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Wednesday, January 31, 1996
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
Senate has responsibility to fund nonrevenue sports
The Student Senate subcommittee for fee review is faced with an important question: whether to continue funding nonrevenue sports.
The University of Kansas Athletic Department has allocated $4.1 million to finance nonrevenue sports. Although much of that money comes from funds generated by the department, such as revenue from basketball games, about $800,000 of that sum comes from the $20 student fee. What Senate now must decide is whether student fees will continue to contribute to the department's budget.
How much, if any, of student fees should go toward nonrevenue sports? There are two answers. To comply with Title IX, the NCAA rule that requires equity among the sexes in scholarship distribution, the University added women's soccer and rowing. To finance these sports, the student fee was increased by $6. Senate voted in favor of this and passed the fee increase. Senate now may cut this funding to reduce the student fee.
Senate has made a commitment to help fund non-
Senate should not decrease or end $20 student fee for sports.
revenue athletics at the University. Betsy Stephenson, associate athletic director, said the department must find ways of meeting the budget through different avenues. The student fee is one avenue the department uses.
Once Senate has made a commitment to help one of the University's departments, it should stick with that promise. Senate can look at possibly trimming the student fee contribution, but this must be done with cooperation and planning with the Athletic Department. These two should work together.
However, the best plan would be to keep the fee from being eliminated. Senate has decided that it will help the University comply with Title IX. Elimination of the student fee, which would force the department to find other methods of generating funds, would serve only to handicap the University.
DEBBIE THOMPSON FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
University doesn't put enough stock in child-care centers
The University of Kansas is in dire need of childcare programs on campus. The demand of student, staff and faculty members who require child-care services is overwhelming, and the University should provide enough centers to meet the need.
Two of the child-care programs on campus are Hilltop Child Development Center and a program located in Dole Human Development Center. The problem is that the programs barely meet the demand for childcare.
Because the program in Dole Center is technically a laboratory, it is not considered child care. Hilltop stresses its educational program that benefits the children enrolled. Even though Hilltop is located on campus, it serves the whole community but is able to maintain a majority enrollment of children of students, faculty and staff.
Of those enrolled, 50 percent are children of KU students, 10 percent to 15 percent belong to staff and faculty, and the remainder come from the community.
THE ISSUE:
Child care
With a long waiting list, Hilltop needs more support if it is going to meet KU's growing needs.
Hilltop cannot serve all the students, faculty, and staff who desire and require a quality program for their children. The center has a waiting list of 204 students. Of those 204 children, 130 are younger than three.
Clearly the demand is outrageous, and the University should institute more programs for children whose parents are unable to care for them during the day because of work or classes.
There is no doubt that the University seriously is lacking child-care programs, and it should provide more programs that can serve the children of the faculty, staff and students that keep it in business.
TARA FITZPATRICK FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Jeff MacNelly / CHICAGO TRIBUNI
Advertisers aim for those looking for individuality
Everyone get in line. Your daily dose of culture and taste is about to be spoon-fed to you.
There was a time when home was a refuge from the deluge of fingers trying to enter your pockets. The decision to turn the television off always was present. Now, however, your mailbox often is crammed with special offers and the telephone rings with telemarketers mispronouncing your name while they massage their message into your unsuspecting brain.
Beyond the Wall, "the one-stop poster shop," came into our hands by way of a newspaper insert on Thursday with the hopes of selling at least three posters to every KU student. These posters, however, were not the typical movie/dead artist/dead rock star/dead cheesecake variety but advertisements for fashionable merchandise.
Pop culture has evolved into an ugly beast, inhabiting every aspect of our lives. What once was a shallow reflection of who we as a people were has grown and turned upon us. We no longer dictate the culture — it commands and controls us.
Presumably holding leftover stock from subway station ad campaigns, Beyond the Wall was intent to unload what otherwise would be trash into your college abode. And because it is so cool, and the marketers know that students are cool, too, they have designed it so that students can pay them for the privilege of advertising their shoes and credit cards.
Unfortunately, these marketers also know that if students put the hip factor on a hook, there will be plenty of fish in the college sea who will bite. Ah, America — the Land of Consumption.
STAFF COLUMNIST
Add to this the horror that your roommate just loves those Joop! (we're blind in the uterus of love!) ad posters, and even your own four walls are a menace.
Ever since nothing came between Brooke and her Calvin Kleins, we have depended upon a name to validate us. Individuality, often a push in the advertisements, is actually the first casualty. The malls are filled with people declaring they have no fear, yet few of them probably understand that a T-shirt slogan is simply furthering an advertising campaign and has nothing to do with courage.
Even the term Generation X is rooted in marketing strategies, and the pathetic reality is that millions have come to embrace the negative stereotype while corporations reel in the line. People hungry for an identity are an easy catch, and charg-
inorganic identification on your Visa obviously is a more appealing approach than shaping yourself as an individual.
The pervasive hands of advertising are not the sole violator in the demise of the individual. Americans love nothing more than spending money. Even days swallowed by blizzard conditions and icy roads will find people making the pilgrimage to the cash register, with the war wounds of frostbite and snow-soaked clothes as evidence.
It's as if we dread one moment of solitude, and as we watch snow-flakes glide in the air, the panic hits: "Sub-zero wind chill and multi-car pleups on the highway? No Fear! I must stimulate the economy! I must spend!" And the feverish mantra overtakes them: consume, consume, consume...
