| Payment due Those whose work we never see usually don't get the attention they deserve. That is what's happening with TCU staff, such as housekeepers and groundskeepers.The TCU Staff Assembly is bringing the much-needed recognition by working toward increasing the salaries of non-exempt staff members. Staff Assembly Chairwoman Mary Lane said Wednesday that during the recession in the early 1990s, people could be hired at low salaries. Adjustments were not made in following years, however, and current salaries are not competitive with the market, she said. Current entry-level pay for regular employees amounts to $11,915 a year before taxes. According to the Federal Register, the poverty line for a family of four is $16,700. Many of our housekeepers are finding themselves living in poverty. What a sad scene this is. As we sit comfortably in our classrooms and use clean bathrooms, many of our staff members who keep our campus clean are struggling to survive. These people are the roots of our university, and their current wages are a disgrace. Gail Truitt, a residential housekeeper, said it best: "Unless you've ever left here with your back aching and your feet on fire and your arms aching because you've been lifting trash, you don't know what it's like." We do not know what it's like to work for an unappreciative campus. We hope everyone will take notice of what the Staff Assembly is trying to do. Let's support the Staff Assembly in giving staff the much-needed attention they deserve.
Women deserve ordination, respect Everybody thinks they are sociologists. I recently met a professor from the University of North Texas who had a $250,000 federal grant to discover why there is so little diversity in congregations of Texas churches. His conclusion: "cultures clash in the church." One of the more tangible ways to develop diversity might be for the church to be more welcoming. Protestant congregations can do more to "encourage one another and build each other up" (1 Thessalonians 5:11). Being an encourager sure sounds easy but it is a challenge in today's church. The church has high levels of bias, bigotry and presuppositions about each other and their ordained leaders. There is no greater prejudice in the church today than the one concerning women preachers. Barbara Brown Taylor is an ordained Episcopal priest in the Diocese of Atlanta who has served as a parish minister but now teaches at Piedmont College in Georgia. Baylor University named her one of the 12 best preachers in the English-speaking world. Brown Taylor is an important and articulate voice in American Christianity today. She is a widely requested speaker and author of seven books and hundreds of articles. If Brown Taylor sought ordination in the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, she would be turned away. The residing Episcopal Bishop in Fort Worth refuses to ordain women. What is going on here? Isn't Brown Taylor too important a voice to silence in our church community? Aren't the voices of people who love God too precious, too insightful and too articulate to mute? Yes, of course they are. Women preachers are superior to men. In December 1999, British sociologist Ashley Montagu died. For three generations, he was an analytical voice of social evolution. Montagu stirred up a storm when he suggested that there was scientific evidence of gender equality. Montagu wrote 60 books on anthropology, intelligence, marriage, why people cry and the history of swearing. Montagu's most controversial publication, written in 1954, was "The Natural Superiority of Women." He argued that men are a form of "incomplete" woman. Women, he said, were biologically superior to men. The book is rather dry and pedantic, but Montagu makes an exceptional point. There should be complete equality between men and women. Women are quick learners and can often achieve their goals more easily than men. Montagu looked at the important roles women have played in history. He recalled the great productivity women played during World War II. Women were able to quickly learn the jobs men once held and do them even better. Women serve in business and education with great abilities to be effective managers and administrators. When the opportunities come to prove their ability, most should surpass their male counterparts. Is there still the so-called glass ceiling that can keep women from reaching their potential? Perhaps there are still some limitations. Wages and salaries are not equal between men and women. Even at TCU, many women are not paid on a parity to men. What about women in the ministry? Doesn't the Bible instruct the man to be head of the household and women to be subservient? Many of our Southern Baptist friends must affirm the belief that women must remain under the oversight of men. What a major waste of time and talent. Today the Church needs every single disciple available to go into all the world and preach the gospel. The TCU community can experience Brown Taylor next week on campus. She will lecture Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings in the Robert Carr Chapel as part Brite Divinity School's Ministers Week series. The TCU community can witness for itself that when a woman's voice is heard loud and clear, it is a blessing to us all.
