Last Thursday, the Granada played host to the provocatively titled Lectures on Liberty with “In Praise of Sweatshops,” given by Suffolk University economist Benjamin Powell.

In short, Powell’s assessment was that sweatshops are worth the sweat. And that they aren’t exploitative at all – they are a boon to their employees and the developing countries that host them.

The wages at sweatshops are generally higher than the wages offered at other jobs available to workers in the third world. What are those jobs? Jobs tilling fields by hand, full time panhandling and, in some cases, even prostitution. For many, sweatshop labor is a step up in the world. Workers are making more than they would were they not employed by outsourced retail corporations like Nike and the Gap.

Maybe sweatshops aren’t as bad as they appear at first glance.  After all, people generally do not line up around the block in an effort to land a job that exploits them.

While I don’t doubt Powell’s basic argument that third world workers have fewer options than workers in the U.S. and that sweatshop labor beats panhandling or prostitution, sweatshop workers are still logging long hours with no opportunity for advancement in unsafe working conditions, with infrequent breaks for wages that are not always adequate to live on. Some of these workers are children and pregnant women. Meanwhile, as of 2007, Nike’s co-founder and former CEO Phil Knight had an estimated net worth of $9.8 billion.

What these workers need is not simply a job but one that enables them to feed and house themselves properly. While corporations like Nike and the Gap are not technically enslaving anybody, they still have their workers “over a barrel.” The fact is, if you work in a factory making Nike shoes, you will probably never make enough money to own a pair.

The price of items like clothing, shoes and electronics have dropped precipitously in the last few decades thanks in part to our friend the sweatshop worker. Rather than pocket the savings and allocate the money somewhere else (like say debt repayment) Americans have simply upped the ante on what is considered necessary – consuming more and more. Why settle for one T.V. when you can have a second in the kitchen and a third for Junior’s room?

That got me thinking…is cheapness all there is? Is the object of earning money simply the accumulation of as many goods as possible as inexpensively as possible? Can someone paying well over $100 for a pair of tennis shoes or four bucks for a cup of coffee manage to pay a bit more in order to ensure safe working conditions and adequate wages for sweatshop workers?

Thoughts such as this lead to questions about the nature of our economy. America likes to claim that its economy is based on the free market with full Darwinistic “survival of the fittest” procedures in place. But if corporations can simply outsource their work to the poorer countries and reap the savings, then it’s not really a free or balanced economic environment. It has become less about fairness and more about which companies can exploit their resources and workers the best.

It is hard not to feel aggrieved by the morbid wealth inequality between the third world and the U.S. and while Americans may not be the cause of third world impoverishment, they do not seem to care much about being a part of the solution either.

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This time of year it is common to see troupes of high school students on campus for a college visit. Many of them will wind up attending Emporia State.  However, few will graduate in the traditional time frame of four years. And by a slim majority. most students who attend Emporia State University will not graduate from college at all. ESU’s graduation rate is a distressingly low 45 percent. The average college graduation rate in Kansas is 46.7 percent.

This figure allows a full six years for degree completion and is based on first time full-time college students at four year institutions. Non-degree seeking, part-time, graduate and transfer students are not included in this statistic.

Most college-bound students do not wonder if they will receive a college degree-but rather how long it will take. Parents generally don’t start college funds for kids they anticipate will drop out or flunk out of college. What is behind this troubling statistic and what can be done about it?

Of course low graduation rates alone do not necessarily mean that an institution is failing students. It can simply be an indication of the rigor of a particular program or lack of academic preparedness or motivation on the part of the student. But this begs the question, if a student lacks the academic ability to meet the standards of their chosen degree program, why are they being admitted?

According to Cappex, a popular college search engine, the average ACT score of admitted Emporia State students is between 19 and 24. The University of Kansas’ average ACT range is between 22 and 27 and their undergraduate graduation rate is 15 points higher than ESU’s at 60 percent. Standardized test scores have some predictive value in determining who is likely to complete college. It is widely recognized that as a university’s selectivity goes up, so does its graduation rate.

Anecdotal knowledge suggests that if the low end of average at ESU is an ACT score of 19, there are a handful of ESU students walking around with ACT scores of 16 or 17. I am not sure what baseline of academic ability is necessary to succeed in college. But I am pretty sure it is higher than an ACT score in the mid-teens.

Of course there is always the proverbial bright student who “just doesn’t test well.”  But if you cannot demonstrate your academic ability verbally or mathematically, how can you assert that you really are in fact book smart?

