Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / Feb. 24, 2000, edition 1 / Page 16
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16 Thursday, February 24, 2000 Concerns c* comments about out coverage? Contact the ombudsman at budmaiKouncedu oc call 605-2790. Scott Hicks editorial page eduor Katie Abel UNIVERSITY EDITOR Jacob McConnico CITY EDITOR Board Editorials Unlock Your Lips The Chancellor Search Committee has remained quiet too long. Time has run out, and the group must keep its promise to release the names of contenders for the chan cellor post - now. The committee originally planned to have the list compiled by December. That was obviously too ambitious a goal to set, so here the University sits in late February still won dering just who will ultimately come to rule the Carolina roost. Finding the right person to fill the chan cellor position is no small issue. It concerns faculty, staff and students alike. Right now, everyone is still wondering and speculating over who the possible con tenders might be. Committee members told The Daily Tar Heel on Tuesday they had been interviewing candidates - even though they hadn’t met for several weeks. At the beginning of this whole process, the committee promised it would go public with its list of finalists as long as those candidates agreed. That was after it took the search consul tant’s advice to shoot down a proposal to print candidates’ answers to student ques tions anonymously in the DTH. The point in having such an open process is to ensure some kind of interactive dialogue among professors, students and staff. Well, members failed to compile a list by December and complained that they just did n’t have enough time to release any names to the public. It’s almost March now, and May Hard Shot of Truth Let’s imagine UNC suffered the same tragedy recently suffered by Duke University. One student binge drinks and then dies. Another binge drinks and almost dies. How would UNC officials respond? UNC officials should take note: students need useful information about drinking, not key chains, bottle openers and stickers. Duke officials confirmed just last week that junior Raheem Bath’s death in November was from aspiration pneumonia. That occurs when someone gets drunk, passes out and inhales his own vomit, leading to a lung infection days later. Since then, Duke has sus pended a sorority and is investigating a fra ternity for alcohol-related infractions. Would UNC leaders follow Duke’s exam ple and cover up the student’s actual cause of death for fear of bad press? Of course not! UNC officials never cover up anything - like, for example, chancellor candidates. Let’s say this UNC student has died of aspiration pneumonia. “What the hell is aspi ration pneumonia?!” many students might ask. Would UNC officials say, “Oh, who knows? But you can be sure it’s not related to alcohol! Because nobody drinks at UNC!” They should be open and honest and do what the school should have been doing all along - educating students about the real dangers of alcohol. Because even if the “2 out of 3, .00 BAC” campaign is accurate, it still means one out of Readers' Forum Article About Debate Inappropriately Pushes DTH’s Opinion in Race TO THE EDITOR: While I appreciate that The Daily Tar Heel has a right to express its support of candidates for public election, I believe that there are appropriate and inappropriate ways for it to do this. Rob Nelson’s column in favor of Erica Smiley (Feb. 22), for example, presents the paper’s preference openly and fairly. Kim Minugh’s article on the debate between Smiley and Brad Matthews (“As Race Draws to Final Vote ...,” Feb. 22), however, seems to me to impose unjustly the newspaper’s opinion on its readers. I did not attend the debate, so I rely on the DTH to report the event impartially and to leave questions of judgment to me. Now I suppose it is possible that any impar tial observer of the debate would have reported that Smiley “began the debate with confidence” and spoke “with con cerned emphasis.” They might also have agreed that Matthews “lingered behind the shield of the platform, seemingly hesitant to invade the personal realm of the audience,” though probably without the suggestion Rob Nelson EDITOR Office Hours Friday 3 p.m. - 4 p.m. Matthew B. Dees STATE. & NATIONAL EDITOR T. Nolan Hayes SPORTS EDITOR Leigh Davis FEATURF.S EDITOR is creeping up around the corner. UNC-sys tem President Molly Broad has set gradua tion as the deadline to pick the chancellor. Time is no longer an issue. After extend ing the deadlines, the committee has given itself ample time to release these names to the public. Now that they have progressed to the point of interviewing candidates, com mittee members need to keep their promise. Waiting until May to announce the new chancellor is not a good option for anyone. The transition could be a rough experience for the new chancellor and constituents. Releasing the official list of candidates now would greatly ease that transition. The deci sion (lo and behold) could be more democ ratic with the input of students, professors and staff. We all need a clearer idea of who will ultimately become UNC’s new leader. That way, the University community will be less leery of the new chancellor. They will have time to learn more about that person before he or she actually becomes their leader. And by releasing the names of possible contenders now, the potential finalist will have a much easier time growing into a strong leader. By the time May rolls around, that person will have surely made some important friends and advocates to increase his or her support. To benefit the whole University, commit tee members need to prove they’re not wast ing their time by giving everyone some idea as to who the next chancellor will be. every three UNC students is partying drunk. Would you know what to do if your room mate was