Newspapers / University of North Carolina … / Feb. 7, 2002, edition 1 / Page 2
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Opinions Bringing light to our own mis-education Kelly Geneva n Columnist Whether it’s walking around the qua'^, eating in the cafeteria, or even attending the few small parties that happen around campus, I am struck by the idea that even in col lege, at a university as liberal as UNCA, students have managed to naturally segregate themselves by race. I am hard-pressed to define this action as natural. However, I be lieve this is a prob lem people feel in their hearts, yet refuse to recognize as their own mis- education. In effect, it is this separation of race that has a pro found impact on the attendance of UNCA by minor ity students. What else would explain why we only have about 100 black, Asian and Hispanic students on campus, and they all seem to hang out to gether? Sure, people at UNCA are willing to say they are open and accepting of all people. But what has UNCA done outside of a few classes and events that has really allowed stu dents and faculty to confront their own biases and prejudices? Perhaps if we had the opportunity to begin exploring these racial is sues, we could find an answer to UNCA’s lack of racial diversity. A class was once proposed to the education department which al lowed future teachers the opportu nity to explore their own biases and prejudices related to race, age, gen der, handicap and sexuality. ''Whathas UNCA done outside of a few classes and events that has really allowed students and fac ulty to confront their own biases and prejudices?'' This class, in turn, would have allowed students the opportunity to become more accepting and open of others, specifically of their future students. The education depart ment met this proposal with great excitement and curiosity. However, months passed and this idea was still just an idea. This is a perfect example of how people love to talk about diversity. However, when it comes to ac tion, few are willing to brave the obstacles involved in breaking the barriers of prejudice. As long as people at this school continue to ignore the comfort bar riers they have created around their own groups of friends and col leagues, UNCA will continue to be just a school with a few ethnic groups and a bunch ofwhite hippies taking African dance. I propose not only a class for edu cating students on confronting prejudices, but also a class required for all students at UNCA. This class would allow people from all majors to get together and dis cuss issues of race, gender, age and other related topics that have come up in their own lives. For this class, an in structor would cen ter discussions, read ings, group projects and lectures on the psychological impact theses prej udices have on all people, and how it affects the dis tinct social makeup of our college cam pus. People are faced with racism and prejudice every day. Sure, it’s not always directed towards them, but few have the knowledge or the power to identify and confront these issues. With an idea such as this class, hopefully UNCA can become a place where people are not only willing to accept diversity into their school, but make it feel welcome as well. Nothing in the opinions sections necessarily reflect the opinion of the entire Blue Banner stafi", advisor, or the university faculty, administration or staff. Unsigned editorials reflect the opinion of a majority of The Blue Banner editorial board. Letters, columns, cartoons and reviews represent only the opinions of their respective authors. Letters to the Editor; New ID system implemented Dear Editor: Here are some things you need to know about your UNCA student identification card; Your official University ID is the property of UNCA and should be carried at all times while on cam pus. All replacement IDs will cost $10 and there will be NO temporary IDs issued. Student IDs will be available be tween the hours of 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday in the OneCard office (Dining Hall, room 255) located in the campus book store. If you have any questions, call the OneCard office at 251-6767 or email onecard@unca.edu. For OneCard updates, go to WWW. unca. edu/onecard Freda Cooper OneCard Manager Commuter parking unfair Dear Editor: As a commuter student, I feel that the allocation of parking spaces is stacked against commuters. What options do we really have for park ing on campus? Maybe if you’re lucky and have classes in Rhodes- Robinson Hall, then you can park fairly closely to the building. For anywhere else on campus, you are forced to park halfway to Bosnia in the deck close to the gym. On some other college campuses, freshmen aren’t allowed to have cars on campus, the commuter park ing is closest to the buildings, teacher parking slightly farther, and the residential parking is the farthest yet. Here at UNCA, it is the exact opposite. The parking for the teach ers is closest to the