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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 29, 1995)
Tuesday, August 29, 1995 Page 4 Daily Nebraskan Editorial Board University of Nebraska-Lincoln J. Christopher Hain...Editor, 472-1766 Rainbow Rowell..Managing Editor Mark Baldridge .Opinion Page Editor DeDra Janssen.Associate News Editor Doug Kouma..Arts & Entertainment Editor JeffZeleny.:.Senior Reporter Matt Woody...Senior Reporter James Mehsling...... Cartoonist Tough class load NRoll operating hours hurting students When the clock struck 6:30 Monday evening, the curtain fell on this semester’s official drop and add session. If you didn’t get those classes you wanted, students, tough luck. Now you’ll really have to jump through hoops to get them. For the third semester at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, students have been able to register for classes and rearrange their schedules via telephone. It’s called touch-tone, and it’s dam convenient. But what’s not convenient is that the system, dubbed NRoll, closed down at 6:30 eveiy evening, except Sunday. Many students have complained. But the folks running NRoll are doing all they can, said Earl Hawkey, director of registration and records. The system requires an amount of daily down time, for such ad ministrative tasks as updating data bases and transferring files, Hawkey said. And that’s too bad for students. Hawkey said he would extend the NRoll hours if if was possible. And in the future it.may be possible, even within the next year. It won’t come soon enough for students. In this day of technological quantum leaps, anything less than a 24-hour-a-day system is hard to swallow. A Denny’s registration system may be asking too much, but a few hours more of dropping and adding is not. Foreign policy Placement exam brings students down The ancient practice of slaughtering the bearer of bad news is alive and well in the modem languages department. The department has found that freshmen who have taken foreign language classes are often unprepared for college classes. To remedy this problem, the department is requiring all incom ing students to take a placement exam. Students who have taken two or more classes in high school are automatically placed in a second-level course — regardless of their exam score. This keeps 100-level classes small, and it sends a message to high school language teachers: You better prepare those kids or they’re going to go down in college. But what about the students? Come on, you remember the stu dents. There are about 23,000 on this campus. They waddle around campus covered with red tape, carrying large bookbags? What options do students have if they just can’t make it in the 102 class? Well, if they would like to go back to 101, they can’t do it for credit. It’s unrealistic to ask anyone — especially first-year students — to take a 5-hour course for no credit. A freshman with a 15-hour load would lose full-time student status. They can try to get into a 100-level course in a different lan guage. Fat Chance. By this time, most 100-level courses are packed to the gills. Besides, students should be able to study their language of choice. it A > V But the students shouldn’t have to beg or change classes or take a five-hour class for no credit. The students should be able to start where they belong in the language program. Editorial policy Staff editorials represent the official policy of the Fall 1995 Daily Nebras kan. Policy is set by the Daily Nebras kan Editorial Board. Editorials do not necessarily reflect the views of the university, its employees, the students or the NU Board of Regents. Editorial columns represent the opinion of die author. The regents publish the Daily Nebraskan. They establish the UNL Publications Board to supervise the daily production of die paper. Accord ing to policy set by the regents, respon sibility for the editorial content of the ^newspaper lies solely in the hands of its students. - Letter policy The Daily Nebraskan welcomes brief letters to the editor from all readers and interested others. Letters will be selected for publication on the basis of clarity, originality, timeliness and space available. The Daily Nebraskan retains the right to edit or reject all material submitted, Readers also are welcome to submit mate rial as guest opinions. The editot decides whether material should run as a guest opinion. Letters and guest opinions sent to the newspaper become the property of the Daily Nebraskan and cannot be re turned. Anonymous submissions will not be pub lished. Letters should include the author’s name, year in school, major and group affiliation, if any. Re quests to withhold names will not be granted. Submit material to: Daily Nebraskan, 34 Nebraska Union, 1400 R St. Lincoln, Neb. 685884)448. Christian Coalition The Christian Coalition’s “Contract with the American Family is a big lie, a misrepresenta tion of Jesus Christ’s