| UnFROGettable
This weekend marks the last TCU homecoming of this millennium. There will be fireworks and a lighted night parade. TCU is predicted to beat the University of North Texas by at least 22 points. It is a time for celebration, and there is no reason to miss any of the festivities. From Programming Council to individual organizations, many have spent countless hours bringing not only a big-name band, but also a weekend full of memories. With finals positioned mere weeks away, set aside your books and lab tutorials. Stop editing or writing your first drafts, and be a student. Not in the classroom, but out. Take a chance, and do something not listed in your master syllabus. Put away your day planners and calendars, and turn off your cellular phones. Quit worrying about spring registration, and just have fun. Being a student means more than just attending class. It means participating in campus events and activities. Now is our opportunity to stop talking about student apathy and show support for our campus and our team. Watch today's pep rally and parade, cheer on your home team at Saturday's game, or just relax and enjoy good times with friends. After all, you are only a student once. When students arrived on campus Monday morning, hand-painted signs and sidewalk chalk decorated walkways throughout the campus. Let's take that idea a step further. This year we've seen record-breaking voter turnouts at Student Government Association elections and increased communication between faculty and staff with organizations such as the Faculty Senate and Staff Assembly. Our university is preparing for the millennium with focus groups offering suggestions through the new Commission on the Future of TCU. Let's not have another uneventful Homecoming. Instead, let's make it is unFROGgettable.
Time has changed women's status Another divisive line has been drawn along the Christian battlefront. This time dividing the Baptist troops. Baptists are trying to make a statement on where women belong in the family, and Texas, considered as the heart of the Bible Belt, has taken a more liberal view. The Baptist General Convention of Texas voted Tuesday to uphold the 1963 Baptist Faith and Message, a guiding document that describes the Baptist faith and doctrine. Last year, the Southern Baptist Convention amended the document with a statement that encourages husbands to "provide for, protect and to lead the family," and called wives to "submit graciously to the servant leadership of their husbands." However, the Baptist General Convention of Texas' document makes no mention of wives submitting to their husbands. Some Texas Baptist ministers wanted to include the amended part, arguing that it is based on scripture. But these ministers, along with the Southern Baptist Convention are paying attention only to one part of the Bible. Other parts of scripture cannot be ignored. The Baptist General Convention of Texas bases its stance on Ephesians 5:25-33, which begins with, "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the Church." The passage also explains that Christ gave himself up for wives, just as he did for husbands. Wives need to be presented to Christ "as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless." The action of this Texas Baptist group was appropriate. The Southern Baptist Convention takes into account the first part of the passage of Ephesians, but it doesn't show any acknowledgment of the rest of the passage. Their assertion that wives must submit isn't paired with what the Bible says about how husbands should treat their wives. The fifth chapter in Ephesians ends with this: "However, each one of you must also love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband." This passage does not call women to let their husbands treat them like door mats. It also doesn't mean that a wife should be treated as inferior. It calls women to submit in righteousness, not in naivety. A woman cannot respect and submit to her husband unless he loves her like Christ loved the church. In biblical times, marriage was a matter of economic necessity. Without a husband, a woman would be without basic survival needs as well as any kind of place within a society. Unlike today, where most marriages are based on love and friendship, marriages in biblical times were arranged. Love, relationships and compatibility were not important. If anything, the advance of civilization has impacted the institution of marriage. As societies industrialized, the role of women changed. Not only in a marriage, but also in schools, in the home and in the workplace. No longer are men the sole breadwinners. Women have the same political rights. A lot of Scripture provided laws for people who did not have any other rules to follow. Those regulations were appropriate for a particular time and place, most of which are not necessary to maintain social order in our societies. When there is disagreement over the meaning of scripture, it is important for one to remember the entire context of the time in which it was written. Submission in biblical times served a certain purpose, because it helped women survive. Today, women have to survive in a different society in a different way. God does not change. The word of God does not change either. However, we must keep in mind that as times change so do the social implications of scripture.
