a6 e Page 4 * OPINION Tuesday, September 10, 1985 The Michigan Daily r mt chtpan, atig . Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan VI, No. 4 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board Stifling the middle student Vol. XC ny Hungei -he Congressional Budget Of- fice's recent release of statistics which indicate a sizable drop in the number of person below the poverty level has elicited choruses of self-adulation from the Reagan ranks. For the Administration's suppor- ters, the rise of approximately four million Americans above the poverty level (established as $10,610 for a family of four), is reason to rejoice. Such myopic misinterpretation of the brutal facts of poverty, however, is an audacious insult to those still struggling-whether earning less, or a few pennies more than $10,610 a year. While the indicators of economic recovery are valid, the seriousness of the plight of the more than 30 million Americans who are of- ficially hungry or denied decent housing should not be discounted. Unfortunately, the Administra- tion is using the statistics to celebrate the capacity of private voluntary organizations (PVOs ) to "fill in the gaps" where gover- nment programs fail to provide sufficiently. PVOs are currently stretching their resources to the limits. The generosity and efforts of church groups and other private relief p Spark for' r at home providers who operate food pan- tries, soup kitchens and shelters are appreciable, but do not excuse the Administration's responsibility to care for the significant numbers of Americans living below the poverty level. Sadly, in 1985 poverty has become a problem among an increasingly younger population. Where in the 1970s the majority of those suf- fering from malnutrition and other poverty related injustices were elderly, today, 22.2 percent of the nation's children (under 18) live in poverty. The repercussions of so many youngsters growing up disadvan- taged and hungry is devestating to both the individuals and the nation. According to leading child nutrition experts, cases of. severe malnutrition resulting in the wasting of the limbs of small children-most often documented in the the underdeveloped coun- tries of the Third World-are being found with alarming frequency in major hospitals across the nation. The escape of four million form the official ranks of the poverty- stricken is but another politically manufactured myth: in the wealthiest nation in the world, the reality of more than 30 million of- ficially impoverished persons is nothing to celebrate. Contadora? By Robert D. Honigman Third in a series Whatever the reason, and they are ob- viously many, the fact remains that most students feel they cannot compete with their professors and cannot relate to them in any other way either. So they retreat into their own world. -Christopher Jencks and David Riesman, 1968. The modern university is dominated by professional elites. If the university as a whole is a filtering device designed to reward and encourage the academic personality at the expense of other aspects of human development, the existence of professional elitism adds an even harsher dimension to this screening process. For it is no longer suf- ficient merely to be academically oriented, you must also be a genius, the best in your field. In a system dominated by superstars, the average student, no matter how academically competent, must feel inferior to the top men and women who teach him. Professional elitism is more than mere professionalism. Suppose the law profession were dominated by a mere thousand people at the top, who set all the rules, assigned all the work, and monitored admission to the profession. Gradually, the profession would become the servant of these elites, serving them under the guise of serving the public. Something like this happened in medicine un- til doctors of osteopathy broke the AMA's monopoly. Honigman is an attorney in Sterling Heights. Let's contrast a democratic social organization with an authoritarian one. In a democratic organization there are superstars and they do indeed stand out and earn great rewards, but their rewards are not dispropor- tionate - that is, they do earn more than the average person, but no one really envies them or feels themselves to be a failure simply because they can't compete with the super- stars. You might envy John McEnroe his success, but you don't suffer in life merely because you aren't John McEnroe. Nor do you believe that John McEnroe is a better human being than you are. In a hierarchical organization, however, things are a little different. The people who reach the top control the distribution of wealth. They control the ac- cess to information, they control how hard the ordinary person works and the types of rewards distributed to ordinary people. Therefore, being an ordinary person in such institutions is equivalent to being a second class citizen. Let me illustrate by an example. In the ac- counting field, the Big Eight accounting firms dominate the profession. Each firm has world-wide offices and may have up to 20,000 professional accountants on its staff. But usually, only ten percent of these professionals are partners, and it is the par- tners who make all the money. The remaining accountants are given a trial period, during which they are worked very hard and tested relentlessly, and then nine out of ten of them are eventually washed out. Much the same thing happens in prestigious Wall-Street type law firms. The young professionals do the hard work, bringing in far more in fees than they are paid, and then a select few are admitted to partnership, while the rest are washed out. Much the same thing happens in academe. The junior professionals and graduate student teachers do most of the hard grinding undergraduate teaching work - bringing in, by the way, far more in tuition and state revenue for such teaching than is expended in their salaries. They progress up the ladder where onlya few are eventually admitted into tenured professional status, In this kind of a system, people at the low end of the scale