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4 - The Michigan Daily - Thursday, September 30, 1993
aIeT AibiJuni~UilQ
Shr as Toat by
420 Maynard
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Edited and managed
by students at the
University of Michigan
JOSH Dusow
Editor in Chief
ANDREW LEVY
Editorial Page Editor
ILL
- ,
Unless otherwise noted, unsigned editorials reflect the majority opinion of the Daily editorial board.
All other cartoons, articles and letters do not necessarily represent the opinion of the Daily.
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Insight
Just a syllable away from fluency
What do actors James Earl Jones
and Bruce Willis, British Prime Minis-
ter Winston
Churchill and
Delaware Senator
Joe Biden, golfer
Ken Venturi and
the Bulls' Bob
Love all have in
common? Few
know it, but they CAMPUS
all stuttered. INQUIRY
Naturally, they're
not alone; some-
where between 2
and 3 million Americans stutter. But
despite their large numbers, disfluent
Americans get little attention in mass
media, and this neglect unfortunately
leaves many to struggle with the prob-
lem alone, isolated, and unaware of the
many hundreds of thousands of fellow
stutterers who lead normal, healthy
lives.
Having this opportunity to reach
thousands of people, it would there-
fore be an unforgivable and regrettable
oversight if I failed to address the is-
sue. B ut even as a stutterer, I would not
presume to speak for all who are
disfluent. I would hope instead that
everyone, fluent or not, can find some
interest in this stutterer's own thoughts
on disfluency.
While many consider stuttering to
be a disability, I cannot accept that
characterization. Not wanting to dis-
miss the seriousness of the chronic
condition, I would still suggest that
stuttering has proven to be more of a
nuisance than a handicap. Allow me to
explain.
Take, for the sake of argument,
another condition that is regarded as a
physical disability: blindness. Blind-
ness-barring those specific instances
where blindness is a passing symptom
Mazumdar is an LSA senior. His
column, Campus Inquiry, appears
every other Thursday in the Daily.
- is a permanent and perpetual condi-
tion. Sight will not come and go as a
blindperson moves fromroom toroom,
from friendly company to strange com-
pany, or from home to work; the blind
are always blind and can thus arrange
their daily habits to accommodate.
Stuttering is different. Disfluency
comes and goes. Those who stutter
may be more disfluent in the class-
room than at the dinner table, among
acquaintances than among friends, or
with men than with women. Stutterers
when alone can often speak confi-
dently or recite poetry eloquently.
Many, like myself, become entirely
fluent when in the presence of aspeech
therapist.
This characteristic makes stutter-
ing particularly frustrating. Other
physical conditions are usually the re-
sult of some explainable physiological
process. According to therapist Louise
Peelle of the University's Communi-
cative Disorders Clinic, stuttering is
suspected to result from a breakdown
in the complex communicative pro-
cess, involving the brain, the lips, and
everything in between.
But we know little beyond that; the
causes of stuttering remain unknown.
Coupling that inability to rationalize
my own sporadic disfluency with the
constant feeling (or hope) that fluency
is only a breath (syllable/word/sen-
tence) away inevitably leaves this stut-
terer a little demoralized.
In all honesty, though, I cannot say
that disfluency has had any measur-
able effects on the quality, character,
or habits of my daily life. The problem
has become little more than a nuisance
- something I wish would just go
away.
As one might expect, my many
speech therapists have all dutifully in-
formed me that, of all the things that
could happen to my stuttering, "just
going away" will never be one of them.
The initial baby steps in speech
therapy involve accepting the fact that
I will probably always stutter to some.
degree, and, more importantly, realiz-
ing that stuttering has no bearing on
my self worth. There is, however, aflip
side to the coin. Accepting one's own
potential regardless of disfluency is an
important confidence-building step.
But I long ago accepted that I would
always stutter, and I long ago learned
that I can be relatively successful even
with a stutter. The result ofthatrealiza-
tion was the postponement of any seri-
ous efforts to improve my fluency:
success despite disfluency is a consid-
erable disincentive to improving
speech.
So why seek (or, in my case, return
to) speech therapy? For those who
suffer greater disfluency, the answer
may be more obvious. But for milder
stutterers like me, the issue becomes
one of character building: finding the
will to fix something that need not be
broken, removing a perpetually poten-
tial obstacle, and transforming thecon-
stant fear of disfluency into a new and
fluent confidence.
For those who have given up on
therapy, I encourage you to try again.
For those who have yet to try it, call the
University's Communicative Disor-
ders Clinic at 764-8440 for informa-
tion. The Disorders Clinic also runs a
support group for adult stutterers ev-
ery Monday evening from 5:30 to 6:30
pm in the Victor Vaughan Building
and welcomes all who wish to attend.
