North Carolina Newspapers

Page! The Banner Opinions February 3, 2000 The Banner Editorial On the one Next As college graduates, we can now actually find applicable jobs right out of college, according to recentJobtrack.com surveys. This is a comforting thought, considering that most students get out of school with several thousand dollars in loans and the depressingly unreasonable expectation of a job that doesn’t include the phrase, “Would you like fries with that?” We’ve all had one of those terrifying realizations — We’re sitting in a restaurant bemoaning our classes when the waitress says, “Yeah, I graduated from college last year with a double major in English literature and chemical engineering.” We say, “ Wow, that’s incredible,” and then realize that she is the one that has just put our steaks and baked potatoes on the table and refilled our iced teas. “The most promising industries are clearly high-tech and education,” said Kerri Day Keller of the Career Center. So if you’re a multi-media or education major, you’re all set. Unfortunately, that leaves 3,000 UNCA liberal arts students wondering where those rent checks and loan payments will come from. The phenomenal shift of job Requirements in the last decade from people skills to computer skills leave many of us wondering how high our liberal arts, people-friendly educa tion will put us on that ladder of success. Will our well-rounded smiles bear any weight in a job market that, even now, conducts nearly all of its transactions over e- maii? Will the appreciation of great art, talented performance and foreign language be of any use in the virtual world into' which we are disappearing? Let us hope that it is, or UNCA’s relentless re-evaluating, self-examining and program-improving is all for naught. Housebroken UNCA is continuing a trend of offering state-of-the-art housing for students by making plans for the construction of a new residence hall to replace the aging Governors Village, but how wise a decision is this? The idea of having new facilities to replace the claustrophobic bedrooms and ancient plumbing sounds attractive, but the financial woes and student difficul ties it will create are anything but attractive. Should the time being put into rebuilding the Village be used to replace the roof and perform needed renovations on the Highsmith Center? Sure, it’s a pain to live in a tiny, increasingly decrepit dorm room, but it’s even more inconve nient to see “Closed” signs on the bookstore and Dante’s when rain is coming through the ceiling. Not only that, but the Governors Village dorm rooms, the smallest and oldest bedrooms at UNCA, are also currently the most expensive. How much will privacy-seeking students have to pay each semester for a single room in a brand-new building when it is already a financial burden in the old facilities? The real popularity of rooms in the Village is that it offers students an opportunity to have a room to themselves while still living on campus, yet the proposed residence hall only intends to be two-thirds single rooms, with one-third being doubles. Would a student not just move to South Ridge, Founders, or another existing dorm if they wanted a room mate? There seems to be little point in including double rooms in a facility replacing only single rooms. All things considered, it sounds like students would be better served by continuing to appreciate the quaint charm of the existing Governors Village and letting the university spend their time solving more pressing problems. Flashback One of the best ways to stave off the winter blues is to hole up with a good old movie and a mountain of junk food, so the Banner stzff has compiled a truly thrilling list of oldies but goodies. Students: the definition of “old movie” means “before you were born,” preferably before the ‘70s, therefore excluding such movies as “Flash Dance” and “Wayne’s World.” Faculty and staff: the Silent Era was a wonderful period in film history. Emma Jones: “The Purple People Eater” Meghan Cummings: “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” Jason Graham: “Rebel Without a Cause” Sarah Wilkins: “Meet Me in St. Louis” Krystel Lucas: “The Scarlet Pimpernel” Rebecca Cook: any Charlie Chaplin movie Lauren Deal: “Casablanca” Matt Hunt and Zach Dill: “The Odd Couple” Eric Porter: “Papillon” Mark West: “Gone With the Wind” Division I: bane or boon? Liam Btyan columnist Before I start my rant, I want to let all you readers know that I am not spouting frustrations off. All the information I have here I have re searched, double-checked, and con firmed where possible. So do not dismiss me as just another com- plainer. I have a bone to pick with the athletics department. It is not do ing anything for me. I am a student here at this wonder ful campus. I make use of the vari ous things it offers. I enjoy being able to access the Internet at light ning-quick speeds. I read books from our extensive library system. I delight in the creations of the art department, the symphonies of the music department, and the perfor mances of the drama department. I even use the facilities at Justice Gym (even though it is usually just the dance studio of which I partake). I do not mind paying for all these services. The cost I pay for this would add up to less than $300, were it not for one aspect of those fees. The catch? Athletic fees. Doubtlessly, you are already aware that students