4A THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NEWS
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2005
Whitney Curtis/OGDEN STANDARD-EXAMINER
Steam rises from a herd of bison during the annual Bison Roundup at Antelope Island State Park in Utah, on Friday. The event is used to manage bison populations and check the herds for parasites and disease. The herds are thinned by an annual auction, which pays for bison to be shipped in and others flown out to diversify existing herds.
Herd mentality
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Task Force
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"Unfortunately, I decided to be more of a college kid than a college student my freshman year, so my GPA took a big hit," he said.
University policy
Liberal course withdrawal policies also seem to affect the University's four-year graduation rate. Rather than studying to make the grade, students will withdraw from a class they are not doing well in, only to retake it the next semester.
McCluskey-Fawcett said the University makes it too easy to withdraw from classes — even up until the last day.
"Some of it is our own policies," she said. "I think that we have been so bent-over-backwards to accommodate people, and I think it is not in their best interest in some ways to give them too much freedom."
KU students are allowed 90 credit hours before they must declare a major. University officials are considering changing this allowance to 50 credit hours in order to force students to plan carefully when mapping out their college careers.
Minimum number of credit hours
Incoming freshmen, unsure of their ability to handle college coursework, often make the misguided decision of taking too few hours. A common misconception exists among many freshmen and their parents that taking more than 12 hours their first semester will be overwhelming.
McCluskey-Fawcett said students who take 12 hours their freshman year set in motion a pattern of taking 12 hours each subsequent semester, regardless of the difficulty of the classes. By the time their second year rolls around, students who took 12 hours each semester their first year are nearly one full semester behind.
Richard Morrell, associate vice provost for student success, said students should average at least 15.4 hours a semester to finish the 124 hours required to earn a degree from the University. He said students who start college taking 12 hours a semester have a 20 percent chance of graduating in four years.
Student jobs
Some students need to work full-time to put themselves through college, while others do not need to work at all. What the University is trying to determine is how many are working out of necessity and how many are working to pay for luxuries — such as an expensive apartment or car.
"We know some students have to work, but working 20 to 25 hours off campus while taking a full course load is difficult." Mr McCluskey-Fawcett said.
The University found students who work 10 to 15 hours on campus perform better in classes and are more likely to graduate in a timely fashion than their unemployed or over-employed counterparts.
While all of these factors may contribute to the University's low four-year graduation rate, the best predictor of a student's likelihood of graduating in four years is his or her ACT score. The higher the
score, the higher the probability a student will walk down the hill in four years.
"We wish there was a sub scale on the ACT for maturity," McCluskey-Fawcett said. "Some students are iust not ready."
McCluskey-Fawcett said, however, that some students had legitimate reasons for staying at the University for more than four years.
"Some have really good reasons for taking longer to graduate," she said. "Maybe they decide at the last minute to apply to medical school and they need to take extra classes. Or maybe they become ill or have complications with a family member. Things happen in people's lives."
Though it may seem the University would be thrilled with the added enrollment a low four-year graduation rate supplies,it actually hurts more than it helps.
"Some people think we like them to stay for a fifth year because we get an extra year of money out of them," McCluskey-Fawcett said.
She said, however, that the cost to educate in-state residents is higher than the cost of tuition, which places a strain on the University. Graduating students in a timely fashion is in the best interest of both the student and the school.
"Finishing in four years is in the economic interest of the student, not just for the cost of tuition and room and board, but for the loss of wages you didn't make a year you could have been working," she said.
Edited by Erin Wisdom
Racial
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The advisory board would be beneficial if it would determine where racial profiling exists in Lawrence, how it negatively affects people and how to fix the problem, he said.
"People use the excuse that it's all about our safety, and we shouldn't be politically correct," Guillot said. "But it's the assumption that a person who has a different skin color is more likely to commit a crime."
Sgt. Dan Ward of the Law-
rence Police Department said that stopping a person without cause and based on race is already illegal. The department would never condone an officer breaking the law, he said.
"We plan to fully comply with
the state law," Ward said. "We have never tolerated racial profiling by an officer."
High'berger said the advisory board would work without pay and would not cost the city much to operate. The board would consist of people affected by racial profiling and representatives from neighborhoods, businesses and law enforcement, he said. The mayor would select members, with consent from commissioners.
Victor Aguilar, president of the Hispanic American Leadership Association, said the advisory board would benefit Lawrence.
Aguilar, Dodge City junior, said he had been stopped by police because he is Hispanic. He said he had never been profiled in Lawrence and he didn't know anyone who had. But, he said, he has been
If an officer was accused of racial profiling in Lawrence, the advisory board could help settle the issue, Aguilar said.
profiled in his hometown.
He said when he was 12, he was riding in a car with two of his father's farm hands when police stopped them. The officers searched the car, he said, but they did not issue any citations and gave no reason for the stop.
If an officer was accused of racial profiling in Lawrence, the advisory board could help settle the issue, Aguilar said.
— Edited by Tricia Masenthin