4
Wednesday, November 16, 1988 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Benefits of engineering fee outweigh cost to students
This week, the Board of Regents will act on a joint proposal from the University of Kansas, Kansas State University and Wichita State University for an equipment fee to be paid by engineering students.
Student reaction to the proposal has been mixed.
Although any fee increase is an extra burden on students' budgets, this plan would strengthen the infrastructure of engineering education.
First, laboratory costs far exceed the $300,000 that the equipment fee would provide. The KU School of Engineering needs $1 million annually for acquisition, replacement and maintenance of engineering equipment. However, the $300,000 would at least provide the school with a secure foundation on which to plan and operate.
The function of equipping, maintaining and updating laboratories has been financed so far by a $900,000 contribution from the University and by pooling personnel funds. The proposal would release these funds for their intended use.
According to the proposal, KU engineering students would pay $10 a credit hour only for engineering courses, an average of $500 for a student's entire engineering education. This plan is less expensive and more equitable than the equipment fees recently introduced in other engineering schools.
Iowa State engineering students, for example, pay a flat $100 fee every semester, and University of Michigan engineering students pay a flat $150 fee each semester.
Furthermore, the proposal does not set a precedent that allows other non-engineering schools to introduce an equipment fee. Engineering, law and medicine always have been equated as professional disciplines. Although a law student pays graduate fees each semester and a medical student pays an astronomical $6,000 each year, an engineering student pays the same as the liberal arts student. And that is despite the fact that an engineering education costs the school more than a liberal arts education.
The logistics of an equipment fee support the proposal, and engineering students would benefit by supporting it.
Muktha Jost for the editorial board
Pop quiz on KANU loyalty
Quiz time. How many of you out there are regular listeners to KANU, the University of Kansas' very own public radio station? Quite a few, it seems. OK, now how many of you listen just a little bit, say to the jazz shows, the classical music or the news? Quite a few more. Now, how many of you bothered to help out the station during the fall pledge drive that ended last week?
Where did everybody go?
Manu had everybody KANU received only $61,450 in phone pledges during the one week drive, said Howard Hill, the station's general manager. That's not even two-thirds of the drive's $100,000 goal. Hill said that wasn't as bad as it seemed because mail-in contributions could raise quite a bit more toward the goal. But it still highlights the fact that too many people take public radio for granted, even in Lawrence.
Nationwide, only about 10 percent of the people who listen to public radio bother to contribute, Hill said. Every contributor pays for nine others who enjoy the programming just as much.
AT KANU, those programs aren't just the big national such as "Morning Edition" and "All Things Considered." They include top-notch programming by KU professors such as "Opera is My Hobby," by James Seaver, and "The Jazz Scene" by Dick Wright. Such programs aren't just entertaining; they're great publicity for the whole University throughout the community and across the state.
But, as Hill suggested, the best reasons for supporting KANU aren't because it makes the University look good or performs an important public service. The best reason to contribute is because the programs are good. And KANU's programming has been nothing less than excellent.
But it could be better. The more support the station gets, the better programming it can provide. The people who don't contribute to the station are selling themselves short by not helping out.
So for the one in 10 of those KANU listeners who passed the quiz, congratulations, and keep up the good work. As for the rest of you, it's not too late. KANU is waiting for your call.
Michael Merschel for the editorial board
News staff
Todd Cohen ... Editor
Michael Horak ... Managing editor
Julie Adam ... Associate editor
Stephen Wade ... News editor
Michael Merschel ... Editorial editor
Noel G尔德 ... Campus editor
Craig Anderson ... Sports editor
Scott Carpenter ... Photo editor
Dave Eames ... Graphics editor
Jill Jess ... Arts/Features editor
Tom Eblen .. General manager, news adviser
Business staff
Greg Knipp...Business manager
Debra Cole...Retail sales manager
Chris Cooper...Campus sales manager
Linda Koppa...National sale manager
Muster Smith...Promotions manager
Sarah Higdon...Marketing manager
Brad Lenhart...Production manager
Michelle Garland...Asst. Productor
Leighman Lerman...Classified manager
Jeanne Hines...Sales and marketing adviser
Letters should be typed, double-spaced and less than 200 words and must include the writer's signature, name, address and telephone number. If the writer is affiliated with the University of Kansas, please include class and hometown, or faculty or staff position.
Guest columns should be typed, double-spaced and less than 700 words. The water will be photographed.
writer will be photographed.
The Kansan reserve the right to reprint or edit letters and guest columns. They
will also send the Kansan newsletter, 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall
can be mailed or brought to the Kansan newsroom, 111 Staffer-Flint Hall. Letters and columns are the writer's opinion and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University Daily Kansan. Editorials are the opinion of the Kansan editorial board.
The University Daily Kanan (USP5 650-640) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Stuffer Fint Hall, Lawrence, Kanan 66045, daily during the regular school year, excluding Saturday, Sunday, holidays and finals periods, and Wednesday during the summer session. Second-class postage is paid in Lawrence, Kanan 66044 Annual subscriptions by mail are $50. Student subscriptions are $3 and are paid through the student activity fee.
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to the University Daily Kansan, 118
Staffer Fint Hall, Lawrence, Kanus. 66045.
Nothing dreadful about a disability
Play's scenario of despondency an exception for most disabled
"Whose Life is it Anyway?" a play by Brian Clark presented again this weekend by KU University Theatre, portrays the life of an intelligent young male sculptor who is severely injured in an accident. Faced with life as a quadriplegic, he terminates his relationships with loved ones and seeks to find a way to end what he considers a misdense existence.
