Newsroom: (541) 346-5511
Room 300, Erb Memorial Union
PO. Box 3159, Eugene, OR 97403
E-mail: editor@dailyemerald.com
Online Edition:
www.dailyemerald.com
Friday, September 28,2001
Editor in Chief:
Jessica Blanchard
Managing Editor:
Michael J. Kleckner
Editorial Editor:
Julie Lauderbaugh
Assistant Editorial Editor:
Jacquelyn Lewis
Editorials
Party House paints
unrealistic picture
udos are in order to the Of
fice of Student Life and
Greek Life for attempting to
jeducate incoming freshmen
on the dangers of excessive partying,
albeit terribly ineffectually. The “Par
ty House 2001” event, which was
held Sept. 20 in the Student Recre
ation Center, was a showcase of the
sorts of potential situations that
freshmen may encounter in pseudo
typical party situations.
One featured room included an in
toxicated woman vomiting into the
toilet while her friends held her hair
back during a fraternity party. An
other had a young man who became
so intoxicated on his 21st birthday
that he went to the hospital for treat
ment. Another room featured police
doling out MIP fines to underage
party-goers.
Although the point of the skits was
obvious, the effectiveness of the event
was more elusive. Most students in at
tendance claimed the best part about
the “Party House” was finding out just
how much those MIP fines were (so
they could start saving up?). The situa
tions on display weren’t anything un
expected or novel, and the project
would have been more informative for
freshmen if the actors had given ideas
for avoiding MIPs altogether.
Incoming students are not as naive
as we assume they are. Part of the lure
of coming to universities is the free
dom from authority figures so that stu
dents can party, be irresponsible and
drink so much that their real friends
stick around to pull their hair back.
Teenagers have been taught from an
early age that partying is part of the
college experience. Some accept it
while others reject it.
The fact is, the “Party House” proba
bly had a fun, raging party in other
parts of the house that viewers didn’t
get to see. There were probably other
people in the house who were also in
toxicated, but knew their limit and
were having fun. Shielding this other
side of the issue is what ultimately
makes this anti-drinking campaign,
and others like it, futile.
Anti-drug and drinking programs
are famously ineffective. Drugs and
alcohol are unhealthy for your body,
but there is a reason that people do
these things: because it can be fun.
Messages from anti-drug advocates
fail because they don’t present both
sides of real-life situations. There
fore, people don’t believe the mes
sages and are inclined to discover the
consequences on their own. When
they do so, they will find they have
learned more about consequences, ir
responsible behavior and self-control
from their own mistakes than they
could from a skit.
Teaching students about the ill ef
fects of drinking is a fine idea, but is
ultimately impractical and a waste of
the University’s money. If the Office
of Student Life and the Greeks want
to inform freshmen, they should con
tinue with their ideas of offering in
formation on campus resources for al
coholism, rape and drug abuse.
Regardless of the effectiveness of
campaigns against alcohol and drug
abuse, students need to know that re
sources exist on campus to help them,
and it is truly a service to disseminate
that information.
Enjoy freedom to read
University students should
count their lucky stars for
the freedom to read as they
buy their textbooks this
week. The American Library Associa
tion released a list of the top ten books
of 2000 most “challenged” as being
appropriate for schools and libraries.
Among the reads under scrutiny were
staples of University curriculum, in
cluding Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why
the Caged Bird Sings” and John Stein
beck’s “Of Mice and Men.” The “Harry
Potter” series was also criticized for
perceived Satanic content.
Most challenges came from parents
who were concerned with offensive
language, violence, racism or sexual
content within the respective books.
Challenges are defined as a formal
complaint filed with a school in an at
tempt to remove or restrict the materi
al because of raised objections by a
person or group.
Sunday marks the end of Banned
Books Week, which serves to raise
awareness about the overt censorship
prevalent in modern America. The bot
tom line is that banning books is uncon
stitutional, and as a community we
have an obligation to our children to
uphold democracy through freedom of
speech. Praise is in order for our for
ward-thinking community that does
not censor literature based on its moral
ity or unconventional context.
The complete list of banned books
is available on the American Library
Association Web site at
www.ala.org/bbooks/challeng.html.
Editorial Policy
These editorials represent the opinion of
the Emerald editorial board. The editorial
board members are editor in chief Jessica
Blanchard, managing editor Michael J.
Kleckner, editorial editor Julie
Lauderbaugh, assistant editorial editor
Jacquelyn Lewis, community
representative Gabe Shaughnessy and
community representative Jessica
Southwick. Responses can be sent to
editor@dailyemerald.com. Letters to the'
editor and guest commentaries are
encouraged. Letters are limited to 250
words and guest commentaries to 550
words. Please include contact information.
The Emerald reserves the right to edit for
space, grammar and style.
Grad students welcome
Guest Commentary
Sasha
Tavenner Kruger
You don't have time to be reading
the newspaper, what with all the
grading you have to do, the office
hours you have to keep, the prepa
rations for your classes and your own
homework on top of it all.
Yes, you are a graduate teaching fellow.
Or, you are studying, researching and try
ing to hold down a job or two or three. The
application for the latest financial aid
package is due. You might not have much
time, but you probably have opinions. You
might have a few “Tales of Horror” involv
ing teaching or grading or a professor who
ought to wear black leather and spikes as
fair warning. Perhaps you have time-saving
grading tips. Why are you in grad school
again? You might have something to say
about that, too.
If you have a comment for your comrades
with ink-stained fingers, or something to
tell the world, this is your place to do it.
Come one, come all, and make your views
heard. Or read, at least.
This guest column is a brand-new gradu
ate student forum where a new author will
have a chance to have their say every other
week. The topic is up to the author but
ought to have something to do with the
graduate school experience or the more
generic “student” experience. GTFs are es
pecially encouraged to participate. To
loosely paraphrase our contact on the
Emerald staff, content can be pretty wide
open, as long as it includes a tie-in to cam
pus life or issues which students would
find relevant.
A call to action is one example of appropri
ate material. If you choose to discuss a project
that you are working on, we simply ask that
the relevance to students is clear. The column
should have a first-person perspective.
Any GTF or unsupported graduate stu
dent is welcome to contribute. If there is a
flood of response, we will save the columns
for future use.
If there is only a trickle of incipient au
thorship, then you'll hear more from partic
ularly prolific people.
The graduate student community is sur
prisingly large — more than 3,000 people
this term so far (including law students,
and registration is still open), approximate
ly 850 of whom are GTFs. (Numbers for last
year were about 3,000 and 1,200, respec
tively.) We are also remarkably provincial;
rarely do people cross departmental bound
aries or spend much time outside the lab, li
brary or office.
This column is an opportunity for gradu
ate students to share experiences with the
entire campus. The details may differ, but
we are all in this together. We help make the
University run. Our opinions matter. Our
experiences, once described to others, help
us see that we are not isolated, nor are our
troubles and triumphs completely unique.
Public forums can be hard to come by.
Let's make this one work.
Do you want to have a say? Contact Sasha Tavenner Kruger
(quack@darkwing.uoregon.edu) for information on editorial
guidelines and deadlines. Sasha Tavenner Kruger’s views do
not necessarily represent those of the Emerald.
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Steve Baggs Emerald