4 - The Michigan Daily - Friday, April 10, 1998
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420 Maynard Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Edited and managed by
students at the
University of Michigan
LAURIE MAYK
Editor in Chief
JACK SCHILLACI
Editorial Page Editor
'Let them eat cake.
Unless otherwise noted, unsigned editorials reflect the opinion of the majority of the Daily s editorial boar.
All other articles, letters and cartoons do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Michigan Dail}
FROM THE DAILY
Moving o
- Former Michigan Student Assembly Vice President
Olga Savic, on her last day leading the assembly
YUKI KUNIYUKI GROU ND ZERO
ThII NEXT CP~1'Eg- W f~
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1
LSA Dean Goldenberg
The first female dean of the College of
Literature, Science, and the Arts,
Edie Goldenberg, announced on Monday
that she will resign from her position in
August. Having served as the dean of
LSA for nine years, Goldenberg felt it
was time for a change, both for herself
and for the University.
Through these years,
Goldenberg has influ-
enced and changed many:
aspects of the University.
Of the numerous and
wide-ranging contribu-
tions Goldenberg has
made, many have been
positive and, welcome Goldenberg
improvements for LSA as well as for the
University as a whole. Goldenberg
worked closely and collaborated with
deans from the other colleges of the
University to share and integrate ideas.
With a focus on quality, Goldenberg
rebuilt many undergraduate programs as
well as improving faculty recruitment and
retention, while completing the most suc-
cessful fund-raising campaign to increase
the college's endowment.
Because of these and other achieve-
ments, Goldenberg became one of five
finalists in the 1996 search for a new
University president. But she is better
known among much of the University
community for declining her candidacy
when the names of the candidates were
forced into the public eye by the Open
Meetings Act.
resigns after nine years
Other aspects of Goldenberg's tenure
were controversial as well. While the
implementation of many of her initiatives
benefited the University and LSA stu-
dents, the same initiatives neglected other
parts of the University. Goldenberg great-
ly expanded and improved entire depart-
ments, such as the sciences, within LSA.
But at the same time, departments such as
communication studies and the journal-
ism program were ignored and under bud-
geted.
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Goldenberg
instituted
the
Undergraduate Research Opportunity
Program and increased the amount and
quality of undergraduate seminars. Her
expansion of many of the living-learning
communities, aided by the Division of
Student Affairs was premature, and has
consequently led to underdeveloped, yet
overly ambitious programs.
But in spite of controversy Edie
Goldenberg's years as LSA dean were
filled with projects and initiatives that
changed and shaped the University; her
contributions to the University were sub-
stantial and significant. As the University
administration begins its selection
process to find Goldenberg's replace-
ment, it should keep in mind the many
benefits and problems that made up her
tenure. LSA is the largest school at the
University and the decisions pertaining to
its running - facilitated by the dean -
affect many students. LSA must continue
to grow in the same manner that it did
during her stay.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
A bureaucratic burden
Childcare should come before the bottom line
W hen President Bill Clinton promised
to balance the budget, a new era
focusing upon downsizing big government
and finding cost-effective solutions began.
One such cutback at the state level has not
only decreased future spending but also the
quality of services. The Family
Independence Agency has run into prob-
lems because of the state government's
desire to cut back on overall spending. The
agency subsidizes families' day care costs
for children 12 and under by a certain
amount depending on each family's overall
income. The day care program has grown
tremendously during the past two years
from 26,351 families receiving subsidies to
52,858 families this February. With this
tremendous growth, the agency's costs have
grown rapidly and the state government
appropriated $211.2 million for the agency
in this year's budget.
But problems originated when the state
bought out 13 percent of the agency's
employees last spring in an effort to save
taxpayers' money. This buy-out program is
good for decreasing government expendi-
tures, but careful attention must be given to
the bureaucratic agencies that lose a sub-
stantial portion of their labor force. In a
case like this one, the government scaled
down an agency's workforce when a greater
number of state residents needed its benefi-
cial services. When government officials
reduced the number of people working in
the agency, they failed to realize the serious
consequences of their actions.
Replacements have been and are being
trained to fill those vacant positions, but the
entire transition period has put the FIA in a
state of tremendous chaos.
The people who are suffering the most
from this breakdown are people on welfare
they are employed. Through the government's
actions, the situation has seriously deteriorat-
ed - many childcare providers will no longer
offer day care to children subsidized by the
FIA because it owes money to the businesses.
Of the 52,858 families receiving day care
assistance in February, 10,123 families were
on welfare; this is too large a percentage to
ignore. New welfare laws, forcing people to
get a job after a certain number of years, can-
not work the way they were designed to if wel-
fare recipients cannot leave their homes to
search for employment. Currently, those wel-
fare recipients receiving aid from the FIA
cannot leave their homes without leaving their
young children alone - childcare providers
must accept children and parents on welfare.
The burden of this bureaucratic inefficiency
has fallen squarely upon the shoulders of indi-
viduals who need day care subsidizes and the
children whose lives will not improve unless
their parents can take time to search for a job.
