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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (June 30, 1987)
Editorial CPA requirements benefit University Next fall the University will compute grade point averages on students' report cards. These GPA requirements will be easier to understand and calculate than the percen tage rules currently used. The present graduation requirements stipulate students must pass 85 percent of their University work with grades of A. B. C, D, or P. Seventy-five percent of the students’ classes must be passed with grades of A. B. C. or P. These rules are complicated and difficult to calculate. The new GPA requirements mandate students to have a 2.00 GPA minimum to graduate Pluses and minuses will be included and count as three-tenths of a grade point. Academic warnings and probation also will be included in the system. A warning will come if a student has a GPA lower than 2.00 for one term, but a cumulative GPA higher than 2.00. Probation occurs when the cumulative GPA is lower than 2.00. This system comes as the result of an agreement in 1979 between faculty and the University Registrar to simplify GPA requirements. The University recently obtained the computer support needed to convert students' records from the percentage to the GPA system. The GPA system is long overdue. Now that it is here, students will be able to calculate their GPA and know where they stand in terms of graduating. The University also will lie better able to keep track of a student's progress. It may take a while to adjust to the changes, but the overall result will be more beneficial. The GPA system will benefit everyone. Offender's scarlet letter unnecessary punishment Recently, a Multnomah County Circuit Court judge ordered a sex offender to place warning signs reading "dangerous sex offender, no children allowed" on his motor vehicle and residence. The judge claimed the signs would protect the neighborhood and children. This disciplinary action, however, will cause more pro blems than it solves. The signs will inhibit the offender's attempt to become reintegrated with society. Even after he serves his short jail sentence and mandatory treatment program, people will continue to distrust him. invoking needless ambivalence. The offender will be shunned from society as a result of the signs. The distrust the signs instill will cause potential apartment managers and employers to avoid dealing with the offender, imbedding in him a frustration with society — a frustration that may lead to more crime. Moreover, the public reaction to the signs may not stop at distrust. The signs may elicit verbal abuse, and the poten tial for vigilante physical abuse against the offender will be enhanced. Although the signs may protect the public, the offender will be placed in considerable danger. Rather than advertise an offender's problems, the judicial system should impose either a stiffer jail sentence or extend and intensify the treatment program. Signs do not solve the problem. Instead, they merely make the problem known — and this will serve to make the situation worse. I I GOT A BOOK OF 1 TATTOOS! (I GOT ' A SECRET DECODER RING! , 1G0T A CONDOM. Letters Creation/Evolution debate a sham just four days after the U S. Supreme Court struck down a Umisiana law requiring the teaching of "creation science" in public schools as a "sham," the Restoration Campus Ministry conducted a sham in the guise of a debate on campus on June 23. proving if nothing else fundamentalists are nut easily dissuaded from their carefully orchestrated tactics. Commentary by Aaron Knox Umsiana law. according to the Court, may not require public schools teaching evolu tion to also teach creationism. The law does not even mandate the teaching of creationism, the Court pointed out. Rather, it re quires the teaching of the theory only when the theory of evolu tion also is taught. Fundamentalists like Dr. Dwayne Gish, associate director of the Institute for Creation Science, argue the Ixiuisiana law promotes academic freedom by providing all the alternative theories for students. It is a nice sentiment, but it Oregon Daily Emerald The Oregon Daily Emerald is published Tuesday end Thursday during the summer by the Oregon Dally Emerald Publishing Co. at the University ot Oregon. Eugene. Oregon. 97403 Daily publication will resume with the fall term The Emerald operates independently ol the University with otftcee on the third tloor ot the Erb Memorial Union and is a member ot the Associated Press The Emerald is private property The unlawful removal or use ot papers is prosecutable by law General Stall Advertising Director Susan Thelen Production Manager Classified Advertising Assistant to the Publisher Michele Ross Alyson Simmons Jean Ownbey Editor Stanley Nelson Managing Sports Editor Lucinda Dillon News Editor Eden Godby Editorial Page Editor Angela Munir Photo Editor Shu Shing Chen Aiiociilt Editors Student Govt 'Student Activities Carolyn Lamberson Higher Ed'Administration Mike Drummond General Assignment /Entertainment Aaron Kno> Community Stephen Maher Advertising: Janelle Neumann Production: Sandra Oaller / Ad Coordinator Kelly Alexandre. Eliot Knight. Diana Moy, Angela Munu. Ingrid White. Serena Williams News and Editorial Display Advertising Classified Advertising Letter Perfect Graphics Production Circulation and Business 686 5511 MA3712 CM 4343 656 5511 686 43*1 68* 5511 disguises the true cause of the fundamentalist movement. Justice William Brennan, writing for the majority, cap tured the essence of that cause when he said "the pre-eminent purpose.. . was clearly to ad vance the religious viewpoint that a supernatural being created humankind." Brennan went on to say that "while the court is normally deferential to a state's articula tion of a secular purpose |for a law), it is required that the state ment of such purpose be sincere and not a sham." Gish makes his living pro moting creationism in the public forum By his own ad mission. he has participated "in over 200 debates in the last 10 years." His at!versary in the KGM-sponsored debate last week was University biology professor Dr. David Wagner, whose last formal debato on the subject — against Gish and KGM-sponsored. occurred four years ago. Wagner, in his open ing remarks, called himself an "intellectual hobbiest" in his study of creationism. The format of the debate, while not favoring one side more than the other, favored whoever ignored its rules. Gish and Wagner exchanged, both in writing and on the phone, a number of proposed questions from which each was to extract his arguments. Wagner, speak ing first, identified the ques tions he was answering, and structured his remarks accordingly. The first statement made by Gish in his subsequent argu ment was inconsistent with the question he had himself provid ed to Wagner. Gish chose, for reasons of his own. to ignore Wagner’s questions and launch ed into a prepared statement that sought to refute evolu tionist theories rather than to defend creationist ones. The day after the debate Gish said. "I use a pretty standard format for all my debates. The evolutionists never seem to know what they are going to say in advance, or they change their minds, so I use the same arguments for all of them." All of this adds up a stacked deck, and Wagner himself said it best when he prefaced his argument by saying "I realize that in agreeing to this debate I have already lost." Dick Heswick, director of ROM, served as moderator for the delude. He admitted after wards Gish did not address Wagner's questions, but defended the deflate as “a suc cess." His most revealing ad mission. however, was in reac tion to the audience/question portion of the debate. "1 was disturbed because the audience ignored my instructions about questioning (Wagner and Gish), but that portion of the debate did bring out some interesting philosophical questions." The irony should nut be lost on the casual observer. It was only at the point where the au dience digressed from the for mal rules of the debate and where Gish was forced to ad dress the same questions as Wagner, and it was that portion of the debate that most displeas ed Beswick. The fight between evolu tionists and creationists is a valid, intellectual one. and it should be encouraged at ail turns. Gare must be taken, however, to ensure that what occurs is in fact a debate and not merely a platform for creationist (or. for that matter, evolutionist) theory.