Lax admissions policies that pretend that anyone can earn a college degree if they just try hard enough are not helping anyone. Not the taxpayers who are in large part subsidizing public universities. Nor the students who are for whatever reason failing to graduate. Schools can either weed out through admissions or through freshmen level coursework.

Too many unprepared and unmotivated students are attending college. Most high school graduates will need additional training beyond high school.  But this does not necessarily mean a traditional four year degree is the right option. Students who are not academically prepared or sufficiently motivated should not be attending college and certainly not on the taxpayers’ dime. It is not realistic to expect ESU’s graduation rate to be 100 percent. But surely we can do better than 45 percent.

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In a world of Walmarts and chain restaurants, it is good to have a few outliers. If you are experiencing Applebee’s angst or you’re in a Carlos O’ Kelley’s conundrum and you are looking to eat some local fare the Olpe Chicken House could be your place.

Located nine miles south of Emporia on East Highway 99 is the 52-year-old slice of local history. You can read positive restaurant reviews of the Olpe Chicken House on tripadvisor, mytravelguide.com, and americantwons.com. The Chicken House was even featured in the “Town and Country” magazine some years back.

The thing is I don’t think about restaurant reviews when I am at the Chicken House. I don’t even think about chicken. I think about my maternal grandma Mary Lucille. The chicken house was “our place.” We went there almost every time I came to visit her-which was often. I think she liked it because she recognized and chatted with so many people.

I still visit the Olpe Chicken House, but I go without my grandma now. I like eating there because it helps me channel up memories of Grandma Mary. In the physical sense she is very much alive. But my family lost her a couple years back. Alzheimer’s.

A lifelong Emporia area resident, she started out at a one room school house south of town. She rode a horse to school as there were no buses. She later graduated from Emporia State with a degree in teaching. She saw a lot of things take place in Emporia over the years.

Like many in her generation, she struggled with the demographic changes that took place in Emporia with the arrival of commercial meat packing plants and migrant workers. “I’m going to have to learn Spanish just to live in Emporia” she’d say. She believed-perhaps correctly that some of Emporia’s new residents had immigration/citizenship issues that were not entirely in order.

Upon the celebration of her 80th year, my family held a birthday party for her at a hotel in town. I jocularly threatened to pass out fliers printed in Spanish at every factory plant in Emporia inviting workers to her party. There’s going to be all these Hispanic people saying “we’ve known Mary Lucille since she was 75” I said. She laughed and promised to “shape up”.

In third grade for grandparent’s day I painted a picture of her holding a small electric saw cutting brush on her farm. Chainsaw Grandma says “die tree” the caption read.  She laughed at that too.

Mary Lucille is approaching 90 now. She doesn’t have any more trips to the Chicken House left in her – her body having outlived her brain.

But I like to think of her as a young girl galloping off to that schoolhouse.  A lone rider silhouetted against a Kansas sky.

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Wike

Cassie Wike, senior secondary education major, has wanted to be a teacher for as long as she can remember.

“My mom loves to tell the story of how I used to teach my teddy bears,” Wike said. “I would even assign them homework.”

Wike, originally from Highland Ranch, Colo., is completing her secondary education degree and student teaching in the social sciences this semester at Emporia High School. She is slated to graduate this May.

“I was excited to go back to high school,” she said of her student teaching experience. “I loved high school.” 

During one teddy school session, Wike’s mother found a teddy bear out in hallway, upon asking her daughter why, Wike responded that the teddy bear was misbehaving.

While Wike’s students are no longer teddy bears, they can still be ornery.

“Certain students try to test the boundaries,” she said.

Wike has had to handle challenging behavior from high school students as a student teacher and that as a 21-year-old, there is not as much distance (in years) between her and her students as with some other teachers. But even at 21, Wike admits that it is “hard to remember what it’s like to be a high schooler.”

She said that motivating students is one of the more difficult aspects of her job.

Wike said that she picked up a lot of useful tools in her education classes that are helpful for student teaching and beyond.

“I use Kagan activities a lot,” Wike said.

Kagan activities are collaborative learning tools developed by Dr. Spencer Kagan.

Wike said she is also grateful that she learned from her instructors – Darla Mallein, associate professor of social sciences, in particular – that lectures are not the only way to get crucial information across in a social studies classroom.

“(She is) very passionate about teaching,” said Mallien. “She really wants to be the best teacher she can and she wants to reach that goal. She is willing to do whatever it takes to be creative.”

Her tip for student teachers?

“I think if you don’t plan ahead, it is a really daunting task to grade, learn the content and create a lesson,” Wike said.

According to Wike, it takes her under an hour to make a lesson plan, plus additional time to make handouts.

“But I enjoy making the handouts,” she quickly added.