In response to these concerns, the state
initiated a program called Quick Start that
speeds up the approval process of new day
care applications by 35 days. This is mak-
ing a significant difference in payments
being made on time to newly approved
applicants. But a greater problem exists in
the re-approval process of current benefi-
ciaries. Their paper work seems to fall to
the bottom of bureaucratic paper stacks,
forcing current day care providers to refuse
children supported by the FIA. Greater
efforts need to be made to put the FIA back
on track, as it once was before workers
were bought out by state government.
Children and parents who need help should
not have to suffer because state politicians
failed to realize the consequences of their
cost reducing actions. Government offi-
cials need to fully assess the different con-
'U' admissions
should be
'highest
commitment'
To THE DAILY:
With all of the debate
about affirmative action and
University admissions in gen-
eral, I'm surprised that
nobody has taken on the true
culprit. The University's poli-
cy of rolling admissions con-
stitutes a hurdle that it will
have to overcome if it wants
to draw from the most-quali-
fied applicant pool possible.
The University's rolling
admissions policy causes
many well-qualified students
to sit in limbo while the
University constructs a wait-
list of all of the students who
have met or exceeded the cri-
teria for admission but can-
not be admitted because
other, potentially less-quali-
fied students have already
been admitted.
This system causes some
students to be denied admis-
sion not on the basis of their
merit or ethnic group, but
simply on the basis of when
they decided to bring their
application to the post office.
Over the past few years,
the University has consistent-
ly expanded freshman class
sizes beyond the number that
have been planned. This has
caused housing problems, a
restricted selection of classes
(particularly seminars) for
first-year students who regis-
ter toward the end of class
sign-ups, and countless hours
of indecision and uncertainty
in the lives of waitlisted
applicants. Also, the rolling
admissions policy requires
the admissions office to spec-
ulate on the quality of an
incoming class long before
even a fraction of the class to
be has submitted an applica-
tion. Why not just wait until
all applications have been
received and then evaluate
the applicant pool based on a
consistent and fair standard'?
Of course, the rolling
admissions policy can be
seen as a way for the
University to attract quali-
fied students who wish to
avoid waiting until mid-
April for admissions results.
There is nothing wrong with
this in theory, but most
highly competitive schools
require that a prospective
student agree to enroll if
accepted via early decision.
This system balances the
effect of early admissions
by assuming that students
who are not willing to com-
mit to enroll after early
decision are not worth space
in the first-year class. Such
a system decreases the num-
ber of early decision appli-
cants, thereby lowering the
amount of speculation
required by admissions offi-
cers and inresin the
University's highest commit- D
ment to its students, both cur- ally does
rent and prospective. 01 cover al l
MATTHEW MURPHY club sports
LSA JUNIOR
TO THE DAILY:
Two winners
could make
everyone a
lot happier
TO THE DAILY:
I would like to congratu-
late the Michigan hockey
team for their second nation-
al championship in three
years. My favorite memory,
as I watched the final
moments of the April 4
game, was sharing in the
ecstacy of the Michigan team
as I jumped around my apart-
ment. But half of the camera
shots were focused on the
weeping Boston College
team.
I realized then, that this
amazing contrast between
agony and ecstacy wasn't nec-
essary. There was a way every
one could be happy. There are
other sports where there does-
n't have to be one national
champion. As you may recall,
the University of Nebraska's
football team was spared this
agony, when a select fraternity
of college coaches decided to
hand them one-fourth of the
national championship hard-
ware.
Simply put, the game
could have been called after
regulation. Besides, Brian
"sudden death" Engblom was
so shocked that Boston
College didn't win after three
periods, he couldn't figure
out that Michigan's 5-0-1
overtime record was better
than Boston College's 1-2-5
record.
I must admit, I'm more of
a football fan than a hockey
fan, and the split national
championship seems like an
answer to everybody's
prayers.
Remember kindergarten?
Everybody should go home
thinking they are winners.
Well I guess that's whyhock-
ey is the No. 3 revenue
enhancer of all college
sports.
Go Blue ... and I love
college hockey.
SRIDHAR KAZA
ENGINEERING SENIOR
More minority
college grads
are needed
TO THE DAILY:
One of the most outstand-
ing issues on campus is affir-
mative action and the related
lawsuits. Having looked at the
amissions chart the onlv
I would like to make a
few comments regarding
Daily Sports Writer Josh
Kleinbaum's less-than-
impressive article regarding
the Michigan women's crew
team ("Michigan rowing
team to host cavaliers,"
3/26/98). Though the article
itself was clearly an indica-
tion of Kleinbaum's person-
al ignorance regarding the
oldest sport in intercolle-
giate athletics, the true pur-
pose of this letter is the first
two lines of the article:
"Believe it or not, Michigan
has a rowing team. And it's
pretty good, too." I find it
rather amusing that this line
appeared in the Daily that
recently claimed to be the
source of "All your
Michigan crew coverage." I
find myself wondering if
the exclusion of even the
slightest mention of the
men's team is a personal
attack or merely the product
of the highest form of intel-
lectual incompetence.