tend to be exploited and they tend to be nobodies. Moreover, by any realistic appraisal, most of them will go through life knowing that they can't hope to reach the top of their profession because, there is room at the top for only a few. My point is that it is bad enough when the academic sets himself or herself up as the role model of what a student ought to be, but it is infinitely worse when a superstar is erect ted as the role model of what a student should try to be. The effect is crippling. I believe professional elites in higher education turn students off because they don't offer them any realistic or rewarding role models. It's also my belief that the enormous decline in SAT scores among the generation between 1972 and 1982 is the result of this academic failure to meet students half-why and reassure them of their worth.h r Professional elites dominate the world; of higher education because we pay too much t tention to the successes of academic and scientific superstars and not enough attention to the price we pay for their success. The price, I think, is too high. For the effect is a process which first in- stills in the brightest of our youth the highest hopes and then places them in; a competitive race which only a few can win. -Gagnon, 1960 V I -4 Wasserman GE~NERA- CAN TKE STPr2 WARS~ DEVKN SH SIE.LP ALLy Wof2V? WoV\J9 m\ CIW - TU S' ° \l: S-7 C 1 t I / a t a a a C q, W ith surprisingly little fanfare, the Reagan Administration took a positive step toward solving some of the crises in Central America yesterday when it sent Assistant Secretary of State Elliot Abrams to the Contadora peace talks in Panama. The Contadora peace talks were first held in 1983 when represen- tatives from Panama, Mexico, Venezuela, and Colombia met to seek means of preventing further violence in the already troubled ,region. They have met sporadically since then, and have been on the verge of forwarding a treaty encompassing solutions to many of the regions problems more than once, but in each instance last minute complications have preven- ted any formal steps from being taken. Last year, the United States rejected -a proposed treaty that would have allowed Nicaragua to maintain an internal army to com- bat Contra forces. The U.S. then used its influence to persuade other central American countries such as Honduras not to sign the treaty. The Contadora talks represent once of the few tangible hopes for progress in the area. With El Salvador embroiled in a bitter civil war and Nicaragua countering U.S. backed guerrilla forces there is already a great deal of de facto military conflict. With some Contra forces operating out of other Cen- tral American countries and Hon- duras staging joint military excer- sizes with U.S. troops on the Nicaraguan border the entire area looks as if it might explode into bloody high-technology war. The current Reagan position toward Nicaragua calls for a trade blockade that is forcing the San- dinista government there to depend increasingly on Cuban and Soviet aid and diminishing chances for an easing of tensions between the U.S. and Nicaragua. Simply sending an ambassador to take part in the Contadora talks hardly indicates a change in policy by the Reagan Administration, but it is encouraging that the Reagan Administration is according in- creased attention to the talks. There will undoubtedly be years of tension before any substantial ad- vances are made in Central America, but the more seriously the U.S. engages in negotiations about the area, the more likely that peace will come sooner. Tk{IS BABY WILL RBSoQB ANT}1NG VoU GI N Th2'oW PS.T IT 1 r a ALL .9..>/ , i\ " . 1 2GQ- IT'LL Vck UP' OV1P 30 F1LLIWtI IN "T RE P112T 1VE /C-AQAPOND IrI 7 (l I --- - Pouvez-vous lire cet article? By Michael J. Dunne A traditionally gloomy topic of conversation among Michigan undergraduates is the dreaded language requirement enforced by the college of Literature, Science and the Arts. Traditional because, for several years, most students have been face with the task of meeting the requirement. Gloomy because individuals resent being obliged to study a second language for four semesters. A legitimate gripe, you say? Let us not forget that L.S.A. stan- ds for Literature, Science and Ar- ts and that a liberal arts education necessarily includes exposure to a wide variety of sub- jects. Such diversity instills in each student a greater cultural and intellectual level of awareness.Given that language is the basis of culture, what bet- ter way to appreciate different cultures than to explore foreign line of one's tuition and one's right to choose courses at will. Indeed, payment of the tuition bill simply permits entry into the University system. Everyonesis still subject to the guidelines set forth by the directors of his respective colleges. Most students' attitude toward the language requirement policy at Michigan is pitiful. En- thusiastic language students are frequently disillusioned by their peers' apathy toward the study of foreign languages. This indifference is, in part, responsible for the sweeping surge of ethnocentricism among young Americans and is detrimental to fostering greater understanding among peoples across the globe. Furthermore, the quality of language classes at the University can only diminish as such. attitudes continue to in- crease. Students who consider the BLOOM COUNTY language requirement a piece of aggravation should, instead, recognize the value of language learnin broade cultural g as a vehicle for fing their narroved d horizons. .. -- - The Opinion Page Editors Michigan Daily are seeking of the hard- . J S v _ aSR cp- working, politically, aware people to join the Opinion Page staff in our 96th year of publication. Interested students should submit writing samples to Joseph Kraus, Jody Becker, or Karen Klein in the Senior Office of the Michigan Daily, Student Publications Building, 420 Maynard St. or attend the Mass Meeting on Sept. 11 at 7:30 p.m. Interviews will be scheduled on an in- dividual basis. -, - C a { S G . I t Y }}, t i YT E apAR1 1E1D 9L s by Berke Breathed'I -~