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KS STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
TOPEKA, KS 66612
ЛАЛАЛАЛИН
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THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
VOL.104.NO.101
ADVERTISING: 864-4358
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1995
(USPS 650-640)
NEWS:864-4810
Student in feud at Oliver Hall
Freshman may be booted because of altercations
By Teresa Veazey
Kansan staff writer
Life in Oliver Hall has caused problems for Andrew Spitz.
Or, Andrew Spitz has caused problems for life in Oliver Hall.
Spitz, West Longbranch, N.J., freshman, has been written up for hall violations five times.
Now, Spitz may have to find another place to live.
Spitz, who has been on probation since October for fighting with another resident, was told he would be kicked out of Oliver Hall if he was written up one more time.
"Every single problem I've had, with the exception of two, has been a guy across the hall," Spitz said.
"The guy just has problems, and I'm one of them," Spitz said.
On Tuesday, Medintz filmed a report with KU police alleging that Spitz knocked on his door and said, "If I get thrown out, it's gonna be your head. You're gonna die."
That guy is Mike Medintz, the security monitor who wrote Spitz's incident reports.
Medintz told police Spizit made the comments in retaliation for being written up for alcohol and noise violations.
According to the police report, Medintz said Spitz told him, "Paybacks are hell" and, "I'll do everything I can to get you thrown out, too."
Kirk Wagner, Omaha senior and resident assistant at Oliver Hall, confirmed that he made a report to KU police Monday about a verbal altercation he had with Spitz on Feb. 9.
Wagner told police that he had gone to Spitz's room to tell him that he would be written up for staff harassment. Spitz replied, "Should you ever get a phone calling to get out of the room now, you should, because I'm going to get anyone back who ever tried to get me kicked out of the hall."
Wagner said he could not comment about the specifics of the report.
For now, Spitz is waiting for a letter from student housing that will tell him if he will be allowed to stay in Oliver.
Jonathan Long, an assistant director for student housing, said students' housing contracts can be canceled if they violated residence hall policy.
"If someone is documented or written up for a violation of a residence hall policy, we give them the opportunity to read it," said Long. "We then follow it up with a meeting with the complex director, assistant complex director or the senior staff assistant."
At this meeting, the student can express his or her views about the reports, Long said. Afterward, the complex director decides whether to cancel the student's housing contract.
If a housing contract is canceled, Long said, the student is not allowed to live in University housing until the next academic year.
Long said cancellation of a student's housing contract because of repeated policy violations was rare.
"We would like to keep them as residents," he said. "We try to work with them and help them understand residence hall policy."
The rivalry continues
The Kansas men's basketball team will try to continue an 11- game winning streak at Bramlage Coliseum in Manhattan when it takes on the Kansas State Wildcats.
Page1B
GTAs' accents confuse some students
By Paul Todd
Kansan staff writer
Bv Paul Todd
On her first day of teaching a music therapy class last fall, Cindy Lian, Selengor, Malaysia, graduate student, told her students that they may have trouble understanding her English.
"I told them that if they ever had questions not to hesitate to ask me one or two or three times," Lian said.
The students complied, and the class went smoothly.
But classes taught by instructors with poor English-speaking skills don't always go so smoothly. Many students say some instructors lack the language skills to teach college-level courses effectively.
Shalom Kellner, St. Francis freshman, said that twice during her college career — once in calculus and once in chemistry — graduate teaching assistants' broken English interfered with her learning.
Kellner said that in classes like calculus and chemistry, she had to spend an unusual amount of time studying outside of class because she didn't understand what was
"If they are going to teach a class, they should be able to pronounce the words correctly," she said. "Especially in the subject matter."
"I'm paying to learn," she said. "And I don't want to pay a lot of money to teach myself."
going on in class.
International students who wish to become graduate teaching assistants must score 80 or better on a written and oral English proficiency test at the Applied English Center.
University policy since 1985 has been to administer the test to all teaching applicants whose native language is not English. According to a directory published by Educational Testing Services, which administers the tests, a score of 80 means that the applicant's English is "generally comprehensible but with frequent errors in pronunciation, grammar and choice of vocabulary."
Christa Hansen, an administrator of the test, said the test was a good measure of English-speaking skills but not of other non-language communication, such as teaching skills.
"Sometimes, heavier accents are harder to understand," Prothe said. "We try to encourage them, especially the ones from China, to be around English speaking students."
"Their English is not perfect," Hansen said. "They make errors, but the errors do not interfere with understanding."
Gloria Prothe, math office supervisor, said that while the test was enough to determine proficiency, it did not test for heavy accents.
"For the first couple of weeks I was in there, I didn't understand a word she said," Rapeport said. Now, she gleans what she can from writing on the chalkboard.
Becky Rappeport, Littleton, Colo., freshman, said the graduate teaching assistant for her calculus class was extremely difficult to understand.
But sometimes, the accent is just too thick.
"From that, I can understand the material she is trying to teach," she said.
Asking questions for clarification doesn't always work, either.
"She doesn't seem to understand our questions — she's oblivious." Ranneport said. "I don't think that's right."
Sixteen of the 56 graduate teaching assistants in the math department are international students. Two do not teach because they did not pass the proficiency test.
Carol Prentice, assistant to the vice chancellor for academic affairs, said the number of complaints about international graduate teaching assistants had gone down since the English-proficiency test was started at KU.