Now I know that the
Daily has a policy regarding
the coverage of'club teams,
a convenient veil repeatedly
used to cover up the Daily's
journalistic shortcomings,
but my first question has to
be, why? Is the Daily so
infantile that its only defini-
tion for a student athlete
derives from whom the
University chooses to
bestow Nike's self-promot-
ing financial contributions?
The fact that no club teams
are covered in the Daily
with even the slightest bit of
respect is a gross misuse of
the journalistic responsibili-
ties it is ill-suited to fulfill.
There are many student ath-
letes at this University who
do not receive free Nike
sweats, and work just as
hard as any to carry on the
stellar tradition of Michigan
athletics.
Theexistence of club
sports on this campus is a
very significant community,
and one that is completely
ignored in the Daily. If the its
job is to cover the various
facets of life on campus, then
I suggest that it actually ful-
fill that role, or at the very
least admit to its own incom-
petence.
The Daily claims not to
have the manpower to cover
every club sport. My
response is this: Why did it
waste the time, space and
effort on a full-page article
covering the bowling habits
of the hockey team? If the
absurdity of this fact is still
lost on-the Daily, then I apol-
ogize for taking a harsh tone
with a paper clearly unable to
nerceive neither a sense of
Everything is
political but
after graduation,
Iwontbe
O nce again, we're down to the wire
a week of class, a couple of
finals and -- bam - another hash mark
on the education tote-board .Just lik
that, my undergraduate career will b
done, diploma will
be in the mail and
the world will have
one more political
scientist who is
never really cal led
upon for his exper-
tise in third-world
political develop-
ment,third-party
candidates or
Jeffersonian demo- PAUL
cratic theory (that's SERILLA
right, slid the thirdat
there). Of course,
like any college career much of my edu-
cation came outside of the classroom,
and that goes double for my knowledge
of political science.
One of the first things you learn
while studying political science is thaO
everyone outside your field understands
politics better than you, and they are
happy to tell you about it. You spend
years of your life reading, studying,
researching and discussing politics
practical and philosophical - but still,
everyone else is fully prepared to tell
you that you are wrong. As soon as you
are marked as a poli sci major, everyone
moves in for the kill.
Who knew that my uncle has th
solution to the budget deficit - why h
waited until the middle of Thanksgiving
dinner to bring it up is beyond me; my
barber, he knows how to reduce the wel-
fare rolls, and that guy with the hot dog
cart on campus, he's got the solution to
the troubles in Northern Ireland. If they
had only pointed out these stunning
ideas earlier, I wouldn't have had to
write all those term papers and do all
that research.
Somehow,I don't think this happens
to navel architects: "You know Bob, I
know you're one of those boat guys, but
seriously, how on earth could you
design a keel like that, what were you
thinking? Oh yeah, that'll be $19.95 for
the oil change."
That's not to say that I regret studying
political science. Like they say, every-
thing's political, and in some sense, it's
a basic truth, not in the same sense th
physics is everywhere or philosoph
majors are unemployable, but in the
grand scheme of things, it's something
you can hold on to. As I continue on to
graduate school and eventually into the
business world, though the academic
realm of politics will cease to be a part
of my life, I'm sure that my education in
politics will continue. Politics is all
around you, and if you are careful, you
can always pick up a few pointers. *
There is always someone out there
pushing the boundaries and searching
new territory. If you've been following
the local political incubator, you know
that our new Michigan Student
Assembly president, Trent Thompson,
has been researching one of the basic
questions of American politics - how
many drinks does it take to get the aver-
age voter to care more about your piss-
ant campaign than what's on basic
cable? Shockingly, two-thirds of pote4
tial voters found voting for MSA more
interesting than "Saved By the Bell" re-
runs after only one shot. It's nice to see
one of the red-tape makers of tomorrow
taking such an interest in field research.
Trent old buddy, buy yourself a Franklin
Planner on us, you've earned it.
Actually, I am going to miss the
research. In fact, some other students and
1 just finished up a study on the influenc
of the angry white male backlash on vo
ing patterns. What we discovered was that
the whole movement has really been mis-
labeled, it is really the ugly, fat, white mate
who can't get a date and tries to compen-
sate by bitching all the time backlash. The
greatest concentration of these tubby neo-
conservatives is found in areas where con-
venience stores carry less than eight van-
eties of Hostess snack cakes, "Deep Space
9" had been removed from syndication,
and women and minorities can get equal
pay for equal work.
It is difficult to find these bloated
whiners in broad day light, but if ydu
want to see one, any poorly lit space
with either a large concentration of PCs
(preferably UNIX) or comic books is a
placemto start. You can also sometimes
find them distributing one of the over-
sized brochures they call "bi-monthly
publications" out of the back of their
mom's Buick. One note of caution: D
not try approaching any of these anti-
social boys in men's clothing, they are
solitary creatures and if you make eye
contact, you might end up in their
death-wish column (see aforementioned
publication) or in one of their on-line
I