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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 16, 1998)
TheBa :ai k Battalion O pinion .ockh, )nn, irandi d32i lim&a events, state 4! ir. dia [ ^ :Better time management brings better sleep A! fter academic and so cial pursuits, sleep is often at the bottom of ... .student’s list of priorities. J 1 , 1; " :t, sleep is one of the most l y H 16 nportant aspects of a h ™ ealthy lifestyle. 'Students should take re- jonsibility for their health 111 ai id learn to manage their iways ne more wisely, they can ELIZABETH STRAIT etthe necessary amount of sleep. ashmai n f.! ast lScientists at the University of Chicago , ; ave recently discovered that going without in§ . "eep may actually be detrimental to long- wt p;rm health. 3 eiSi 'Cheating on sleep for just a few nights will ° cc igin to trigger harmful physiological changes “ 00 ‘ the body. Often students will get minimal cp Udytime. If students managed their time >0 aru isely, they would not have to sacrifice their salth to get better grades. Much of the stress students experience . . fculdbe alleviated if they realized how poorly 0, ir ; : ey managed their time. For example, rather j 13 a .; lan waiting until the night before a big test to e ad all of the chapters that will be covered, it am w™ covet a timei mds.G e secoi vomet sh se in a and muscle-building growth hormones. In an attempt to jam-pack more work, leisure and exercise into one 24-hour period, people will cut sleep out of their daily sched ule and assume there will not be any nega tive effects. It is very common for tired Aggies to get up extra-early in the morning to work out before class or stay up extra late at night so they can go over to the Student Recreation Center. Al though these students may have good inten tions of improving their health, they may be doing more harm than good. Eve Van Cauter, a sleep researcher at the University of Chicago calls this behavior counter-productive. Students should be aware that going with out sleep can be as harmful to their health as a bad diet or going without exercise, and go ing without sleep to get more exercise defeats the purpose. Our society has evolved in such a way that those who get by on the least amounts of sleep are considered the most productive. It is more socially and economically desirable to put sleep on the back burner and stay awake ; puld be easier to read each chapter as it is ; eing covered in class. Hlack of sleep increases the produc unofcristol, which is a hormone re ■sedby the adrenal glands when f body experiences stress or anxi- jThis will result in a loss of lemory. Studying will, of course, ■come less productive when a udent cannot remember infor lation. ’i. | Scientists have found that jull eepdeprivation will inter- re with the body’s sleep ating. ties that are needed to ds anc plenish it with ener irdsan! i. As a result, key 5 yards irmones are ne team' »t released id this will lack on |turn ough.I avepeo )all. \\t eina id give' pstant ■y’re h ate of re.” jhaustion. needsti (Inthe end, long-term nandfe blthproblems can oc- urwhen sleep depriva- ne into to reduces the pro- iat,”Re ictionof day the minity-build [eamii ^prolactin m.” team's I as much as possible. Most people do not want to labeled as lazy. In addition to health problems that can oc cur due to sleepiness, people are also more ac cident prone when they go without sleep. Ac cording to an article in The Dallas Morning News, sleepy drivers are the cause of 100,000 car crashes annually. The National Sleep Foundation reports that people generally need eight hours of sleep. There are exceptions, of course. For some peo ple, six hours is enough, while others may need closer to 10 to survive. Getting the necessary amount of sleep to perform at peak level is sometimes easier said than done, but there are some steps that can be taken to improve the quality of the sleep people do get. Staying away from caffeine before bed time, as well as alcohol and drugs that can interrupt sleep patterns, is a good place to start. Also, a regular exercise pattern can im prove the value of sleep. In addition, people should reserve their bed for sleep and not TV watching or studying. One of the hardest things to do, but possi bly the most beneficial, is for people to make a concerted effort not to take worries and concerns to bed with them. In the end, the best thing a student can do is learn to man age time wisely so it is possi ble to get all of the neces sary activities into the day — including sleep. The ability to man age time wisely is not something that comes natu rally to every one, but help is out there. The De partment of Student Counseling Services has information on the subject and can provide stu dents with all of the necessary tools to get their lives organized. Elizabeth Strait is a junior journalism major. Page 11 •Wednesday, September 16, 1998 Students and faculty benefit from interaction S tudents and faculty each have numer ous goals they hope to achieve during their col lege years. Students wish for 4.0s and ex cellent recom mendations so their searches in the job market will not be as fierce. Professors, while employed by universities, hope to achieve tenure and re search esteem so their place in a fierce job market and their finan cial security