Wike started the semester with three weeks worth of lessons. This has left her with enough time to hold an on-campus job, and work on wedding plans with her fiancé, Russell Medley, who is also a student at Emporia State studying to become a teacher.

Medley describes his fiancée as “very  self-motivated and creative, she likes to design lessons that go beyond lecturing.”

Wike says that the hardest thing about student teaching is going back to school full-time after having gotten used to setting her own schedule as a college student.

However, Wike said she is enjoying her return trip to high school because student teaching is “better than being a college student.”

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Penny pinchers beware – college is an expensive experience. The cost of a college education has risen considerably in the last decade. Tuition prices are growing at about twice the rate of inflation nationwide, according to the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers.

However, there are some resources available on the internet, in the financial aid office, and of course advice from fellow classmates to help minimize college costs.

The Project on Student Debt reports that approximately 59 percent of Kansas students borrow and they borrow an average of $20,585. And when it comes to student loans, less is more.

According to www.finaid.org “your total education debt should be less than your expected starting salary. If you borrow more than twice your expected starting salary you will find it extremely difficult to repay the debt.”

This Web site features a student loan repayment calculator to help students estimate how much they will need to make to be able to comfortably cover the cost of their loan.

While certain college costs are fixed, like the price of tuition, there is still plenty of room to save.

Senior political science major Bo Moddelmog says that floormates of his are always purchasing food in restaurants, but that he tries to “eat in the cafeteria and avoid eating out to save money.”

Dan Brown, senior at Kansas State-Salina, is an extreme saver and occasionally shops at Aldi’s to save money. He also keeps the heat down in his apartment and makes sure the windows are adequately insulated in order to cut down on heating costs.

However, he recently became acquainted with the GroceryGame.com while watching the Food Network. For a small monthly fee, you can subscribe to the Grocery Game’s Web site. The Web site tells its members which coupons to clip and when to use them – grocery stores like Dillon’s run on 12 week cycles.

It is possible to buy many items at a deep discount if you wait until the item goes on sale and use a coupon. Dillon’s automatically doubles all coupons under a dollar.

Brown estimates that he saves an average of 40 to 50 percent by using the Grocery Game. Although he has saved as much as 87 percent on “general household goods.” At one point, Brown explained “I was actually paid $5 to take 20 bottles of Propel fitness water.”

The key, Brown says is to buy what is on sale and “not be brand loyal.”

Not everyone is a grocery gamer but there are other ways to make your money count. Junior social science education major Amanda Magee puts the earnings from her job in a savings account. She does not plan to touch the funds until after graduation.

She said that she wants to have money saved up because as a teacher, she will not receive her first paycheck until the end of her first month of teaching.

“August is a weird month for new teachers” she said.

The financial aid office located on the first floor of Plumb Hall contains resources regarding managing money in college, including information on grants and scholarships.

Planning ahead and eating at home, purchasing needed items on sale and putting a little money away for the future are all ways students can cut down on college costs and after graduation angst.

“Live like a student while you are in school so you don’t have to live like a student after you graduate,” according to www.finaid.org.

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Matthew Spalding speaks on what early Americans went through to obtain their liberty from England Tuesday night for the Lectures on Liberty series at the Granada Theater. Spalding is the director of the Heritage Foundation’s B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies. Jonathan Elliott/The Bulletin

The Granada Theater, 807 Commercial St., played host to the first of three “Lectures on Liberty” Tuesday. Matthew Spalding, of the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, delivered the lecture “Liberty and the Constitution.” Spalding began his talk with a moving account of the American Revolution.

Based on writings from America’s founding fathers and interviews from the time period, Spalding argues that the “great theme of the American Revolution was self-governance.” What provoked the colonists to rise up against the British was not the Stamp Act or the Crown’s taxes on tea. Rather, it was the question of who would govern the colonies. Spalding argues that it is that question – the question of self-governance – that persists in America still today.

            In Spalding’s view, progressives and conservatives come from two separate ideological camps, representing two distinct philosophical traditions. Conservatives are following in the tradition of the British Revolution and adhere to a strict constructivist interpretation of the Constitution.

Progressives, on the other hand believe in a more fluid interpretation of the Constitution – a living Constitution.  Progressives are following the logical conclusion of the French Revolution. It began with idealism, relativism and radicalism. It ended with despotism.

“The Progressive argument has never been settled by the American people,” Spalding said.

The issues facing the current presidential administration are not really new issues at all he said. The real issue, is about what role government should play in society.

“It is no coincidence that most of our problems are attempts to solve earlier policy decisions,” Spalding said.

