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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (March 30, 1998)
EDITOR Paula Lavigne OPINION EDITOR Kasey Kerber EDITORIAL BOARD Brad Davis Erin Gibson Shannon Heffelfinger Chad Lorenz Jeff Randall Guest VIEW Grade idea Three-grade system will resolve inflation Indiana Daily Student Indiana University Bloomington, Ind. (U-Wire) - Recently, all students received an updated semester grade report for the fall semester, revised to include the new three-grade context information. While many students might be confused by this new format, it repre sents a strong move by the adminis tration to combat the effects of grade inflation. Grade inflation has plagued Indiana University, just as it has plagued most other educational insti tutions for decades. Most often, it manifests itself by way of a heavily skewed average grade point average. While orticial transcripts state a grade of C is aver age, the average GPA at Indiana tends to be closer to a B, a tendency caused by teachers who do not use the entire grading spectrum, A through F. It is nearly impossible to distin guish between good students and those who are truly outstanding. The ultimate victims of grade inflation are graduate schools and employers who cannot adequately evaluate the abilities of a student rel ative to his or her peers. This hurts all students, regardless of where they might be relative to the mathematical average. In addition to a student’s grade, the new context grading system pro vides the average grade given in the section of the class in which the stu dent was enrolled, as well as a break down of all grades awarded in the section. With this information, every graduate school will be able to know just what every instructor’s grades are worth and just how well the stu dent performed relative to his or her ^vviu uiv v/vivin ivavavi J liluiVV/ their grades meaningful by making their A’s, B’s, C’s, D’s and F’s mean what they were intended to mean. Every other university will know IU’s grades carry real meaning and will have to adopt a similar system in self-defense. In this way, IU will make history. No longer will inflated grades fool anyone - teacher, student or graduate school - with respect to the quality of an individual student’s work. Inflated grades will no longer make students look good; rather, they will make instructors and depart ments look bad. Editorial Policy Unsigned editorials are the opinions of the Spring 1998 Daily Nebraskan. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, its employees, its student body or the University of Nebraska Board of Regents. A column is solely the opinion of its author. The Board of Regents serves as publisher of the Daily Nebraskan; policy is set by the Daily Nebraskan Editorial Board. The UNL Publications Board, established by the regents, supervises the production of the paper. According to policy set by the regents, responsibility for the editorial content of the newspaper lies solely in the hands of its student employees. letter Policy The Daily Nebraskan welcomes brief letters to the editor and guest columns, but does not guarantee their publication. The Daily Nebraskan retains the right to edit or reject any material submitted. Submitted material becomes property of the Daily Nebraskan and cannot be returned. Anonymous submissions will not be published. Those who submit letters must identify themselves by name, year in school, major and/or group affiliation, if any. Submit material to: Daily Nebraskan, 34 Nebraska Union, 1400 R St. Lincoln, NE. 68588-0448. E-mail: letters@unlinfo.unl.edu. Haney’s VIEW < Confronting the enemy After all the pain he and his family have endured this past week, my friend Steve Cockson is to be commended for having the courage to confront the enemy that took his sister Laura. Steve and his family have stayed strong in a time of tragedy that would have broken most. The truth is drunken driving and those who do it will never again be seen in the same light by those of us who knew and adored Laura. No longer will we shrug at the inebriated driver fumbling for his car keys; no longer will we roll our eyes at die social leaders who demand tougher penalties for intoxicated drivers. Laura was one of my sister’s dear est friends. So, candidly, it is difficult to say which hurts the heart more: the image of Laura’s mangled car or the fact that Jeffery Ireland - a repeat uueiiuer, evaaer oi me taw ana me man responsible for Laura’s death - could very well walk away from his deed having served only a few years behind bars. In the days and months to follow, there will undoubtedly be calls for Ireland to pay the ultimate price for his deed, at the cost of his own life. I will not argue with those calls. Perhaps the only way to reduce the number of drunken drivers is to send the strongest of possible messages: If you take a life while driving intoxicat ed, you automatically forfeit your own, with the assistance of the state. As of now, our Legislature is quick to go after cigarette smokers and the tobacco companies. Yet Nebraska law makers, with the state’s lax punishment for drunken drivers - even repeat offenders - show little desire to deter inebriated drivers from getting behind the wheel or make them suffer severely after they do. How many more like Laura Cockson must die at the hands of char acters like Jeffery Ireland before state leaders show a true commitment to protecting Nebraska’s sons and daugh DN LETTERS ters from drunken drivers? The bottom line is Nebraska law doesn’t treat drunken driving like the violent crime it is. Let Laura’s death serve as the final wake-up call to Nebraska and its lead ers. The time has come to take serious ly the obligation we have to protect the innocent from those who drink and then drive. What a tribute it would be to Laura Cockson if Nebraska was to take the lead in imposing the nation’s harshest penalties against intoxicated drivers. She and the hundreds of other innocent Nebraskans who have lost their lives to drunken drivers deserve nothing less. In die meantime, I pray that my fel low Nebraskans and friends from Saline County will come together to console Steve Cockson and his family, and keep the memory of Laura Cockson alive forever. Specialist Jamie Karl, UJS.Army Fort Benning, Georgia Thanks for the memories I would just like to say thank you to Shannon (Heffelfinger) for publishing her tribute to Laura. In my opinion it was one of the nicest, most well-writ ten tributes that I have ever read. It truly described Laura as who she was. I think those who attended the funeral on Wednesday and read the tribute can associate with it as much as lean.. Laura was carefree, but, at the same time, she was focused on her future. She made everyone around her laugh. This is a tribute that I can read years down the road and remember exactly who she was. I hope justice will be served and that those who were closer to her than I was will recover from the loss of such a wonderful person. Clark Otte junior mechanical engineering Paris this! Now let me see if I have this straight: During the past several years, we have tom up a number of parking lots on campus and in the area immediately surrounding campus. (I count five, but I might be low.) That means you and I have been paying the same amount of money for a greatly reduced number of parking spots. Now we learn we are going to start paying even more for those fewer spots. And the justification is that they will use our money to (guess what?) build more parking lots. Could this be a conspiracy put together by parking lot contractors? Or is it just one more example of some one s brilliant solution to what has become a serious problem? (I can almost hear it now: “I know! Let’s raise the parking rates so that we can just keep perpetrating this cycle of tearing up parking lots and building new ones for the next 30 years!”) Has anyone considered building on-campus bike trails so that we don’t have to live in mortal fear of being run down every time we use a sidewalk? Trails would encourage more peo ple to bring their bikes to campus, thereby reducing the number of cars. Another solution: Require fresh men to leave their cars at home or park them off campus. Many large universi ties have done this for years. Why not UNL? Tearing up old and then building new parking lots cannot and will not solve the parking problem. Period. Jan Kauffman associate director Nebraska Human Resources Institute P.5. Write Ba tetters to: Daily Nebraskan, 34 Nebraska Union, 1400 "R" St;i Lincoln, ■ NE 68588, or fax to (402) 472-1761, or e-mail <letters@unlinfo.unl.edu. . .Letters must be signed and include a phone number for verification