at UNCA pay the highest athletic fees of any public university in North Carolina. How high? Well, each year, you fork over about $380. Of course, it is higher each year. Why do we pay so much? There are two reasons. The first is that we have a small enrollment. We are the fourth-smallest public university in North Carolina. The second rea son is an administrative decision. For some reason, we are Division I. The first reason is something that we really have no control over. With a smaller student population, each one of us must contribute a little more than the students at, say. North Carolina State University (NCSU). The second reason, however, is something that can be changed. Having a Division I athletics de partment is not integral to this uni versity. So why do we have one? Said Chancellor James Mullen, “...Division I is a statement about where this university wants to be.” (“UNCA Athletics,” Jan.27, Asheville Citzen Times) Our athletic director, Tom Hunnicutt, said, “...Division I is where this university needs to be.” As for a UNC-A booster by the name ofTom Couch, “Division I is where we ought to be.” Student athlete Izrawit Medhanie said, “...it (the university) needs to stay Division I.” Now, allowing for the odd chance that the majority of athletic sup porters have been replaced by iden- tically-speaking squirrel-operated robots, I feel that our Division I status needs a better defense. For starters, let us talk about standards of competition. Division I is the top circle of com petition. When our baseball or vol leyball team competes, they are play ing against the toughest, largest, and best-equipped teams around. Nothing strengthens a group like the strongest adversity possible. So, by raising the bar of competition, we raise the quality of our athletes. But what about ourselves? Less than one out of twenty students here is in the competitive athletics program. So, how is this high de gree of competition helping us, the general student population? I do not know. Another reason to stay Division I is the prestige. We are the smallest school to compete at that level, so people sit up and take notice when we win league titles. Of course, we also open ourselves up for ridicule by doing this. In the past decade, we have placed dead last eight times in the Big South Commissiorier’s Cup, which is a culmination of ranking the various Division I sports. Much like David and Goliath, only Goliath kicks David back to the sheep fields every So, we do have valid reasons for being Division I. But at what cost? It is expensive to be Division I. Our athletics department must of fer over $700,000 every year in scholarships to maintain our Divi sion I status, as well as offer four teen different competitive sports. But the scholarships are what cost us, as students. As a student body, we pay over one million dollars in fees every year. With various grants and sales added in, the total athletic budget is around $ 1,750,000. So, a little over 40% of the athletic bud get goes just towards paying for stu dent athletes to learn here for free. How much is that out of your pocket? Well, this means you owe $ 150 every year for someone else to attend UNCA. I, for one, want to pay for MY education, not some one else’s. The athletic department gives away the equivalent of 77 full schol arships to student athletes. Why? Are we an athletics school? No! We are a liberal arts school. We are here to study Machiavelli, Dickinson, Homer, and Locke, not to learn how to throw a ball. Do we need to be Division I? I hear many supporters chanting the mantra of “If we win, more sti dents will come.” That may be true conditional, but it is with one very flawed hypothesis. How can we win? We are competing against schools like NCSU who generate an athletic budget of nearly $2 mil lion from student fees alone, even though each student pays less than $35 a semester to the athletic de partment there. Is Division I desirable? Do we at tract students by the thousands be cause we are Division I? Is the de ciding factor of attending here a result of our Division I status? How feasible is Division I? We pay exorbitant athletic fees, and yet our athletic department still operates at a $200,000 deficit, according to Tom Hunnicutt (“National search begins,” Dec. 1999, Banner). This is heinous. The greatest drain of Division I is the scholarships we must award, and that is what would change with a switch from Division I athletics. At Division II, a maximum cap is put on the scholarships. At Divi sion III, scholarships are omitted. So, I am proposing that we seri ously look into changing our Divi sion I status. Notapithycolumnist’s rant, but a bona fide proposition, Let people know what you think. Whether your opinion is for it or against it, let that opinion be heard. Let the chancellor know. Let the athletic director know. Or, if track-, ing them down sounds like too much work, let me know. E-mail UNCA_Athletics@hotmail.com and voice your opinion on the subject. In 1986, the faculty and students of this school made the decision to become Division I. How many of those students from back then are paying the price for it now? K This coll 0 be a cor lope someone ivhatlhac these sam [have n >ntrol o: ;t me wt y who itde box /here lecause I t’s the tea: 3ooks UNCA a (ith their: fese ideals omtheh the lack ( ookstore loney stil ist surviv Recently, )r three c “ nearly ave sold master. L 'ith a cal ounting b ially “out( Solutions for American loneliness Jaimie Park columnist “On what the people of the United States really are: ‘Spoiled children who are begging for a frightening but just Daddy to tell them exactly what to do.’ Enjoy being an American, y’all, and leave us a message,” was what greeted those who ventured to call myabode over the winter break. I was surprised at the number of people who took offense to the reci tation of a few lines of prose from Kurt Vonnegut’s “Blue Beard.” Were they offended by the lack of truth hidden among the words or by the very apparent presence of truth in such an astute observation? Let’s face it, folks, we, as Ameri cans, are not happy. We are spoiled brats afflicted with the most perva sive of American diseases, loneli ness. How many of you can claim with utmost certainty and sincerity that you feel connected to everyone and everything? How many of you are thoroughly satisfied with the reality in which you find yourself? Paper or plastic? Debit or credit? For those of you who have already found serenity and act harmoni ously with the beings with whom you occupy this world, then read no fiirther. For everyone else, my self included, a dialogue must be established for discussing the rea sons for such loneliness, and what we as human beings can do to de stroy the illusion that we are alone. Krishnamurti, a renowned spiri tual teacher, counseled, “Though we are all human beings, we have built walls between ourselves and our neighbors through national ism, through race, caste, and class, which again breeds isolation and loneliness.” Here we can get to the heart of the problem. Being human, we are slaves to that unknowingly omnipotent organ: the brain. Since our American brains are shackled by the chains of dialec tical discourse, we separate all that we perceive. We categorize, clas sify, expostulate, and extrapolate all for the sake of understanding the essence of life. But in the search for truth our minds only find loneli ness, for “that which separates knows loneliness,” and a mind trapped in the realm of loneliness cannot receive or comprehend or apply the truths of religion. Now we have arrived at the point of understanding why we think we are alone: because our Western minds, acting as a sifter of sorts, has reduced the teachings of all reli gions to an intellectual, philosophi cal, or psychological exercise. We are what author Belinda Gore calls “ecstasy deprived,” or in laymen’s terms, we are spiritually dead. In her book “Ecstatic Body Postures,” she observes that our contempo rary culture of addictions is indica tive of our “collective attempt to fill the emptiness created by our ecstasy deprivation.” Gore points out that Americans use unhealthy foods, alco hol, drugs, nicotine, work, or sex to relieve the gnawing hunger for bliss. America has always been about attaining bliss. Our simple yearn ing for freedom is truly our simple yearning for love, which leads us to the solution for shattering such an illusion of loneliness: love. M. Scott Peck, author of “The Road Less Traveled,” defines love as thus: “The will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.” Let us reject the cynical nature of love portrayed in the po etry ofWilliam Blake, “Loveseeketh only Self to please,/ To bind an other to Its delight,/ Joys in another’s loss of ease,/ And builds a Hell in Heaven’s despite,” and ad here to the notion that to love is to transcend ourselves, our ego, our comfortable point of perception. In order for this concept to be more appealing to the majority of Ameri can minds, I shall use the findings of science to illustrate the philoso phy being espoused. I shall use the theory of hyperspace or the Kaluza- Klein theory to reach the Western minds! The hyperspace theory, to keep it simple,-advocates that dimensions exist beyond the commonly ac cepted four dimensions of space and time. Most importantly, the hyperspace theory teaches that the laws of nature become more beau- tifiil and simple when expressed in higher dimensions. In order to un derstand how adding higher dimen sions can simplify physical prob lems, physicist and author Michio Kaku, in his book “Hyperspace,” uses the example of humans trying to understand the mystery of weather. Kaku stated that once we viewed the earth from space, mov ing out of our two-dimensional point of perception to a three-di mensional point of perception, we were able to understand the laws governing the phenomena of weather. Notice how the move ment was up in order to simplify and understand something that was down on earth. If to truly love is to transcend ourselves, to move up into the higher dimension of ecstasy or spirituality, then the laws of human nature, much like the laws of earth nature> will become more simplified and beautiful. We will realize that we So let us smile in agreement when we read the teachings ofLame Deer, “You got to look at things with the eye in your heart, not with the eye of your head.” Let us embrace and find salvation in Jack Kerouac’s ob servation that “the world wouldn t exist if it didn’t have the power to liberate itself.” Finally, let us all rejoice in the realization that we are all in “this” together, whatever “this ikin di )ear Editc It makes ne I hear leing a ps om what fies as a “ Jor’const nature ai nmy Hu the in ibney, we realistic ly issue at minor versity oi lieir respo 'Hies culti Bar