dry-heaving and unconscious? Would you know to be concerned if that same drunken roommate was having flu-like symptoms the next day? Would you know those are symptoms of the aspiration pneu monia that killed Raheem Bath at Duke? Probably not. And why not? Because UNC has done a pathetic job of educating us about alcohol. We don’t need to be told that we don’t drink. We know what we do and don’t do. But even if you don’t drink, chances are that you’ll be interacting with someone who does. Knowing how to handle the situation could mean the difference between life and death. The Center for Healthy Student Behaviors provides alcohol education programs for campus groups that request it. Residence Hall Association leaders should have made this request long ago when they saw that administrators had let alcohol education slip through the cracks. To reach off-campus stu dents, fraternity and sorority leaders should invite the center to their houses. Although nobody at UNC drinks, the bars are packed for a reason, and whether you’ll know how to help your wasted roommate survive her 21st birthday party might depend on how much you know about alcohol. Giving us that information is a job admin istrators can no longer afford to ignore. that he was cowering behind a shield. Although these characterizations might partially recount what really happened, they sound less like reporting than a delib erate attempt to determine our judgment about these two candidates: the charismat ic, dynamic Smiley vs. the timid, “proud ly boast(ing)” Matthews. Even if it was the case that Smiley was confident and comfortable while Matthews was timid and shaky, there still seems to be no call for comparing Matthews to “a toy that needed to be wound up before taking center stage on his own.” Surely this is an unfair comparison that can only make Matthews appear silly and trifling. Interesting though the image may be, it manipulates the reader’s judgment of Matthews. This kind of comparison is more appropriately found in an editorial. I understand that good newspaper reporting in some respects attempts to recreate an event for someone who was not able to witness it, and this gives the writer a certain amount of license. Nonetheless, I think reporters must be careful to avoid coloring their reports with personal opin ions if the paper is to keep its integrity. Dave Twombly Senior English Opinions (Hit Satly (Tar Mttl Established 1893 ■ 107 Years of Editorial Freedom www.unc.edu/dth Robin Clemow ARTS h ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR Carolyn Haynes COPY DESK EDITOR Miller Pearsall PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR College Not Necessary for Everyone Education is a wonderful thing, and school is a good place to find it. Since the age of 16 (when I could in theory have opted out of the educational sys tem), I’ve voluntarily spent nine years of my life in schools. After high school, I spent three years in college, a year in seminary, a year working in the public schools of Philadelphia and two years in graduate school studying English. I am now looking forward to another five years in graduate school. Moreover, I am hop ing that all of this time will prepare me for a life in the university setting. But sometimes I wonder if we, members of the university community, might overvalue education. More to the point, I suspect that we often value school-based education for merits it does not, or does not exclusively, produce. Let me state at the outset that my intent is not to undervalue the important mission of the university. We do good things here - we try to provide people with tools to understand the world and to better it. The question I would like to raise, howev er, is whether we really believe all of what we imply when we talk about university educa tion. We often seem to forget that school-based education doesn’t necessarily make you a bet ter person, that other experiences build char acter and encourage learning, that not every one wants or needs to go to college and that some important kinds of learning occur per fectly well off campus. We assume that everyone wants to go to college, and we make careless statements such as, “Everybody should be able to go to col lege.” T hat statement, taken at face value, expresses a sentiment with which 1 agree. Ideally, everyone should have the opportunity to attend college and should be able to choose whether or not to take advantage of that opportunity. But I sometimes sense that underlying that Chancellor Encourages Students to Bust a Move In UNC Dance Marathon TO THE EDITOR: Carolina's students have an outstanding tradition of community service. Through both organized and individual efforts, they donate thousands of volunteer hours each semester. T his weekend’s UNC Dance Marathon (Feb. 25-26) is a great example of the important kinds of service our students are involved in. Now in its second year, the marathon is a true labor of love that helps provide financial and emotional support for the families of young patients at the N.C. Children’s Hospital. Last year’s event raised more than $40,000 for the children’s hospital, and organizers this year hope to top $75,000 by uniting some 100 campus organizations with the surrounding community. This is a particularly worthy cause: The N.C. Children’s Hospital relies on the community for much of its funding. It is the only hospital in the state that accepts all patients, regardless of their level of medical insurance. With more than 230,000 N.C. children without insurance, the hospital is Thomas Ausman DESIGN EDITOR Megan Sharkey GRAPHICS EDITOR William Hill ONLINE EDHOR a Mm ■ TARA ROBBINS SMALL PRINT statement is the problematic assumption that everyone should in fact go to college, not just entertain the option of going. Some people don’t need to go to college. Their vocations require practical training that occurs more efficiently in environments other than the academic. Some people quite simply don’t want to go to college, and if they are the same people who don’t need a college educa tion to fulfill their responsibilities at work, at home and in the community, they shouldn’t have to. We shouldn’t presume that they’d be better off with a college degree. One might argue that everyone should be encouraged to attend college because school based education unquestionably provides access to economic opportunities. Certainly employers are willing to pay higher wages to people with college degrees. I wonder, however, if society as a whole has been persuaded by professional educators and universities to value the particular form of education found in schools outside the con texts in which it is appropriate. 