scriptural teachings, which are actually quite anti-family. In Matthew 10:34-38, Jesus said he had come to bring intra-family discord and urged people to leave their families and follow him. In Luke 14:26, he demanded that his disciples “hate” their families. In Matthew 19:29, he urged his followers to “forsake” their families. In Matthew 8:21-22 and Luke 9:59-60, he denied a disciple’s request for family leave to bury his father. Jesus curtly replied, “Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.” In Mark 3:31-35 and Luke 8:20 21, Jesus snubbed his biological family who had come to see him. He claimed that the assembled crowd, rather than his mother and brothers, was his family. Partly based on the false proph ecy that the Second Coming was imminent (Matthew 16:28, Mark 9:1 and Luke 9:27,21:32) early Christians such as St. Paul (1 Corinthians 7:6-9,29,32-34) frowned upon marriage but promis ingly granted “permission” for those lacking sel f-control since it was “better to marry than to bum.” This anti-sex, anti-marriage ascetic bias lives on today in strict celibacy requirements for the ruling hierarchy of the largest Christian , sect, the Roman Catholic Church. Clearly, they believe that having a family is detrimental to religious life. Jim Senyszyn Highland Park, NJ Citadel snafu I am writing in regard to the letters concerning women and war. I applaud Mr. Grone’s boldness / mmcbte . mm> M KIMC.T6H i To BE I OLt> i «nA ofcW't1. l and forthrightness for initiating discussion on this emotional and controversial issue. I must add, however, that the Shannon Faulkner/Citadel issue is entirely different from the women in combat issue. I feel it necessary to clear up some misconceptions and misstatements of facts brought up in the original and subsequent letters regarding these two issues. Both issues have been of signifi cant importance/interest to me for * • the past several years. I am a former Marine Infantry Officer and combat veteran. I was chosen to speak with members of the Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces when they visited my last duty station (Parris Island, South Carolina) in 1991.1 also happened to support the entrance of Shannon Faulkner into The Citadel. The Shannon Faulkner issue is whether a person, regardless of gender, should be afforded the opportunity to attend a state-funded school. The Citadel has absolutely nothing to do with war or combat. It is similar to the Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M. Although some of the graduates may choose to join the military, the majority, by far, join the civilian work force with some military-like college experiences and uniforms. In my opinion, the argument by The Citadel that females (who make up nearly 50 percent of the taxpay ers in the state) would significantly disrupt the “environment” of The Citadel, is extremely invalid. I believe the state of South Carolina made the right decision in that case. But I would add that the same rule must be applied to any all female state-funded schools. Simple rule: You or your parents pay taxes that support the education; you should be able to enjoy the benefits of that education, gender notwithstanding. Regarding the second issue, without getting too involved in the fray, I would like to point out some errors made in the rebuttals to Mr. Grone’s original letter. The current (and foreseeable)' ^ policy of the United States Marine Corps is to allow women in combat support roles, not direct combat roles. Combat arms (tanks, artillery, infantry, etc.), which make up a great deal of the Marine Corps, remain military occupational specialties filled only by men. Steven J. Schmidt First Year College of Law Certain death This letter is in response to your Aug. 28 editorial headlined “Certain Death.” I recently went home to north west Indiana for a visit. A couple of days before I arrived, there had been a lolling. Not a cop killing, not a teacher or a tourist. Not even someone very important. Just a little girl. A little, 8-year-old, blonde-haired girl. And she wasn’t just killed. She was beaten and raped first. In a playground. Next to a church. The person responsible for this should die—and only God should be able to save him. It may not solve all the problems of the world. - It may not even stop some other animal from doing the same thing to someone else. But it will stop one killer from ever hurting another child again. And maybe another 8-year-old girl will live to see nine. George Fisher Graduate student Chemistry The Daily Nebraskan wants to hear from you. If you want to voice your opinion about an article that appears in the newspaper, let us know. Just write a brief letter to the editor and sign it (don’t forget your student ID number) and mail it to the Daily Nebras kan, 34 Nebraska Union, 1400 R Street, Lincoln, NE 68588-0448, or stop by the office in the basement of the Nebraska Union arid visit with us. We’re all ears.