Aimée Courtice is a senior news-editorial major from San Diego, Calif. She can be reached at (aecourtice@delta.is.tcu.edu). Token efforts not enough The story of Hector and Armida Maciel is truly an amazing one. Hector and Armida are immigrants from Mexico. He has worked at TCU for eight years and has put his children through school. His children Christian, Yessica and Yaneth should be as proud of their Papa as he is of them. The Maciel family should be proud, but this university should be ashamed of itself. According to the human resources department, 80 percent of the employees in laborious jobs in housekeeping, maintenance and landscaping are minorities. The TCU affirmative action plan states, "The university has concluded that the sex and minority composition of the TCU workplace and applicant flow generally matches the availability of such groups in the University's applicable recruitment area." According to the U.S. Census Bureau in 1990, slightly more than 19 percent of those people living in Fort Worth were Hispanic. Twenty-two percent were black. Twenty-five percent of Texas residents were Hispanic, while 11 percent were black. Yet TCU fills eight out of 10 of the most back-breaking jobs on campus with minorities. There is one woman in the general administration of TCU, according to the 1999-2000 TCU Undergraduate Studies Bulletin. We have only token minority participation. If TCU mirrored the rest of the Fort Worth community, 41 percent of the university staff would be minorities. We are not even close. TCU offers free tuition to university employees. It does not matter if it is the child of the chancellor or a housekeeping employee. Their benefits are afforded equally. The student must qualify to be admitted to TCU and if they cannot, then the university will pay their tuition to any Texas state school. Tuition benefits are great for the child of a TCU employee but not so wonderful for the parents. Wages and salaries for the non-exempt hourly employees on the TCU campus are abominable. A beginning groundskeeper at TCU makes $5.73 an hour or $11,460 a year before taxes. No wonder employees like the Maciels have to work two or three jobs. They are exploited people. A full-time university staff member gets 22 days of vacation. A general staff member gets only 12 days. The work for general staff is more physically demanding, but they have fewer days of rest. The affirmative action plan of TCU says, "Minorities and women are included in all university-sponsored activities and programs. These activities are fully integrated." Perhaps not. If university staff members go to a TCU event, they do it during business hours. Events on campus, such as the Fall Convocation or the inauguration of the chancellor, are considered to be celebratory events for all the campus. If general staff employees go to these events, they do not get paid. It is worse for the people in nonexempt jobs like Hector Maciel. During the Skiff interview, Hector's daughter Yessica needed to translate for him. This is not an isolated incident. Many Hispanic employees on the TCU campus have limited English language skills. TCU has had a program teaching English as a second language. But when employees attend these classes, they must make up the time on Saturday or Sunday. There are many employees who have worked here for long period of time who gain no seniority because they have not mastered the English language. I met a nonexempt employee who has been here more than 15 years and still has not been able to complete the ESL class. He works three jobs like Hector Maciel and cannot work any more. The TCU affirmative action policy says, " No artificial barriers exist that result in overt or inadvertent discrimination in any job group." This is hogwash. TCU discriminates against marginalized people - the poor, the uneducated, the ones who cannot speak English. Every passing day the university community does not empower those who labor hardest to jobs that pay a decent living. TCU needs to be a leader in the Fort Worth community, not a second-rate follower.
Dave Becker is a graduate student at Brite Divinity School. He can be reached at (evadgorf@aol.com). Educators' fears working to stifle freedom of expression There is a scary trend in our educational system: Today school districts are striving to be tough and unforgiving. They seem to be competing to see who is the toughest one of all. Is there not a nobler task than punishing a pubescent child to make an example of him? Last week, a Ponder, Texas, student was punished with five days in detention in the Denton County juvenile facility while his classmates were trick-or-treating. Christopher Beamon, 13, wrote a horror story for his class at Ponder High School. His vivid descriptions, which included using their real names, included guns and the deaths of two students and a teacher. His crime? Apparently the free exercise of his imagination. The seventh-grader was not engaging in a crime of conspiracy. It was a fictional essay. Though he did use the names of real people, are 13-year-olds really good at thinking in abstractions? Beamon used the names of people in his environment because he does not know any better. The moral to this story is that the authorities are terrified. They are so scared because of the violence in our schools that they, in turn, have resorted to violent measures of punishment. It is dangerous when authorities overreact. The solution to violence in schools must result from a clear and reasonable consideration of the facts and not from the turbulence of fear. In this case, as in many others, courage is the answer. We need courage to scrutinize the educational system to produce solutions fair to both student and educator. The facts show the majority of kids are not coming to school shooting people. According to the Justice Policy Institute and the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics, the number of violent deaths is not increasing. And more school shooting deaths occurred between 1992 and 1995 than between 1995 and 1998. If children today are more likely to talk or write about violence, it is probably because Hollywood big-shots have recently found violence is a blessing that translates into a fat bank account. The media cater to violence because it sells. There is no dodging the facts. Today, schools are safer places than homes, regardless of the deceptive picture created by the public and policymakers. In spite of isolated acts of violence, schools are not dangerous. To humiliate and terrify a child with severe punishment for trivial offenses is to create fear and resentment between educator and student. Today, kids grow up watching violence. When some of what they have been consuming seeps out, they are condemned rather than enlightened. Educators and parents have the responsibility to teach children to think with a clear mind, to evaluate situations and to distinguish between right and wrong, lawful or not. Recently, we have experienced tragedies of almost unfathomable horror to those of us on the outside looking in. The guilty will be punished and soon forgotten. But what cannot be forgotten is what we have learned from these tragedies. Parents must love, monitor and instruct children so they will learn to be repulsed by crime and violence. Our educational system should not act on fear, but on reason. We were once kids, too. The student in Ponder is still a kid. Let's hope he doesn't miss any more Halloweens.
Natascha Terc is a junior news-editorial journalism major from Bedford. She can be reached at (natascha@nementerc.com). |
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