educational buildings. Residential students are in the optimal lots closest to their dorms (which, in some cases, is closer to the educational buildings than commuter parking), followed by commuter parking in the far thest spots. For those of us who have jobs that we must be at shortly after class, the walk back to our vehicles takes as much time as it does to commute to our places of employment. I understand that the professors need to be close to the buildings, but they do not come and go like the vast amounts of commuters. On days where we experience bad weather, many of the commuter students are forced to walk the far thest distances, while the faculty and staff get to jump right out of their vehicles and into the protec tion of the buildings. Another point I would like to bring up is that there are no visitor parking spots near any of the dorm buildings. As a commuter, I have always felt that the campus does not reach out to commuters enough in any of the social activities. The residence life plans activities for residential students, but in my years here at UNCA, I have not heard of a commuter life organiza tion who puts anything together for commuter students. Many of us commuters have residential friends, but when we want to visit them during normal business hours, we are forced to park in the designated parking areas that are nowhere near the dorm buildings. My final point is the additional parking at the base of the hill to the entrance to Westridge and Southridge halls. I have not seen sufficient security at that location to warrant parking my vehicle down there. For those readers who are unfa miliar with this parking lot, it is right across the street from where the construction headquarters are, where all the rubble from the torn down buildings from the Gover nors Village were kept until it was hauled away. As a graduating senior, I have been made aware of additional buildings to be built on campus causing an even greater decreased area for com muter parking. As a soon-to-be alumn, I find that parking has not been treated with the same regard as the new development. Parking for residents was given up due to the renovation of the Highsmith center and the demolition of the Governors Village, and that small addition of a parking deck does not sufficiently make up for the loss. As an environmental studies stu dent, I suggest that many of the professors begin car-pooling to work to reduce the number of parking needed by faculty. Ifcommuterstu- dents can car-pool, they should as well, but often times there are sched ule conflicts. The campus is not large enough to have shuttles running from the far thest lots, yet it is large enough to cause an infringement in flow of commuter students. The lots are not close enough to the educational buildings to wait for one class to let out to find some commuter spaces, and then walk to class and be on time. For those students and faculty who are willing to car-pool, there should be a process in registration where people who are within zip-codes to be made aware of such opportuni ties. This will help in the greening of UNCA. I do commend Public Safety for their enforcement of the designated zones, even if I do end up with a parking ticket every once in a while for being parked in a residential lot. Visiting my girlfriend on bad weather days means I have to spend excess time in the cold or rain more so than the faculty and staff and the residential students. I simply ask that the school put more thought and consideration into the commuter student popula tion. Just by looking at the number of commuter student parking com pared to the number of residential student parking, commuter stu dents make up for most of the stu dents, yet we receive the least amount consideration in the deci sion making process. Please don’t let this pattern of neglect continue into the future. Blase Kusterle Senior, environmental studies Return of the safety psychos’ after the holidays Craig Lovelace Columnist The first thing I want to say in this New Year is that I’m glad Christ mas is over. It’s not the rampant commercial ism that bothers me. Likewise, I don’t get hot under the collar over rude people, Salva tion Army bell ringers causing guilt trips, or being stuck behind minivan-bound soccer moms who haven’t changed their oil since the Reagan Administration. 