Health care reform was part of a platform introduced in 1912, after the German model of health insurance from 1904. Spalding argues that the real crux of the matter is not health care, but the role of government in spheres of life that are not explicitly spelled out in the Constitution.

For Spalding, a federal mandate requiring everyone to purchase health insurance is anathema because it would mean that the federal government would regulate the people’s right to do nothing. And if the government can do that, Spalding said, government becomes limitless.

The alternative to self-governance according to Spalding, is a state where government plays a greater role in people’s lives and steps in to do things for citizens that previously were considered the realm of the individual. In his view, this would look something like modern day Europe.

Spalding is an unabashed proponent of “American exceptionalism” – the concept that America is a unique experiment, special and set apart because it was the first nation to be founded based on the idea of self-governance.

He also maintained that the founding fathers were united by their religiosity and mutually inspired by the Bible. 

Historian and Emporia State University Professor Karen Smith disagreed with that claim, arguing instead that several of the founding fathers were deists and while they may have been raised with Christian faith traditions, they did not adhere to them personally. Benjamin Franklin fits this bill, said Smith.

Not everyone in the audience shared Spalding’s sentiment that big government was the source of America’s ills.  In a phone interview, Smith went on to say that she did “not agree that government is too big,” and that “this country is too big and too complex to be left to the forces of the market.”

Wichita State University Constitutional Law Professor Sarah McIntosh agreed with many of Spalding’s points and thought the lecture was delivered well, but “the only thing is that there were no solutions, there was no game plan for how to get back to the founding principles. I asked him if he thought a return to America’s founding principles should occur at the local, state, or federal level, and he sort of copped out, saying ‘all of the above.’”

Spalding made the case that the real issue facing America is the issue self-governance and what role government should play in society.  He said that while there is a difference between freedom and liberty, government is ultimately the issuer of liberty.

“Every generation in America has to decide to vindicate the cause of liberty,” Spalding said. “All we have to do is act worthy.”

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Arrah Nielsen

If you are unaware that Kansas’ economy is ailing, perhaps it is because rigor mortis has set in. What many Kansans do not realize, however, is what recently enacted state budget cuts mean for human service organizations like the Mental Health Center of Eastern Kansas, located right here in Emporia. The MHCEK provides comprehensive mental health services to Lyon County and six neighboring counties.

The MHCEK’s services are paid for through a patchwork quilt of grants, Medicaid, Medicare, private insurers, and direct payments made by individuals. A 65 percent cut in grants and 10 percent in Medicaid – which comprises more than 70 percent of funding for the mental health center means a windfall loss of as much as $1 million in 2010.

I spoke with Executive Director Bill Persinger about the budget cuts at MHCEK. He called the cuts “disastrous.” He explained that if budget cuts do not abate, it could alter the overall mission of the center, from providing preventative and maintenance treatment, to crisis services only. Persinger said that “If those cuts are sustained, we’ll be a different kind of mental health center. It won’t be to anyone’s liking.”

According to Persinger, treatment at MHCEK runs the gamut of being seen on a time limited basis for a few sessions, to “intensive outpatient treatment” which entails being seen almost daily and having a case worker and attendant care worker make home visits, as well as a psychiatrist for medication management. A small percentage of hard cases – those known as “severely and persistently mentally ill” with major mental illnesses, like acute schizophrenia, comprise the latter group and utilize the majority of the resources at the MHCEK .

Without adequate treatment, SPMI individuals are at risk for becoming homeless, committing suicide, having unnecessary encounters with the criminal justice system for petty crimes like trespassing or creating a public disturbance-perhaps even doing a stint in jail or prison. A minority are at risk for making tragic news headlines for committing violent crimes like the shooting at Virginia Tech. Such individuals are not necessarily bad, they’re mad.

SPMI individuals tend to lack both employment and insurance, making it difficult for them to pay for services. This means that mental health centers have to write off significant costs to serve this population. This is increasingly difficult in light of the recent cuts.

Intensive outpatient treatment at a community mental health center is an estimated $22 per day. But inpatient care in a state psychiatric hospital is an estimated $448 per day. If mental health centers are forced to siphon care due to budget cuts, it could ultimately increase the total cost the state spends on mental health services, because without ongoing treatment in the community, SPMI individuals may decompensate to the point that they require hospitalization.

According to a 2009 Kansas state study on mental health treatment, “paying for the cost of treatment is unavoidable…Treating people in communities is far less expensive than treating them in institutions.”

Let’s stop being nutty about mental health funding. Let’s adequately fund Kansas mental health centers. The mentally ill are not going away, but they need to go somewhere. A community mental health center with sufficient resources is the appropriate place.

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