will be protected. If no one has noticed, students and their professors are very close to being in the same boat. Students and professors, have the same goals: to place them selves in the best position possi ble and reap the most rewards. If this is the case, should they not help each other and commit to valuable relationships? Neither participant in the stu dent-professor relationship should squander away its potentially valuable effects. There are three elements to better relationships: two are rec ommendations for students, and one for professors. Most students’ goal for a class is to earn an “A.” One of the best ways to make this quest easier is to establish a good rapport with the instructor. This may be diffi cult since not all professors are as congenial as Santa Claus. The big, jolly guy is easy to like, but some professors are not. Each student still must try and reach out, because teachers are the first resource for knowl edge and questioning. It is also a good chance to develop relation ship skills to use throughout life. Professors are experts in their fields and are supposed to be at students’ disposal for any ques tions and class problems Aggies may have. The second suggestion is based in the unfortunate fact that professors must give each student a grade for their work done in each class. Some professors make their courses more challenging and harsh than others. In the end, though, most stu dents get the grades they deserve. Challenging or easy, professors should not be viewed as evildoers trying to make life miserable for students. If Aggies would stop to look at the courses from the in structor’s perspective, they would be more understanding. The third recommendation to ward better relationships is di rected to professors. As Texans say, “y’all” can learn from those ignorant, smart-alec youngsters. If all professors appreciated the diversity of their students and tried to view the world from their eyes, the professor’s job would be easier. Relating to students is hard for many instructors. The flaw here is that some professors have a diffi cult time getting to know students when they have four hundred of them in one class. It does not help when some professors are generally more concerned with their research and writing than connecting with students. These obstacles must be over come. Professors have to realize that they are dealing with the generation that will soon be working in the same world they work in. This new generation re lies on their teachers to do just that — teach. But teaching does not simply entail talking to a room of stu dents for a designated amount of time. It requires interaction, de veloping ideas and inspiring ana lytical thinking. These ideas are not fool proof, but only suggestions to encourage closer bonds between students and professors. Just remember, it takes two to tango, and for the dancing to continue, the partners must always be aware of who their partner is and why they are dancing in the first place. Andrew Baley is a junior political science major. ions tli •adod is and :ceptaH 1 belie Minimum wage increase past due kising lowest pay helps college students, economy STEWART PATTON f>linton pro posed an L/increase in le minimum |gelast semes- ' but the mat- iwas tabled use of you- ijw-who and ^president’s w-know-what. Since Clinton’s most recent dal seems to have finally be nto culminate, it is time for the mtry to refocus and realize the iperate need to raise the mini- nim wage. In a February speech to pro- lotehis 1998 legislative agenda, linton announced his plan for a 1 increase in the minimum age by the year 2000. The presi- ent, of course, added a good leasure of his touchy-feely Clin- pese: “I think we ought to each out a hand.” [Despite the goofy rhetoric, an pease in the minimum wage is ecessary to help raise the in- me level of the poorest of merica’s poor. • The Clinton administration is ready responsible for the most cent increase in minimum age. Minimum wage rested at 4.25 an hour for years. Then in )% Clinton proposed and saw jproval for a staggered 90-cent ise, bringing the wage to its cur- mt$5.15 an hour. [Jared Bernstein of the Econom- :Policy Institute said while un- nployment remains at a low 4.5 ;rcent, working families are iming about 4 percent less than ley did in 1989. ;The cause of the recent drop median family income is not lueto falling corporate profits, Smany suspect. Rather, it “has rimarily to do with the com- ensation the typical worker irns,” Bernstein said. The news gets worse: not nlyare minimum wage workers eing paid less, they are actually forking more hours than they lin 1989. Bernstein notes that “they’re working harder but they’re still playing catch-up.” Clearly, an increase in the minimum wage is necessary sim ply to boost workers’ incomes back to where they were nine years ago. The economy is doing well, and minimum wage workers de serve to be able to take advantage of it. Opponents of the minimum wage increase argue that those who earn minimum wage are most often high school students or college students working part- time and therefore are not sup porting a family. However, Lawrence Mishel, also of the Economic Policy Institute, said “76 percent of the benefits of the Clinton minimum wage pro posal will go to working families with below-average