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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 5, 2001)
Monday Editor in chief: Jack Clifford Managing Editor: Jessica Blanchard Newsroom: (541) 346-5511 Room 300, Erb Memorial Union P.O. box 3159, Eugene, OR 97403 E-mail: ode@oregon.uoregon.edu EDITORIAL EDITOR: MICHAEL J. KLECKNER opededitor@journalist.com Making higher education a necessary good Editor s note: As this year’s leg islative session kicks into high gear, education is on the minds of many people. Teaching standards, testing, performance and funding will be debated through the sum mer, as a final state budget for edu cation is prepared. To get our selves (and our readers) in the mood, the editorial page is em barking on a two-week discussion of higher education. The Emer ald’s columnists and editorial board members will examine the theory, practice and purpose of providing students a college expe rience, writing on topics from tenure to the incidental fee to out of-state tuition. This is the editorial page, so cri tique will be our primary tool. In keeping with our desire to stimu late campus discussion, we strong ly encourage readers to submit their own thoughts about higher education, whether critical or sup portive. As always, letters to the editor are limited to 250 words. Please contact the editorial editor, at opededitor@joumalist.com, to discuss writing a longer guest com mentary. f I i he Emerald editorial •JL. higher education when we examined the complex process of funding education in Oregon. With a tight overall state budget, elected officials will have to choose carefully to fund public safety, entitlements and pet pro grams while still ensuring a mini mum level of education funding. Part of the discussion involves how much money K-12 schooling should receive compared to high er education. It is shameful that the state funding model requires a choice between primary and sec ondary education. In order to have intelligent, productive citi zens, clearly both levels of learn ing need ample funding. If the state scrimps on K-12, students aren’t prepared for the adult world. If higher education funds are reduced, then the state suffers because the brightest students will look elsewhere for an educa tion. Oregon should be trying to keep its most intelligent citizens here in the state, to ensure its fu ture success. Oregon’s current funding mod el, implemented partially in re sponse to the passage of Measure 5 in 1990, allows each college to keep its own tuition money. Previ board was originally in spired to write about GIOVANNI SALIMENA Emerald ously, tuition dollars were spread among the state campuses and supplemented with state money to provide an adequate level of funding. With less state dollars to rely on, tuition is a big deal. In re sponse, campuses are eagerly in creasing enrollment. This reliance on tuition has had a negative ef fect on entry requirements, class sizes and the quality of teaching. Once students are enrolled, col leges need to keep them — those tuition dollars are critical. This has led to lowered standards and grade inflation. Professors seem all too willing to make exceptions for students (who, in some cases, haven’t paid attention or done the work) with a good story to tell. Pa pers can be late and grading can be easy; after all, if it’s too hard, students will drop out and the college loses money. ! College education isn’t only lacking in Oregon, however. Na tionally, the college experience has shifted from one of higher learning — where students tradi tionally have expanded their un derstanding of themselves and the world around them and become civic-minded citizens — into little more than a job-training industry, employing millions in the service of providing businesses with properly functioning drones. Certainly, the above paragraph is a generalization. There are good professors out there, intent on im parting wisdom and knowledge to their students. But the job has be come increasingly difficult. Amer ican society has shifted toward demanding, rather than encourag ing, higher education. Increased numbers of students enrolling in college means increased costs. But taxpayers, while certain that their children should go to college, don’t seem to be willing to foot the bill for a quality education. Instead, tu ition has skyrocketed. As a society, we need to reinvig orate and reinvest with meaning the college educational experi ence. Smaller class sizes, especial ly in 300- and 400-level courses, a higher level of discourse and higher standards are necessary to ensure that receiving a college de gree actually means something. The government needs to increase funding (and this means taxpay ers must agree that higher taxes for education is a necessary good) to universities so that they are not so beholden to private interests and businesses, which demand ready-for-work employees and job-applicable curriculum. It used to be that people went to an employer and apprenticed or job-shadowed to learn the ropes, and they went to a university to become more educated and en riched. While those roles need not be mutually exclusive, the current industry of education de values both job-training and per sonal exploration. We hope steps can be taken to restore colleges and universities to their previous role as institutions that produce well-rounded citizens. This editorial represents the opinion of the Emerald editorial board. Responses can be sent to ode@oregon.uoregon.edu Poll of the Week Every week, the Emerald prints the results of our online poll and the poll question for next week. The poll can be accessed from the main page of our Web site, http://dailye merald.com. We encourage you to send us feedback regarding the poll questions and results. Last week's poll question: What does “PFC” stand for? Results: 70 total votes Personal Fun Center—20 votes, or 28.6 percent Progressives For Change—4 votes, or 5.7 percent Programs Finance Committee — 37 votes, or 52.9 percent Personal Finance Club—9 votes, or 12.9 percent The correct answer is “Programs Fi nance Committee. ” This week's poll question: How many hours a day do you spend on the Internet? The choices: 1-3 hours 4-7 hours 8-12 hours More than 12 hours Letters to the editor Spreading the message When I picked up the Emerald this morning, the Human Life Al liance insert surprised me. Strong anti-abortion messages are not a common feature of the Emerald. As a paper that advocates toler ance and community dialogue, the Emerald scored a perfect ten to ward that goal today! In general, pro-life views are not esteemed or are ignored on the U of O campus. Thank you for stepping out and publishing information that will widen campus discussion of abor tion. Jason Spies junior history CLARIFICATION Ty Baker was pictured on the front page photo on Friday, Feb. 2, with out being identfied. The photo was taken by Azie Malinao-Alvarez.