David Becker is a student in Brite Divinity School from Pueblo, Colo. He can be reached at (evadgorf@aol.com). Manhood dictated by pop culture Last weekend I found myself sitting in Barnes and Noble downtown, waiting for a movie to start flipping through a copy of Gear magazine. I suppose every guy reading this will know what I'm talking about. Keeping the cover down, so that no passing ladies would see such a chauvinistic act, I carefully perused the pages reading one-liner sex tips and drooling at the sight of the next bikini-clad girl adorning the page for no apparent reason. At that moment, I came to a swift realization that my manhood, how I thought becoming a man should be, was being dictated to me by popular culture. I looked up and spied the rack from the shelf I had pulled this magazine from and, sure enough, five or six other copies of the same general theme sat waiting for young men like myself to sit down and drool some more. I felt like such a fool that night. Usually I pride myself on picking out decent things to read before I see movies, or at least looking at magazines with substance. Instead, I was fulfilling the desires of some marketer on Madison Avenue. This, however, is not the main issue. My fall from grace, while perhaps comical, is a symptom of a disease which has been infecting American manhood for the last few years. My realization of this started a couple of years ago, when I began picking up Esquire magazine and seeing half-naked women on the cover. To my surprise, the Norman Mailer writings and short novellas of past years kept being omitted for articles on how to have a great bachelor pad, great sex and great mixed drinks - three things which have been somewhat foreign to me. Then came the ringer. As I flipped to the beginning of one article, I found myself face to face with an illustration of breasts and a theory of how, during more economically prosperous times, big breasts are in, but during recessions, the society values smaller breasts. Even though this theory made a little sense, it didn't seem like the Esquire of old, and I didn't feel like any more of a man for reading it. The point is, American manhood is in a prosperous time. The economy is good and 25-year-old males have nothing better to do than collect checks from their Internet startup companies, and they buy the image that we all see on these magazines. Television is being represented by such commercial filth as "The Man Show." What else are we going to do with our money, besides try to have more sex with many more women? I'm simplifying a bit here, but at the core of these commercial offerings are nothing more than limp promises. Real manhood is not being taught or celebrated, but, rather, it is defamed and dressed up in thousand-dollar mountain bikes and better sex positions. Even younger boys in high school subscribe with zeal to such publications, in hopes that some impotent staff writer for Maxim can point the way to better luck with the ladies, of which neither has a clue about how to write or treat. I'm not trying to deromanticize men, and I'm not trying to do the same to women either. I'm simply arguing that this kind of media is propaganda, preying on men's insecurities rather than their desires. Women, also, seem not to care that such shows air on television, or that such magazines are stocked on the shelves of our own TCU Bookstore. I don't encourage bra burning, but maybe some eye-opening dialogue to a subscribing boyfriend could open his eyes to the fact that half the topics discussed in that magazine will never come to fruition in a real relationship, especially yours. Relationships and manhood are built, day by day through right decisions and the idea that we are all valued equally. Even though we may live in a double D economy, we don't have to act as if these things were possessions to own. For those of you who already read these magazines and watch these television shows, while you're busy learning how to be a man, another is taking your girlfriend out on a date. Don't be fooled by propaganda masked in mass media. Make decisions about relationships and the way you treat other people from experience and sound judgment, not the latest issue of Playboy.
Matthew S. Colglazier is a freshman news-editorial journalism and English major from Fort Worth. He can be reached at (mscolglazier@delta.is.tcu.edu). Quote/Unquote Quote/Unquote is a collection of quotes found in Skiff news articles from the past week.
"Even if I don't have any money left, I've paid all the bills. I'm happy." - Sonia Gallegos, residential
housekeeper,
"There's all this talk about wanting publicity, but we don't get the numbers to events ourselves. Why should the media cover it if students can't even walk across the street and flash their IDs and get in free to athletic events?" - Nadia Lahutsky,
associate professor of religion and member of The Role of Athletics
task force,
"We're not hicks - we don't wear cowboy hats." - Curtis Fuller,
a master of liberal arts student and junior free safety on the TCU football
team, Letters to the Editor Web site revamped to better meet needs, not because of complaints This letter is in response to the staff editorial in Thursday's issue of the TCU Daily Skiff. The TCU Web site was not redesigned in response to negative feedback. This inaccuracy first surfaced in a Skiff story the day after the new site debuted. We redesigned the site because we felt it was not meeting the needs of our primary audiences in the best manner possible. We found that although good content was available, it was difficult for browsers to find. Therefore, we focused on content and navigability in our redesign. This explains why there are more navigational aids, more links and more access points to search engines than before. Graphically, we improved download times by using more text links and fewer graphics. Pretty graphics aside, content is king when it comes to Web sites. Just visit the Yahoo! site, and you'll see what I mean. As for comparisons to other university sites, I tip my hat to Colin Witt and his colleagues down at Baylor University for the redesign of their site. Interestingly enough, after our new site launched, Witt contacted our office because he felt they could learn from what we'd done and vice versa. You also mention the SMU and UTA sites and the ease to find student directories and various important offices on their sites. I'd like to note that the architecture for our directory came after discussing the UTA directory page with its creators, James Stewart and Nikola Olic, who have also done a great job in their redesign. Our site contains the same information as their page and is listed under "Directories." For the most part, feedback on the new site has been positive. However, that doesn't mean that it won't change. Web pages, like the Internet itself, should always be works in progress. Rest assured, changes will be made as necessary to ensure that the TCU site is first-rate and rivals other leading sites.
Victor Neil director of new media
Female basketball team deserves same support as men's team Walking around Moody Coliseum, you can see the pride SMU has in all of its female athletic teams. Walking around Daniel-Meyer Coliseum, you can see pictures of the men's team everywhere, but you would not even know that TCU had a women's program except for a small sign pointing to their coaches' offices stuck in the basement. Some would say, "When the women give a championship program, then we will show the support and pride." That is a stupid argument. First, the school and the athletic department show the support, the pride and the equality. This produces fan support, enthusiasm and strong recruiting classes, which produce championship programs. The female athletes at TCU work just as hard as the guys. Their commitment and sacrifice are just as great. The girls have much higher graduation rates, and none of them have been arrested lately for beating up their boyfriends. Many of these girls could have signed with any number of Big 12, PAC 10 or SEC schools where female athletes are treated with equality, and fan support is great. For good and varying reasons they chose TCU, and they deserve the same enthusiastic support from the athletic department that the men's teams are given.
Mike Sutton Fort Worth resident |
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