incomes.” The most common argument against raising the minimum wage is that it will force business es to either fire some of their work force or hire fewer people in the future. Opponents of the minimum wage often take a simplistic view of business and usually cite the age-old law of supply and demand: the higher the wages, the fewer workers an employer can hire. Examining the realities of business, however, will show a decidedly different story. Since the purchasing power of the cur rent minimum wage is 14 per cent lower than the purchasing power of the minimum wage in 1979, businesses have actually been getting a good deal for the last 20 years. Bernstein also shows that cor porations have been making substantially higher profits over the last few years as the buying power of the minimum wage has been declining. American workers are receiv ing an increasingly smaller slice of an increasingly larger eco nomic pie. Far from being detri mental to businesses, an in crease in the minimum wage would simply help repair in equities already present in the current system. Most minimum wage jobs are in the retail or food service sec tors of the market. Look at how a fast food restaurant uses its work force. Since the manager’s job is to increase the profits of the store as much as possible, if she be lieves that the store could func tion adequately with only nine people on a certain shift instead of 10, why would she not de crease labor cost by eliminating the extra person? Do opponents of the mini mum wage think business own ers are so naive that they would keep extra personnel on the pay roll until forced to fire them due to a small increase in the mini mum wage? In addition to helping the poor est of American families, an in crease in the minimum wage would also help college students who often work part-time jobs to support themselves. An extra dollar an hour for Aggies who toil away by flipping burgers, rolling burritos or typ ing reports could mean the dif ference between Shiner Bock and the generic equivalent on the weekends. There are probably also one or two students who actually use money from a part-time job to pay for other small things like rent and electricity. Since every other conceivable group in America has represen tatives who lobby politicians for their interests, it is time for col lege students to unite and de mand an increase in the mini mum wage. All good Ags should band to gether to fight “The Man” who is trying to keep them down. To help college students and America’s poor. Congress should pass Clinton’s minimum wage program (right before they im peach him). Stewart Patton is a senior sociology major. MAIL CALL Starr report details necessary for case In response to John Lemons’ Sept. 14 column: John Lemons considers the in clusion of the graphic details in the independent counsel’s “Refer ral to Congress” as superfluous. If Lemons would have focused his attention on sections of the re port other than those dealing with the graphic descriptions, he would have seen the necessity of their inclusion. Since Clinton insists on hiding behind linguistic legalisms, it be came necessary — as Starr noted in the report — to include the graphic details. The president con tends he did not have “sexual re lations” with Monica Lewinsky. The evidence and testimony (as well as common sense) con tradict the president. In plain lan guage, he lied under oath. The fact that he lied directly to the American people is what he should ultimately answer for. The president said from the White House, on Jan. 26, “1 want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. I’m go ing to say this again; I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky...” Even by his own admissions after the fact, we know he lied. Have we become a society that is willing to turn a blind eye to in justice merely for our own self-in terest? Is Clinton’s perceived self- importance to our nation’s economy something that out weighs the standards that are ex pected of the office he holds? For the good of the country, Clinton should do the honorable thing and resign. In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “The time is al ways right to do what is right.” Keith D. Gatewood Class of ’99 SGA bookswap fights book costs In response to Manisha Parekh’s Sept. 10 column: Manisha Parekh’s column on textbooks earlier this month dis cussed the rising costs of books. Student government has recog nized the need for lower book prices for some time. This led to an initiative to create a bookswap, very similar to Parekh’s sugges tion, back during the 1995-1996 school year. This Website can be reached at http://www.bookswap.com, or through the SGA Website at http://www.tamu.edu/sga. The bookswap has been available for nearly four years. Robert Kimmel Class of ’99 The Battalion encourages letters to the ed itor. Letters must be 300 words or less and in clude the author’s name, class and phone number. The opinion editor reserves the right to edit letters for length, style, and accuracy. Letters may be submitted in person at 013 Reed Mc Donald with a valid student ID. Letters may also be mailed to: The Battalion - Mail Call 013 Reed McDonald Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77843-1111 Campus Mail: 3.1.11. Fax: (409) 845-2647 E-mail: batt@tamvml.tamu.edu mr wm vim