ray sent me a copy of his book, I showed it to a few friends around Washington to get their responses. The most interesting came from Linda Chavez, conservative commentator, founder of the Center for Economic Opportunity and former Reagan administration aide. "Mine, too," she said of her passport. "It looks like a terrorist, too." I was astonished. Linda looks tanned, dark-eyed, Latin and classy. I have often described her as the Republican Party's best sex symbol since Clare Boothe Luce. "You look too prosperous to be a terrorist," I said. "You'll be kept waiting all day while they check out my I.D. and haggage." So it goes. Although it is fashionable to denounce racial and ethnic stereotyping in this seemingly enlightened era, our society actually is becoming more stereotype dependent. The most feared creature on urban American streets today, for example, is the young Black male. It is not because most of them are criminal. Most are not. But, for the many White people who know nothing about Black people other than what's on the evening news, any young Black male in gym shoes "fits the profile." What is a security-conscious society to do? We rationalize that it is better to be safe than sorry, that it is better to be too careful about terrorists or muggers than to fail to be careful enough. "Fit the profile" has become a new national mantra. Even Christopher Darden, O.J. Simpson prosecutor, complains in his autobiography of being stopped repeatedly by California police for the crime of "driving white Black." But I wonder sometimes just how effective the profiles are. In a suit against the Maryland State Police, for example, the American Civil Liberties Union found that 73 percent of cars police stopped on Interstate 95 between Baltimore and Delaware since January of last year were operated by African Americans, even though only 17 percent of the drivers on the busy 44-mile stretch were Black. Yet, a slightly higher percentage of Caucasians who were stopped, 28.8 percent vs. 28.4 percent of Blacks, were found to be carrying drugs, according to the department's figures. Since more than 70 percent of the people stopped were not carrying drugs, as one ACLU lawyer put it, it looks like the state police might have done just as well with completely random searches as they have with their profile. Sometimes stereotypes are useful. Other times, they're just a pain in the neck, especially for those whose necks happen to be darker than other necks. Clarence Page is a columnist for The Chicago Tribune. Thanksgiving melancholic as traditions die, lives change Thanksgiving is a big deal in our family. In years past, my mom's side of the family, literally everyone from great-grandparents to third cousins, would converge upon my Aunt Nan's house in Olathe for some serious festivities. Attendees numbered nearly 40. Our feast was enough to feed the entire block. Thanksgiving in Olathe was a glo- ous annual reunion. It was the highlight of my year -- better than the last day of school, better than my birthday and better than Christmas. The holiday gave us all a chance to gather, sing the Doxology and welcome in the holiday season as a family. STAFF COLUMNIST But Thanksgiving wasn't official until the switch was thrown and the Christmas lights on the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City, Mo., were turned on. With my cousin Jeff and a few other hearty relatives, we would pile in his car and brave the crowd and the cold to watch the lights. It was as much a part of Thanksgiving as cranberry sauce. But as time, marriages and relatives passed away — first Aunt Irene, then Uncle Harvey, then my great-grandmother Nannie and finally my grandparents Meemie and Dave — Thanksgiving became a much smaller affair. Last year, I attended the Plaza lighting ceremony by myself. It was, as such acts of stubbornness often are, a matter of principle. But this Thanksgiving, for the first time in probably 15 years, I missed the Plaza lighting ceremony altogether. Instead of the annual bonanza in Olathe, my mother invited our dwindling family to her home in Wichita. I spent the holiday with my father and grandmother instead, feasting on turkey and relishing times long past. Although it was a pleasant enough holiday, Thanksgiving also seemed to be a few more milligrams of melancholy than I would have liked to have been prescribed. Our lives' meaning comes from the nuances of our daily existence. Most of us don't get a chance at the big prizes — fortune, fame, a Republican administration — but the small things, like the night light in the hall at your grandmother's house, the good towels at home, watching the Plaza lights turn on, are awards we are all eligible for. Their meaning makes us people, makes us individuals. ANDY OBERMUTLER When one such nuance is absent, perhaps when one isn't there to see the lights turned on, then it seems natural to wonder if the meaning is gone. Applications for editorial board members, columnists and cartoonists/illustrators are available in 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall. Applications are due by noon Dec. 9. New staff members will be announced by 4 p.m. Dec. 11. All majors welcome. No experience necessary. Questions may be directed to Kimberly Crabtree, 864-4810. Editorial page staff applications Answer: no. Our traditions may change, our lives change, and we change as people. It is the only the meaning we have left, and that meaning is who we are. This year, Thanksgiving was still a happy reunion, still a good break. The nuance may have been a less obvious and symbolic one than the Plaza lights, but it was still there. The meaning, it turned out, wasn't really in the lights. But just in case, I think I'll go next year. Andy Obermuehl is a Liberal, Kan., Junior in Journalsam. EDITORS KANSANSTAFF Campus...Susanna Löfö ...Jason Strait ...Amy McVey Editorial...John Collar ...Nicole Kennedy Features...Adam Ward Sports...Bill Petulla Associate sports...Carlyn Foster Online editor...David L. 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