Editorial
Community colleges
need greater voice
House Bill 2530 would be an effective way to promote
the interests of community colleges at the state level. It
would also increase their visibility at the state Legislature,
thereby upgrading the quality of the collges.
Currently, community colleges are in the same jurisdic
tion as kindegarten through grade 12 programs. Supporters
of the bill, headed by the Oregon Community College
Association (OCCA), argue placing community colleges on
an equal level with primary and secondary education forces
the colleges to compete for funds.
Four-year colleges and universities are represented by
the State Board of Higher Education and remain separate
from community colleges and lower education. Because of
this, four-year institutions do not have to compete for
legislative attention. Their problems are addressed directly
to the state.
HB 2530 would divide the community colleges from
K-12 education and provide a chancellor to head a new
board established specifically for the community colleges
with their interests in mind.
The process of reporting to the State Board of Education
would remain the same, and the community colleges would
still be on the same level as lower education. However, the
two programs will not have to compete for attention in the
state Legislature for funding.
Opponents of the bill say there would be increased costs
for a new agency and fear the state would take over com
munity colleges, originally created by and for local citizens.
The argument goes that a state chancellor would destroy
community college autonomy.
A compromise bill has been proposed to relieve some of
the representation problems of community colleges and
eliminates some of the fears of state control. The bill would
require the state to consider community college issues at
least six times a year. But this does not adequately deal with
the problem. It only acts to pacify the OCCA.
The concerns surrounding bill 2530 are unfounded.
Almost no new costs would be incurred because personnel
representing the state’s 15 community colleges already work
for the superintendent of Public Instruction. No new funds
would have to be allocated for this new office — the money
would come from the existing community college budget.
Community colleges were created to provide higher
education at the local level. A new agency created to pro
mote colleges’ ideas and interest would not take away this
concept. The chancellor would be hired to represent the
community colleges. This office would not wield broad, un
checked powers, but simply would act as a centralized
mouthpiece for community college concerns.
Community colleges are intergrai to the wider concept
of education. As four-year colleges and universities become
more expensive to attend, community colleges become a
more popular outlet for students to begin their education.
Letting this outlet to the community deteriorate is a greater
risk than the unfounded fears of state control of the program,
The bill promotes community colleges and recognizes
their importance. It moves the colleges away from the level
of lower education and equates them with four-year institu
tions. The local citizens can only benefit from this bill. It has
the propensity to provide a powerful voice for community
colleges.
m ~
“Am I supposed to got mod at somsbody now?...”
Letters
An old flame
Last month Surgeon General
Koop called for practical pro
phylactics, as being the most ef
fective precaution against the
spread of AIDS...“next to
abstinence.”
AMA president Dr. John
Coury assented to this medical
wisdom. But he likewise plead
ed for the application of' ‘a little
more morality” in combating
the disease. Old
words — abstinence, morality.
Like virtue, continence,
courtesy: discarded notions.
But virtue, like morality, is
not just an unfashionable con
cept; not a farce, thrown into
caricature by the posturing of
the self-righteous. . .Falwell,
Oral Roberts. Virtue. It is our
own abandoned ideal. It is our
own lost vision. Where is it?
St. John foresaw a day when
love would wax cold. Bruce
Springsteen laments:
Now young faces grown sad
and old
And hearts of fire grow cold.
And (not to put words in his
mouth) it seems ‘'even the
youth utterly fail and faint.”
The young surrender to self
indulgence, trading away their
ideals for a few scattered
moments of pleasure.
Vanishing moments. And
somewhere in the midst of all
the pleasure love dies.
Yes indeed, condoms... if we
are resigned; if we are that
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weak. But further indulgence of
the same excess — substituting
a latex prophylactic for spine
and self-control — won’t slow
the spread of moral and
psychological contagions.
Protect yourself; protect the
one you think you could love:
practice continence, as foremost
medical authorities recom
mend. Not only is this medical
ly “safe sex,” it just might
preserve a spark of your heart of
fire...to be rekindled.
Roch Steinbach
Law
Lighten up
Blake Louis Sliter, you’re
beginning to get on my nerves
(ODE, Feb. 25). Your obsession
with the greek system has
overstepped the bounds of com
mon sense.
I think it is very clerar to
everyone that the only people
who actively admire the greek
system are already members of
it. “Beer sluts” and swimming
pools will not lure unsuspec
ting students into the greeks.
Yes, the greeks are “cli
quey”; yes, the system
prepetuates sexual stereotypes;
yes, they react xenophobically
to any criticism; yes, they can
even be drunk, obnoxious and
belligerent. So what?
It is their system. No one is
forced to join. Those that do, do
so because they like the system
the way it is. You can’t change
them, so you might as well
leave them alone.
They can sit, smugly confi
dent that they are envied by
non-greeks, while the rest of us
sit, confident that Charles Man
son with a flamethrower
couldn’t force us to join.
Mr. Sliter, last year I admired
r
your stand. This year you’ve
progressed from grudge to
neurosis. Everyone has the right
to go to hell in their own
fashion. Leave them theirs, and
they’ll leave you yours. After
all, they haven’t bothered mine.
Tom Jeffries
Journalism
Motherhood
I just completed reading the
first in the series on surrogate
motherhood (ODE, Feb. 24). It
is most interesting if not pro
vocative. I was particularly
drawn to the comments by
much maligned Jenny Cassem
who, upon being identified as a
high-class hooker, remarked,
“...Mary was a surrogate
mother and she got into heaven
all right.”
It appears, historically, at
least, that Jenny is only half
right. In the late ’40’s, the
Pope celebrating the Marian
Year, did declare that the Virgin
Mary ascended bodily into
heaven; certainly an in
disputable dictum. But sur
rogate mother, Mary was not.
She kept the boy and it appears
that no one objected.
In the instance cited, the Holy
Ghost was the surrogate father.
The difference then and now is
that now, the surrogate mother
and the hopeful parents-to-be
are well aware of what the plan
is. Then, Joseph was not, in
itially, taken into the partner
ship as to who would do the
seed planting. In fact, there is
some reason to believe that he
was somewhat irritated about
the whole affair.
R.N. Lowe
Counseling Psychology
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