Those stutterers who have never met a
fellow stutterershould consider attend-
ing: understanding thatwe aren'talone
is key to seeing our stuttering in proper
perspective.
To those who do not stutter; I en-.
courage patience, compassion, and re-
spect for those who do. Patronizing
advice like "slow down"or commiser-
ating remarks like "I had a cousin who
stuttered" usually aren't helpful. Fi-
nally, please understand if we'd rather
not see "A Fish Called Wanda" a sec-
ond time.
Report examines role of lecturers
Recycle means to use
things more than once
To the Daily:
I believe that some of us do not
recall the meaning of "recycle."
Perhaps all of your work and those
weekend parties have drained your
mental capacities and left no room
for this definition.
It was not very long ago when the
"re-" in recycle meant "again" -
recycle again. Unfortunately but
luckily, landfills do not grow on
trees, so you had better revive your
memory. In addition, I would like to
give a few notices to those
individuals who have suffered
recycling amnesia.
Attention to those people who
throw any soda cans in the garbage.
If you walk an additional 5 feet and
look ahead, you may deposit them in
the recycle drum marked "cans,"
which is spelled c-a-n-s. I would also
like to call attention to those persons
responsible for depositing the masses
of clean paper, foam coffee cups and
glass bottles in the trash container
a7nd vice-' versa to those who try fto
walk into Angel Hall, the recycling
bins are glaring at you.
Has society become so lazy that it
can not hold a few itmes for a few
more seconds before they are
properly put in their place? I guess
that is fine, becuase after we pollute
ourselves to death, we will no longer
have to do this "cumbersome" chore.
Just remember that the next time you
throw something away in the wrong
place, everyone else who cares will
be watching you. Think about it.
ERNEST CHEN
LSA senior
Lester draws false
conclusions in piece
To the Daily:
Ian Lester draws several
erroneous conclusions in his article -
"Drugs, Religion Offer an Escape" -
which must be clarified. Lester
writes that science and time have
out-moded the Bible; belief in the
existence of a God offers an "escape
from reality" because it is easy to
place the "blame" on God rather than
"focuin inardsn": and like'
sources like Josephus only serve to
illustrate the accuracy of Scripture.
Even in studying the purely physical
sciences, the rational individual is
led by the complexity and ordered
lpgic of his field to acknowledge the
existence of a Creator.
Moreover, subjective
disagreement over biblical
interpretation is not a basis for
discounting Scripture as a reliable
source - the scientist's
misinterpretations of (or arguments
over) the physical laws of nature are
not a basis for choosing to deny the
existence of these laws!!
Lester seems to have the
mistaken impression that Christians
believe in god merely to have a
scapegoat for their own actions. In
fact, this is directly contrary to the
truth, since it is the Christian alone
who faces up to the ultimate
consequences of his actions!
Drug use and religion are
strongly related? This argument
doesn't even deserve rebuttal!
Although he sings the praises of
reality, the real irony of Mr. Lester's
article is the stupendous leap from
By JAYNE THORSON, Ph.D.
and PHYLLIS STILLMAN
"There are more and more lectur-
ers in my department, and they're get-
ting way too much power."
"Lecturers are underpaid and ex-
ploited; they do all of the teaching that
professors don't want to do anymore,
for afraction of the pay."
These quotes represent two very
disparate views on a topic of growing
concern to faculty across the country.
Are non-tenure-track faculty a threat
to tenured faculty? Or are they an
,a.....lnoanAarrlae h .ca eA tr%
becoming increasingy dependent on
instructional staff who are not eligible
for tenure. (This report addresses is-
sues related to the instructional staff.
Although "faculty" is often defined to
include a variety of non-instructional
appointments, for the purposes of this
report "faculty" will refer to instruc-
tional staff. Non-tenure-track faculty
currently account for nearly one in
three members of the total faculty.
During the 1982-1992decade, the num-
ber of tenure-track faculty at U-M (all
campuses combined) increased by
11 czhiF tho. k~ n inthar rfn nn-tann.,
Assembly (June 16, 1986) reads, in
part:
"The Tenure Committee opposes
efforts to create categories if faculty
appointments without tenure such as
career or senior lecturers. If the Uni-
versity needs such people to teach and
wishes to have a longer term or career
commitmentfrom them, the Univer-
sity should expect to proide the possi-
bility of tenure. The teacher with ten-
ure is a teacjer whose service can be
terminated only for adequate cause.
We think that ever full-time teacher
chrudd A ~thrave that i tn nr hPa
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