But maybe individuality is overrated. Life is hard, and being your own person can be tiresome. Perhaps we should be happy with the insane mass of clones trekking to the newest Disney movie in their Rachel haircuts, presenting us with nothing to fear. After all, sanity is the playground for the unimaginative (just a thought from Joop! jeans, the preeminent voice on the evolving culture. Who needs Sartre?).
Myself, I think I'll blame it all on Tabu.
Leslie Bowyer is an Ottawa senior in art history
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Financing needed for hall renovations
As a resident of Sellards Scholarship Hall, I would like to respond to the two articles that have appeared in the University Daily Kansan concerning the handicapped accessibility of scholarship halls for women.
Among those in the scholarship hall community, both those who live here and those who work for the department of student housing, there is an understanding of the need for full accessibility to our community for those who are in need of special accommodations.
The problem that we face is not a lack of attentiveness of the Housing Department to the needs of students, but rather a lack of financing from the Kansas Legislature.
For several years there have been plans to renovate Sellars Hall in order to promote this accessibility, but this has not yet become a reality.
The funds that have been allotted to this project are insufficient to bring the existing building up to the acceptable standards and to meet the requirements of the American with Disabilities Act.
It is our hope that we can put this plan into operation for the next academic year, but we have been frustrated by our absence of power to do so.
It is our hope that the Kansas Legislature will provide sufficient funds to correct this situation.
This has been the major hurdle for those of us who have a deeply-vested interest in this project.
Amanda Mead Wichita senior
The women who live in Sellards consider this our home and we are ashamed that we cannot share that home with others because of the condition of the building.
Professors should not hide from evaluations
Because I have from 50 to 80 students in the courses I teach, I could not think of a simple way of making the information available, until I hit on reprinting the comments of students, made at the bottom of the assessment form.
I read with amusement about the proposal to open for public examination the student assessments of faculty.
Monday, I handed out that sheet to my class so that they could have an idea of the instructor they have been issued, admonishing them to compose witty and original comments to be added to the list when their time comes.
Hey, what's the big hang-up? We're in the education business. Medicare thrive on secrecy — hang 'em out to dry, I say!
Hector Clark,
Associate professor, mechanical engineering
Discussion at sushi bar invokes new feelings about smoking
Smoking is just not cool anymore. After two and a half years of huffing and puffing, I have pretty much quit.
After all, smokers are the worst of all social deviates these days. Everybody knows that smoking is detrimental to one's health, but now we are aware of the dangers of the dreaded secondhand smoke. This possibly fatal form of pollution is causing restaurants, bars, and virtually all other public places to ban smoking.
Just because Kansas seems to be immune to this modern-day medical witch-hunt does not mean that our bordering states are not affected. Recently, I spent a week in Colorado, a place where political correctness thrives. Unfortunately, I had the audacity to take my vile smoking habit along for the ride. Believe me, it was not long before I saw the error of my wavs.
Sitting in a sushi bar that reminded me of a Vidal Sassoon commercial, I was struck by the urge to (gasp) smoke a cigarette. However, since smoking is not permitted in the eating areas of such trendy restaurants, I was forced to relocate.
Sitting in total isolation not 20 yards from the restroom, I received horrible looks and scowls as I consumed my cigarette. Nevertheless, one kind lady was nice enough to comment on my appearance as a nice looking young man. Furthermore, this woman was so caring and concerned for my well being that she engaged me in a conversation about what a nasty, evil habit smoking is. Obviously on impulse from her keen intellect, the woman said to me, "If you would quit smoking, you'd be able to sit with your friends through dinner."
All of a sudden I felt like a Dead Head at a Bon Jovi concert. After being enlightened in Colorado, I had no choice but to quit forever.
Quitting is not exactly the easiest thing to do around these parts. With the vast number of hard-core smokers in this backward state, how could a fella be expected to quit? Not to mention the vast number of social smokers that can be found here, too. What is wrong with us Kansans? Why are we so behind the times? Maybe it just takes us a little longer to grasp on to modern trends. Before long, however, rest assured that Kansas will catch up to Colorado and condemn all smokers to hell. Until then, nonsmokers will have to be burdened with this hideous, awful habit.
KANSAN STAFF
Maybe I am getting a little out of hand here. I guess I may be getting a holier-than-than attitude, but why not? In the past 24 hours, I have smoked just one cigarette. Now I can join the ever-growing population of people who think they are better than you. Perhaps someday I will be that enlightening figure in a sushi bar, changing some young person's life forever. For now, however, I will continue to fight the temptation to light up and kick back.
Think of all the things I can do when my habit is completely broken. To that sweet, middle-aged woman somewhere in Denver, thank you very much. Without you, I would undoubtedly be a much happier person right now.
Mike Walden is a Leawood sophomore in political science
ASHLEY MILLER
Editor
VIRGINIA MARGHEIM
Managing editor
ROBERT ALLEN
News editor
TOM EBLEN
General manager, news adviser
HEATHER NEHAUS
Business manager
KONAN HAUSER
Retail sales manager
JAY STEINER
Sales and marketing adviser
JUSTIN KNUPP
Technology coordinator
Business Staff
Campus mgr...Karen Gorsch
Regional mgr...Kelly Connelye
Crew manager...Judy Kramer
Special Sections mgr...Norm Blow
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Marketing director...Cary Breelsof
Public Relations dir...Angle Adamson
Creative director...Ed Kowlstadt
Staff manager...Stephen Waugh
Internship/co-op mgr...T.J. Clark
HUBIE
By Greg Hardin