1 am not arguing here against intellectual ism, only against the idea that everyone needs exposure to intellectualism in the university context. Every thing has its place. When my toilet clogs up, I’m not going to call my professors for ideas about what to do about it, no matter how much I value their insights into literature. I owe respect to the handyman from my apartment complex who comes out to help me with something I can’t do myself. the only option for many who would oth erwise go untreated. I encourage you to consider how you can be part of this important event. If you’ve participated in public service efforts in the past, you know how rewarding they can be. If you haven’t had the opportunity, the marathon is a perfect place to start. You won’t be disappointed with the experience. For more information on how you can get involved, contact Michael Bucy, marathon coordinator, at 918-1168 or marathon@unc.edu. Your time and effort can make a tremen dous difference. William 0. McCoy Interim Chancellor UNC Editorial About Priests Misses Mark on Morality, Shows Need to Abstain TO THE EDITOR: I’m writing in response to the Feb. 17 board editorial “Carnal Sinners.” The writer of the editorial has much to learn about morality in general and Catholicism in particular. Vicky Egkenrode & Cate Doty MANAGING EDITORS I should be ashamed of myself if I believe my level of education places me in a position superior to his; rather, in that situation, he should pity me and my sad plumbing situa tion, and I should be grateful for his conde scension. My point is that some people become suc cessful in contributing to their families and communities without a university education. After all, members of the university communi ty are nol the only people engaged in teaching and learning, and we lack some of the tools that others have. My attempt is not to argue that education should be restricted or appreciated less, but that we should understand more precisely what school-based education does and does not do well. We may need a little more explicit humility in the academy, for we often imply that the university is the exclusive setting for the most important learning of a person’s life. In believing this, we have undervalued the learning that takes place in other settings and we have forgotten our indebtedness to those who learn and contribute in those settings. This becomes evident in public policy debates over elementary and secondary edu cation as well. Much public rhetoric fails to emphasize the importance of the learning that takes place at home. Debates over everything from school prayer to sex education often emphasize what society as a unified whole should do to teach children ethical or cultural values. Though it is appropriate to consider the influence of society through public education and educational institutions, it is problematic to undervalue the private inculcation of ethics. As diverse as educators and universities may be, schools do not and cannot contain all the ideological, cultural and religious currents that shape American society as a whole. Tara Robbins is a graduate student in the Department of English from Millville, N.J. Reach her at trobbins@unc.edu. It becomes apparent that the author did not do his or her homework when he or she asserts that Catholic teens are expected to model their lives after priests. In fact, Catholics as well as all Christians are taught to model their lives after Jesus Christ, not priests. Of course, it is disturbing to hear statis tics linking priests to high incidence rates of AIDS, but how does that disprove the idea of abstinence? In a world where sex is peddled on every TV, radio, magazine and newspaper, the thought that abstinence causes priests to break their vows is just plain stupid. Why is it that the rates of teen pregnancies, abor tions and incidents of STDs has gone through the roof since the ’6os? Is it because we are teaching too much absti nence? Not likely. Or could it possibly be that the moral fiber of our country has been on the decline since the era of free love? That seems a bit more plausible. I do not pretend to live like a saint, but I do not rationalize bad morals by using the “everybody else is doing it" argument either. Anthony Pirozzi Senior Political Science (Eljp iathj (Ear Mppl Terry Wimmer OMBUDSMAN (3> A The Daily Tar Heel wel comes reader comments and criticism. Letters to the editor should be no longer than 300 words and must be typed, double-spaced, dated and signed by no more than two people. Students should include their year, major and phone number. Faculty and staff should include their title, department and phone number. The DTH reserves the right to edit letters for space, clarity and vulgarity. Publication is not guaran teed. Bring letters to the DTH office at Suite 104, Carolina Union, mail them to P.O. Box 3257, Chapel Hill, NC 27515 or e-mail forum to: editdesk@unc.edu.
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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Feb. 24, 2000, edition 1
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