As a person with a physical disability, I have real concerns about this worst-case scenario. Do audiences who attend the play or who have seen the film version come away with the perception that many people with severe physical disabilities devate their lives and would rather choose death to being "confined in a wheelchair" or "relegated to a bedridden existence"?
Unfortunately, audiences could generalize the portrayal of a disabled person in this play to all persons with severe physical disabilities. People who have had traumatic accidents resulting in spinal cord or head injuries can directly face a readjustment to life. But many of these same people now live independently in the community with a sense of purpose and dignity.
As the title implies, this is a play about choices.
In such extra-durable situations, does one have the
Glen White
Guest columnist
right to make a personal decision about one's life or ultimately one's very existence? Philosophers and purveyors of ethics could argue these important questions at great length.
Like the play's main character, Ed Roberts is another person with a severe disability, who took a different approach to a similar problem. Ed contracted polio at the age of 14. He lost the use of his arms and legs and had to use an iron lung to breathe. After several years of struggling to adjust to this devastating disability, he made a choice to enroll in college, where he received education from the California Department of Rehabilitation and was refused because he was "too disabled to work."
denied admission to the University of California at Berkeley. "We tried cripples and it didn't work," said the dean of students, explaining that the campus had no place to live for a student with an iron lung.
Ed fought for his choice to receive a college education and won approval for financing but was
Ed again fought for his choice of college education and succeeded at Berkeley. While at Berkeley, he developed one of the first independent living centers in this country that helped allow people with severe disabilities like his to live independently and make their own choices. Several years after he graduated from Berkeley, Ed became the head of the California Department of Rehabilitation — the very department that 15 years earlier had declared him too disabled to work!
Every day people with disabilities make choices. Choices about where to live, whom to live with, where to go to school or where to work. Although not all people with disabilities are as tenacious as Ed Roberts in getting what they want, most consider their lives and their purposes in life of great value and significance.
Glen White is a Lawrence graduate student in human development and family life.
Times change,but people stay the same
Slats Grobnik was staring at the bar's TV set, listening to the TV intellectuals giving us the election tallies.
"It looks like we're in a new era," Slats said.
Yes, a new era.
"But I don't feel any different."
Well, it'a a little early. You have to give any new era a little time.
"That's the trouble with these new eras. I've been through almost a dozen of them. And I'm still waiting for something to really change."
But there have been vast changes
"Nah, nothing really changes."
How can you say that? Compare our lives today with when we were young. The modern technology, the scientific advances, things we now take for granted. Air conditioning, automatic transmissions, television, CD players, wonder drugs, organ transplants, robotics and achievements, stretch-stocks and the Walkman.
"What has that got to do with elections? Those are all things people invented to make a buck. The politicians don't have anything to do with it."
They were responsible for our sending men to the moon, a stunning achievement.
"Yeah, what a waste that trip was. Why'd we go, anyway? We haven't built even one condo on the moon. Wait till Japan gets up there. They'll subdivide it and turn every crater into a sand.
On the tube, the TV philosophers began talking about the chapters America could expect.
"Hah, listen to that guy. Changes. What changes?"
"Yeah? Well, how about if I make some predictions about what it will be like a year from now."
changes:
There are bound to be changes.
Mike Royko
I'm listening
Syndicated columnist
But what about all the new jobs we've been promised?
"Okay, I predict if you're poor today, a year from now you're still going to be poor. Unless you're dead or hit on the state lottery."
"The only new jobs anybody's going to get is the gang that's going to move into the White House offices. The Office of Con, the Office of Bunk and the Office of Blahblah. You know how much we spend in taxes to get lied to? Every night, a million people get their taxes reduced and they get home late. Why should we send millions on professional double-talkers who couldn't even fool my wife? Want another prediction?"
Eagerly.
"If you're rich today, you'll be rich a year from now, unless you're dumb enough to listen to a stockbroker, in which case it's your own fault."
Then you don't expect a tax increase?
“Sure taxes will go up, and you don’t have to read my lips either. You don’t even have to read my ears or nose. But I’ve never seen a tax increase apples on the streets.”
You're on a roll.
"Okay, a year from now, if you walk down a dark street in New York or Chicago or Detroit or Miami, there's a chance somebody is going to jump out of
a gangway and give you a little bop on the head and take your wallet or your purse."
But what about the great war on crime, cracking down on the wrongdoers?
"Listen, the Great Communicator couldn't do anything about madders six blocks from his own digs, what's the new commander in Chief going to do? What's on the South Side of Chicago? Send in Marines?"
But through leadership, one can raise phone awareness of the problem.
"Oh, yeah, awareness. When a lunk walks into a gas station and puts a gun, he says: 'Hey, are you aware of what I am here for?' And the gas jockey will say: 'I am fully aware. Have, take every dollar and my Timex, too.' So you want another prediction?"
I'm getting depressed, but go on.
"Anybody who sniffs coke or puffs grass today, a year from now they'll still be sniffing or puffing if they want to. Maybe the price will go up a little or down a little, but the stuff'll still be there."
"Yeah, they might get tough with Nortica. Danny might tell him: 'look, we're your best customers, so the least you can do is give us a volume discount."
But what about the war on drugs? Won't they do something about people like Noriega?
Well, at least we can hope to become a more kind and gentle society.
You do? We will be more kind and gentle?
"Yeah. Until the next election."
"That's something I agree on."
Mike Royko is a syndicated columnist who writes for the Chicago Tribune.
BLOOM COUNTY
by Berke Breathed