1 can handle the biggest news story being “the malls are really crowded,” and the fact that some cretin weath erman who can’t spot monsoon- level rains can suddenly zoom in on a sleigh pulled by eight tiny rein deer. Even the holiday decorations that look suspiciously like overstock from New Age Crystal Knicknack Emporium don’t get to me. As far as I’m concerned, the worst part of the year-end festivities is the an noying visibility of the Safety Psychos. Like their cousins, the Health Nazis, who believe we should all exist on rice cakes, tofu and spring water, and the Amateur Psychobabblers, who feel compelled to assign you to at least three cat egories of abnormality, at least one of which must be sexual, the Safety Psychos are part of the Perennially Indignant, the only true perma nent underclass. These control freaks are deter mined to eliminate all sharp edges, staircases, and heavy tools from our lives. The last three months of the year, the Psychos show up everywhere, doing their best to scare the crap out of us with quoted statistics and demonstration films from a small company in Wisconsin which can’t afford good fake blood (needless to say, the results are usually more funny than shocking - it’s like watching an Ed Wood murder scene). The Psychos start out innocently enough - warning about the risk of fire ifyou plug 208 strands of blink ing lights into the same outlet. Then, a subtle change comes over them and they start warning you about all sorts of things that don’t make sense. Suddenly, your Moravian star’s points could poke an eye out of an unwary child on stilts. Your light- up Santa could be mistaken for a landing beacon by an oncoming Lockheed TriStar. You could injure a buck that decides to mate with ^our plastic Rudolph (inciden tally, I’m not making that one up). You get subjected to constant streams of this, as they try to get you to subscribe to “Bad Living; The magazine for the discriminating paranoiac.” The worst thing, however, comes when these nut jobs link up with professional worrywart organiza tions and come out with television specials and 20/20 features on “Dangerous Toys.” I don’t even watch these anymore. They’re just too predictable. “The Consumer Committee to Prevent Natural Selection from Culling the Stupid from our Ranks has determined the following 10 toys are the most dangerous of this year’s popular gifts . . .” Invariably, clothing and sleeping bags featuring the year’s kiddie- brainwashing character are num ber six or seven on the list. “You’ll notice that when we apply this welding torch to this cloth that “Ifs easier to blame somebody else than to take responsibility but since wedon'twantto blame anyone spe cific, lefs place the blame at the feet of one of these evil corporations/' we’ve soaked in cooking oil, this adorable tee shirt actually combusts! Just think what would happen if your child was inside!” (Appar ently, the Safety Psychos punctua tion is overstocked with exclama tion points.) Still, I can see their point. When I was six, my blowtorch and I were inseparable. Number five or so is always the popular articulated doll. This in sidious device has a wire articula tion skeleton that can be exposed and poked into the child until said child rese.mbles a spaghetti strainer. Never you mind the fact that it took this full grown adult a pair of pliers to expose the wire. After all, children are devious little creatures. They’ll find a way, probably using an ingenious application of the butter dish. Next, of course, is the die-cast toy car. This presents a chok ing hazard to small chil dren, especially if such chil dren haven’t eaten that day and are starting to think the lead paint looks tasty. Apparently, all of a child’s thought process is tied up in wondering if there’s a cream filling in their toys. Of course, we can’t forget the cute, talking critter doll. This is hazardous because children, being inquisitive in the fashion of Victor Franken stein, tend to take things apart. Once they have the toy in pieces, they can choke on tiny pieces, cut themselves on the voice boxes, or electrocute themselves with two C- cell batteries. Just ignore that it took a mechani cally inclined adult 20 minutes to take it apart, and most kids can’t sit through 10 minutes of television without Ritalin. The Safety Psychos basically want to make sure that the blame for any accident falls on an external source. They can’t blame people that have jobs, kids, hopes and dreams. It’s much easier to blame a big, faceless corporation that doesn’t care enough. The Safety Psychos are being quite selfish. They want children, but don’t want to be bothered with raising them. They want gain with out risk, forgetting that risk is a part of life, and always has been. It’s easier to blame somebody else than to take responsibility, but since we don’t want to blame anyone specific, let’s place the blame at the feet of one of these evil corpora tions. Given our cultural climate. I’m amazed blame-shifting isn’t going to be a sport at the next Olympics. I’m going to devote my time, in the interests of being remembered, to creating a product that will bridge the gap between the Safety Psychos and corporate America. I think a rigid, airtight plastic bubble to protect them from the cold, cruel world would be a big seller. The best thing, though, would be to get rid of the Safety Psychos. I’d much rather have the regular Psychos. At least Norman Bates could make himself useful and stuff my hunt ing trophies.
University of North Carolina at Asheville Student Newspaper
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