UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Monday, January 23, 1995
BIOLOGY: Works to provide for increasing enrollments
Continued from Page 1A.
James Orr, chairman of biological sciences, said that turning students away could compound the problem. The students who are turned away this semester will come back next semester along with more students who will have to be turned away, so the number of students waiting to take classes could increase, he said.
"Classes that used to be 50-60 now are 180," Stetler said. "The problem is where to teach the class."
Dean Stetler, the undergraduate director of the division, said that managing the increase was difficult.
Orr said that the division could not expand much more.
"We're operating at max," Orr said. "Space is becoming an issue."
Stetter said larger classes made testing harder. With 180 students in a class, he said, it was impossible to ask essay questions, and professors had to resort to more multiple choice questions.
For the environmental studies program, one of the most acute problems is advising, said Val Smith, associate director of the program. The program has a core faculty of four professors, and three instructors teach classes within the program. Advising loads range from 30 to 60 students per faculty member, Smith said.
"Clearly, there's a lot of pressure on the faculty, and we just want to make sure we do our best," he said.
The cause of the dramatic increases is difficult to pinpoint, but part of it may be because of the media, Stetler said. As new discoveries in areas such
as genetics have been publicized, awareness of the profession has grown.
Orr agreed that the media have played an important role in the growth of the field. An increased awareness of environmental issues has created an interest in biology, Orr said.
Both areas are seeking solutions to the problem. For environmental studies, the solution may lie in newly-adopted admission requirements. For admission, students must complete the freshmen and sophomore requirements in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and have an overall grade point average of 2.5. In addition, they also must take three core courses—a general biology course with a lab, introduction to environmental studies, and an upper-level environmental studies course—and earn a GPA of 2.5 in those classes as well.
Capping the admission should bring the program down to a size the faculty can better handle. Smith said.
For the biological sciences, the solution may not be as simple. Setting a ceiling for admissions would not be feasible, Stetler said. So the division is faced with the challenge of offering a good education to many students, Orr said.
"It's tough to provide good educational services to students when resources are limited." Orr said.
Funding for the division simply cannot keep pace with the growth, Stetler said.
"The college has tried to help us, but there's not much they can do, either," he said.
Lobbying group hoping for student funds
Students may be able to decide for themselves if they want to fund the Student Legislative Awareness Board.
By Ian Ritter
Kansan staff writer
The group was formed late last semester with the intention of allowing students to lobby the Kansas Legislature.
KU's long-standing lobbying group, Associated Students of Kansas, was disbanded in the fall of 1993 when Attorney General Robert Stephan ruled that funds from student fees could not be used to lobby the Legislature. No student lobbying group has existed at KU since. Currently, the only student who is able to lobby the Legislature is the student body president, Sherman Reeves.
Although the newly formed legislative awareness board has received $6,000 from Student Senate for advertising and coordinator compensation, no money has been approved to finance the board's lobbying efforts.
Mark Galus, chairman of the board, understands the purpose of Stephan's ruling, but he said most people disagreed with the decision.
Stephan, in a letter to State Rep. Kent Glasscock, R-Manhattan, said that issues of public policy could not be funded by student senates because they were issues on which students may disagree.
"While it may be argued that issues advanced by the student senate on behalf of the entire student body are not political or ideological in nature,
we believe that more often than not issues that are the topic of legislation will be deemed political or ideological," Stephan said in the letter.
"I hate to say it's targeted to keep students from organizing that way," said Marc Wilson, the board's co-coordinator. "I'm not going to say it's unfair. If that's what the law is, that's what it is."
The board now is trying to get funding through the options card that is given to students when they enroll. If it is approved by administration, each student could choose to pay an optional fee to finance the board.
Wilson said he didn't know how the board would obtain funding if the proposal is not approved.
"We're just concerned that everything's in place so that this will run in
the future," Wilson said. "We're just trying to get up and running."
Wilson said that funds would go directly toward advertising, a computer, software, a fax machine and help pay for the mailing of letters to the Legislature.
Right now, the 10 board members are working in various subcommittees, including communication with the capital, informing various people about the board and developing a policy manual.
Board members hope to address issues that are important to students, Wilson said. He mentioned multiculturalism, scholarship and tuition issues.
"We want to keep people aware of issues that affect students," Galus said.
Volunteerism considered for KU law graduation
By Brian Vandervliet Kansan staff writer
Pro bono. It's not a Sonny Bono support group. It's volunteer work done by lawyers, and Michael Hoeflich, dean of law, would like to see more of it. Hoeflich and other law faculty are considering a proposal that would require service work from law students before they graduate.
"Pro bono comes from the idea that law is a profession and not just a business," he said. "Because it's a profession, it carries with it a social obligation for service."
10 hours a year of service work on campus or in the community.
Many law students already volunteer a substantial amount of time, Hoeflich said. The purpose of the requirement would be to encourage all students to embrace pro bono work in their future careers. His proposal would require about six to
"The reason for making it a requirement for graduation is that it is a symbolic statement by the institution saying we believe lawyers must do public service," he said.
The idea for a service requirement will be discussed further among faculty before an official proposal is made, Hoeflich said. Because the proposal would involve an additional graduation requirement, it would have to be approved by the student faculty assembly this spring.
Hoefflich said that the required work wouldn't have to be legal service. Law students could choose any kind of volunteerism, such as working with children or in soup kitchens.
Georgann Eglinski, associate dean of law, said she supported the idea of a pro bono work requirement. She said that she would like to
"A program like this might heighten students' awareness, and that's what this is all about," she said.
encourage an enthusiasm among KU law students for community service work.
John Emerson, Bartlesville, Olda., law student, has volunteered time to assist the elderly with income taxes. But, he said, that he had mixed feelings about a service requirement.
"Volunteer work is volunteer," he said.
Emerson added that the requirement would give students something more than law classes alone could offer.
Stephen Sigler, Prairie Village law student, said that a requirement would not be a problem because he already did service work.
"It's something that's expected or you when you're out practicing law, so I can see how there would be a need," he said.
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