Faithful living
Students balance school college fun and religious beliefs under same roof
Some members of Icthus Christian Outreach stand in the stairwell of their house, dubbed The Pod, 1308 Ohio St.
Jay Thornton / KANSAN
By Paul Todd
Kansan staff writer
Take a bunch of guys with common beliefs, put them in a house to live together and give that house a name and some traditions.
It sounds like a fraternity, but
it's not.
The Pod, the Guantan and the Feed Lot are residences near campus where 17 members of Icthus Christian Outreach, a campus Christian fellowship organization, live. Residents of the house and the two apartments said that each place had taken on its own personality and that the residents were friends who had common beliefs in God.
"We live together because we have the same focus on God," said Andy Hagemaster, Feed Lot resident. "And we enjoy each other's company."
Hagemaster, Leavenworth freshman, said that the residences had no membership requirements like fraternities, and there was no pressure to act a certain way.
"We are a family," he said. "There's no pressure to be who you aren't."
Jeff Peterson, Roeland Park junior, said the residences were more relaxed than fraternities.
"No one here takes it that seriously," he said. "None of our identities are wrapped up in our house."
Hagemaster founded the Feed Lot, the newest residence in the Ithus chain, last fall. The name Feed Lot has some Biblical references, he said.
"Jesus said, 'Feed my sheep,' and that's how the term came about," he said. "But sometimes the place smells like feed lot."
Hagemaster lived in the Guanat,
1311 Ohio St. last year before moving into the Feed Lot,
an apartment with four residents. He said the new residence already was building its own traditions.
Hagemaster said one of the traditions developing in the Feed Lot was taking drives in the American Flyer, one of the resident's blue Honda Civic. The residents drive around construction zones near the Feed Lot, 1439 Ohio St., and end the trip with a high-speed jump over the large bump at Tennessee and 19th streets.
"The object is to see how fast you can move around the obstacle course without wrecking." Hazemaster said.
Because it is new, however,
the Feed Lot has not earned
the respect of the older houses in
the chain.
"The Feed Lot is a poor imitation," said Peterson, who lives in the Pod. "It's a wamabe house, to tell the truth."
The Pod, which was started eight years ago, houses seven guys at 1308 Ohio St. The name the Pod stands for Pit of Despair, which describes the house perfectly, Peterson said.
He said the gray house with green trim was basically a dump.
"It's not the nicest house in Lawrence." Peterson said.
Peterson said the Pod was a meeting place for Icthus members or people who could not find anything to do.
"People have been known to show up and sleep on the couch for a few weeks." he said.
Peterson said that although most of the residents were Icthus members, there were no requirements to live in the houses.
"The Pod usually gets passed through friends," he said. "We just usually know the people who are moving in."
All three residences are between Jayhawk Boulevard and Tennessee Street, near Pyramid Pizza and campus.
Blue Bird Diner a victim of competition
By Brian Vandervliet Kansan staff writer
Kansan staff writer
The Blue Bird is dead, and the neon lights have gone down.
On Monday, the Blue Bird Diner, 814 Massachusetts St., served its last burger and closed its doors. Owner P.J. Karlin, who opened the diner two years ago, said the competitive downtown market, the growth of large retail stores on the edges of town and high taxes were too much for his small restaurant to handle.
"The climate for downtown restaurants really has changed a lot in Lawrence," he said. "One of the biggest problems is that there are just so many restaurants."
Karlin, who also opened the Paradise Cafe, 728 Massachusetts St. in 1981, said it was important for an independently owned restaurant to be unique. Although the Blue Bird Diner began with a broad variety of items, the menu was eventually changed to a standard mix of items like
hamburgers, roast beef and milkshakes
"We had a lot of grease on the menu, but we also had a lot of good food." Kering said.
P. J. Karlin,
right, ran the
Blue Bird Diner
for two years.
The diner
closed on Monday.
Paul
Punzo, left,
cleans the grill
area for the last
time.
Brian Vandervillet /
KANSAN
we also had a store good food, Karlin said.
A small restaurant like the Blue Bird Diner had to have a consistently large number of patrons to do well, Karlin said. The development of new retail stores, like Tanger Factory Outlet Center and the yet-to-be-completed Target store, concerned Karlin because they would draw people away from downtown.
"There's such a special feeling in downtown Lawrence," he said. "I would hate to see us lose out to the cornfield malls. But there's no way to stop all that."
Lisa Blair, administrator for Downtown Lawrence Inc., said she believed there always would be a strong market for small restaurants in Lawrence. She said there currently were more than a dozen small restaurants downtown.
cerned with the commercial overdevelopment of areas outside downtown.
"The people that want to sit down will continue to sit down," she said.
"There are so many chains now with incredible purchasing and marketing power that independently owned restaurants can't compete," Schumm said. "It's going to be more difficult for small restaurants to continue."
But Bob Schumm, owner of Buffalo Bob's Smokehouse and Massachusetts Street Delicatessen, agreed that it had become more difficult for small restaurants to succeed. Like Karlin, he was con-
At least one student,
however, said she always would prefer
small restaurants like the Blue Bird Diner
to larger chains.
"I liked the Blue Bird because it was on Massachusetts Street, and it was a cool place to hang out," said Holly Sheorn, Leavenworth senior. "I'll miss it."