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| February 17, 2000 |
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In
our words...
Gas prices are entirely to high Don't be quick to judge, gossip The Forum King is not the only one who had a dream Students do not understand faculty office hours Letter writer did not understand faculty office hours In
Our Words...
AIt’s coming. And it’s coming soon. In fact, it’s coming Saturday. What are we talking about? Why, one of the biggest rivalries in the Southern Conference, and even in the South. Appalachian versus Davidson. No it’s not like ASU versus Western, because there is no jug on the line, but the hatred is about the same, maybe even more, because this game is usually for bragging rights in the North Division. Last year, the match drew 7,317 fans. When we won they stormed the court and celebrated. You know the Appalachian basketball poster that so many businesses have hanging up to support the team? That photo is from the Davidson game. Well, this year, the game is going to be televised live on ESPN2. The crew is going to arrive on campus tomorrow afternoon to watch the practice, and then they will do the color commentary live at noon on Saturday. This is our big chance as fans to be nationally recognized. All of us can be Maniacs. Our parents can call their friends who can’t pronounce “Ap-pa-LATCH-an” and say “Did you see my son/daughter on TV?” But more importantly having a big showing with fans and noise brings ESPN back to the gym too. They are always looking to broadcast small schools, but only small schools with loud fans. We know we can do it. We as fans have been apathetic toward our team for this season. Now is our chance to become like those Cameron Crazies the whole nation knows about. What would be ideal is if students and fans could paint their faces, chests, posters, shirts, whatever in support of our team. If we came with 3-cards, and signs for ESPN2. The camera is going to be watching and we all should want to be there right in its face. Get there, and get there early. You better believe that the Davidson fans will be there en masse. And wouldn’t it be great to send Davidson fans home with a huge disappointing loss that was seen on national TV? But more importantly we don’t want to hear them over us in our own gym. ESPN2 decided to air us and we don’t
want them to be disappointed in their decision.
Gas
prices are entirely to high
When I hear people talking about the economy at the present time, I hear things like, There are plenty of jobs and unemployment is way down and stocks are up. The economy is booming, so they say. While I don’t dispute these suggestions, I would like to ask those same people if they have been to the gas pumps lately and experienced those booming gas prices that this great economy allows us the opportunity to spend a good portion of the money we make on. Right now the national average price on gasoline, including all grades and taxes, is $1.41 per gallon, according to a nationwide survey. Prices at self-service gas stations average $1.36 for regular unleaded gasoline, $1.46 for mid-grade and $1.54 for premium. It’s no big deal, right? I know I’m complaining, as many do, while other people just say that they’ll pay it, and shrug it off. Well, that’s nice for the people who either have money coming out of their ears or only put between seven and 10,000 miles on their vehicles a year, but I don’t fall into either one of those categories. I drive a lot, much like the average American does, which puts about 15,000 miles on my car each year. And for us, especially those of us in college who aren’t making real salaries yet, it’s expensive to put our cars on the road. Not because of maintenance, payments or even insurance costs, but rather, because we have to fork out $20 each time we fill up our tanks at the gas station. And I’m figuring that $20 spent is on a car, in this case mine, which holds about 15 gallons. Now, my car gets decent- not great- gas mileage, so I’m not stopping at the Exxon all the time. But, I honestly feel sorry for many people, ASU students included, who drive gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicles during this hike in fuel prices. Of course, I realize that many of these people, but not all, (note, I wrote not all) have Mom and Dad pay for it with that gas card they gave them for the Limited Edition Toyota 4Runner they bought them. Okay, if we are figuring about 350 miles per tank of gas, then it’ll take about 43 refuels to reach 15,000 miles, at $20 a pop. That means we’ll be spending about $900 this year on gas alone, and that is ridiculous. So why are gas prices the highest they’ve been since the all-time average peak, $1.46 per gallon, during the Persian Gulf War in 1991? Well one reason, reports say, is that winter months see a drop in gasoline usage as drivers stay off the roads, but January’s demand was 5.5 percent higher than the same period in 1999. Surely you remember the prices this time last year. Remember when we saw regular unleaded gasoline for $.79 a gallon, mid-grade fuel for about $.88 and premium for $.99, and we were saying this is too good to be true, oh say ... about late February last year? Well, it was. Consumers aren’t the only ones suffering. Dealers are sacrificing some profit too, so don’t go jump all over your local gas station clerk because you’re upset about the prices. Another reason for the rising gasoline prices is that January saw a cold spell that boosted heating oil prices, encouraging refiners to keep producing heating oil instead of gasoline. The hike started last March, when an agreement was reached between the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and other key producing countries to cut their combined daily production by 2.1 million barrels. In a meeting last month, OPEC decided to continue restricting world oil supplies well into 2000. Beyond that, reports say U.S. gasoline inventories were the lowest they’d ever been for the end of January over the last 15 years. So can’t our government help us out? Well yes, but the answer is no! Our beloved President Clinton, despite the wishes of Congress, is not planning to release crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson must share Clinton’s views, as he told reporters they are not prepared to use the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in the present position of the market, saying, “We don’t believe this is a supply emergency.” So what can we, as consumers, expect? If there isn’t a strong effort by refiners to increase supply, motorists can expect to see all-time high gasoline prices by Memorial Day and continuing on through summer. Look on the bright side, though.
As long as you’re not traveling up North or out West during these times,
you’ll pay less for your gasoline.
Don't
be quick to judge, gossip
When the latest edition of The Appalachian came out, I knew that it was going to spur lots of discussion around campus. The alleged rape at the Kappa Alpha fraternity house is a story that nobody likes to read about, because a story like this has ramifications that can spread like a brushfire through the Greek system, the campus and the community. What was disappointing to me was that although I knew the story would bring discussion, I did not know people would be so quick to judge the people involved. At this present moment, the majority of people do not know anything, but they are already making accusations. I am not saying that this girl was or was not raped, I don’t know anymore than the next person. However, I have already heard stories that people are making up that also don’t know anything. People love to gossip, and they love to pass gossip along even more. In the Greek system, this looks really bad because it seems that whenever people that are not Greek have a chance to belittle Greeks, they do. This has been this way ever since I got here five years ago, and will probably continue for years to come. Fraternity and sorority members put up with a lot in trying to defend themselves. They are told that they buy their friends and are called names that are demeaning. Then when something like this happens, people begin to stereotype, in this case saying all that fraternity men do is get drunk and are sexually aggressive, which is far from true. Once again, the rape is alleged, but if it did happen, just because it happened at a fraternity house does not mean that a fraternity member did it. The report was that there were 300-500 attendees at the party. People that I have talked to seem to be really closed-minded that it was a fraternity member because they see that the fraternities involved were suspended. The bottom line here is that this
is a terrible thing, whether it is in Boone or New York.
It has only four letters, but whenever it is talked about, the consequences go a long way. People have signed, sealed and convicted just from what they read in the newspapers or reports on television. What was surprising was that even the professors in my classes seemed to be a little biased. So let the people that are hired to investigate do their job. If you hear rumors (and you will, I promise), let it go in one ear and out the other. Don’t be so quick to judge until all the facts come out. Stop the whispering and the gossip. Finally, if it ends up that this
is true, we as students should not focus on who or where, rather figure
out why. Why it happened and how it can be prevented in the future.
The
Forum
To the Editor: In the Jan. 20 opinion piece “Is Dr. King’s dream still alive” I read something that upset me. First, “I have a dream” wasn’t written by MLK alone, scholars proved that 42 percent of that speech was plagiarized. In Texas an elderly white woman was beaten and dragged behind a truck for three miles by a black man. An 8-year-old white girl was raped, beaten and then stabbed 82 times by three black men for what they called “something to do.” The reason we didn’t hear about any of this is simple: these are all about attacks on whites. These are stories confined to the small print, backpages of papers everywhere, courtesy coverage. Now for the “hot topic” in America, the confederate flag. The main villain behind the reputation of the South is it’s own people; Southerners who deny their past, and hate groups who misuse the flag through their poor representation of it. The plain and simple fact is that this country has become a haven for unfair double standards. If we are striving for “equality” then let the train run in both directions. Articles like the one I read are what will not allow the wounds to heal. In closing all of the above said are facts, yet by writing this story, by exercising my rights, I would be deemed a racist by the American public. The public, media and its people prefer to maintain double standards in the coverage of racial problems plaguing this country. S. Lawler
Students do not understand faculty office hours To the Editor: I was saddened by Frank Huffman’s letter concerning faculty office hours, published in The Appalachian on February 10. Appalachian State University’s faculty has a longstanding reputation of committed service to its students, one that I believe is born out by the many close mentoring relationships that exist between them, both in and out of the classroom. Some faculty are advocating the reduction of mandatory office hours (currently ten per week), but I want students to know that they are not doing so in order to increase their leisure or reduce the time they devote to supporting student learning. An internal report, completed in the last few years, shows that ASU’s faculty work an average of a little over sixty hours per week. In my first semester on campus, I personally averaged between sixty and seventy hours, working evenings, weekends, and holidays. Even so, I do not now, nor have I ever, begrudged the hours spent in what I have long considered a labor of love. Last fall, I accepted a position at ASU because, when I visited campus, I was so impressed with the faculty’s commitment to students as well as to their own intellectual and creative vitality. Students benefit when faculty are not only devoted to instruction, but to remaining professionally active, however that activity may be defined. Consider that, as public intellectuals, university professors have a duty to serve not only their students, or the institutions that they help to govern, but also the academic communities and society of which they are a part. Even at teaching-intensive colleges, such as ASU (where faculty such as myself often teach four courses a semester), scholarly publication is increasingly required. This is because universities recognize the value of remaining professionally active, even at such a demanding level. If some of ASU’s faculty, then, wish to have more flexibility in their schedules, to better determine how best their time is spent, I do not believe they should be condemned for their position nor should the position itself be dismissed without careful consideration. I urge the university community to do all it can to support faculty efforts to better meet the related imperatives of their profession, whether through a reduction of office hours or some other measure that allows for the reasonable distribution of workload demands. Kelly Searsmith, Ph.D.
Letter writer did not understand faculty office hours To the Editor: This letter is in response to the recent “controversy” of faculty office hours and faculty workload. I specifically write to commend the letter in The Appalachian written by one of my former graduate students, Frank Huffman. Huffman is critical of faculty who believe they should be allowed to work less in some areas (e.g., keep less office hours and teach less) so they can accomplish more in other areas (e.g., engage in scholarship, publish, not to mention to have personal lives). While we clearly must work hard to be respected as quality teachers, scholars and citizens, being a faculty member provides some incredible benefits which are found in few other professions. For example, we are actually only accountable for being on campus somewhere between 19-22 hours per week (9-12 hours of teaching, 10 office hours). We do complete other work at home, including grading, preparing for class and engaging in research and service activities. Thus, there is the potential that some faculty members do actually work 40 or more hours. This is true for me, and it is true for other professors. But, I don’t think any of us works 50 or 60 hours per week because we have to, we do it because we want to. Some of us are trying to make a difference in the world and in our disciplines through the work we do off campus. As a faculty member, I am not “oppressed.” Some faculty on campus
have actually suggested that they feel “oppressed” because of their work
load.
I applaud the letter written by Huffman and I encourage others to freely voice their opinions on this matter. Dr. Matt Robinson
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