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KS STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
TOPEKA, KS 66612
VOL.104,NO.81
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
ADVERTISING: 864-4358
FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 1995
(USPS 650-640)
NEWS: 864-4810
Two students are finding it's never too late to get an education
Valerie Crow / KANSAN
Saasha McReynolds, Lawrence senior, helps Robert McDonough, Lawrence senior, with his homework in the math tutoring room in 321 Strong. McDonough, 74, decided to come to KU in 1987 after a career as consultant for a paint company.
Jav Thornton / KANSAN
Katy Beard, Lawrence freshman, sits in Wescoe Terrace after classes. The 58-year-old is a freshman at KU this year.
58-year-old retiree explores college life
By Julie Howe
Kansan staff writer
Katy Beard's life took an unexpected twist last June. She was 58 years old and had been given early retirement from her job at an insurance company.
She decided to do something she had always wanted to do: enroll at the University of Kansas.
The only education she had was in Roman Catholic schools, and it ended when she was 18 years old and had spent four months in a convent.
"I was scared, but I saw the same fear in everyone else," she said. "And they all had raging hormones to deal with."
"I never thought I had a proper education." Beard said. "When I lost my job, I thought about something I had always wanted to do but never had the opportunity or the time for. It was the University."
Like many freshmen, she did not know exactly what to expect and was nervous when she went to orientation.
She enjoyed orientation, she said, and it helped her to feel like she was a part of KU.
"When they played the alma mater, I got goose bumps," Beard said. "I felt silly because I looked around and saw everybody else vawning."
Many things about KU surprised Beard as her first semester progressed.
The students were not as rowdy as she expected, she said, and many of them always wore a "city face" when they walked on campus.
"They seem to not be very open until you smile at them," she said. "Then they
would smile back."
She also was surprised at how polite and helpful the students were.
One rainy day last fall, she was walking to her car carrying an umbrella when she slipped and fell.
"This guy came running over to help me up, and I said, 'I must look like Mary Poppins on drugs,' Beard said. 'He started laughing so
hard I think he forgot he was helping me um
Another surprise hit her when she opened her book for English 102 and found works from people like Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan.
"When you think of the last literature book I had, you go back to Nathaniel Hawthorne and good old Bill Shakespeare," she said. "I'm sure this stuff seems old to the other students, but it feels very up-to-date to me."
She enjoys socializing with friends and listening to jazz music. She also enjoys reading and walking for pleasure, which she now gets to do more often, she said.
Beard grew up in Kansas City, Kan., and has lived in Lawrence for about 20 years. She has been married and divorced twice and has a 34-year-old daughter, who lives in London.
Clete Stroda, Lawrence resident, has known Beard for five years and said she was happy Beard was doing something
she enioved.
"I think it is absolutely wonderful, 'Stroda said. "Katty's always talked about it, and it's great to hear the way she brings humor into everything she does."
Beard said she enjoyed her first semester but thought she could have done better.
"I wasn't pleased with myself as far as my grades go," she said. "I really got into freshman fever. I started skipping classes and the whole nine yards."
But she said she learned much about how to be a college student.
She has confidence that her second semester at KU will be better than her first, she said.
"I don't have a jow now, so it's better to dedicate myself to studying," she said.
"I really don't think you know how to do it until you've done it once." she said.
sociology but has not decided on a major.
"We'll see if I live that long," she said.
70-year-old determined to graduate
Beard is interested in psychology and sociology but has not decided on a major.
By Kelle Tompkins
Kansan staff writer
Robert McDonough sat on the front row in Math 101. Dressed in a sweater, tie, slacks and black dress shoes, he pulled out his algebra book and pencil.
MMcDonough is a single male college student like so many others at the University of Kansas. But there are a few details that set him apart.
McBougain, 74. Lawrence senior, is one of the oldest students at KU. He has short gray hair and stoops a little when he walks. A pair of bifocals sit perched on his nose while he looks at the algebra book. He's a senior, in every sense of the word.
The three-credit algebra course is the only class McDonough enrolled in this semester. It is one of the few classes he has left to take before he graduates with a bachelor's degree in English.
"I'mjustlike everyone else,trying to get a passing grade," McDonough said.
"My dad pulled me out of high school in the 11th grade," he said.
That was in 1938. He worked with his dad in the paint store the family owned in O'Neill, Neb. Later he helped his dad farm, and he went on to become a consultant for a major paint company. But he never finished high school or took a college course — until after he retired in 1984.
"I wanted to get a degree," McDonough said. "Everyone else in the family had one."
Since he had to travel in his job, he didn't have time to go to school, he said. After retiring, McDonough passed his General Educational Development test, earning him the equivalent of a high school diploma.
In 1987, McDonough earned an Associate in Arts degree from Johnson County Community College and enrolled at KU.
Despite his age, he was very active his first few years of college. He swam, played tennis and took a ballroom dancing course.
Now a kidney dialysis machine slows McDonough down. He's near the top of the list for a kidney transplant at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, he said.
Meanwhile, he hangs out in the math tutoring room.
"He's kind of the elder statesman," said David Palmer, Lawrence senior.
Like other seniors at KU,
McDonough isn't sure what he
wants to do after he graduates.
"When I graduate, I'll find something to do. I plan on keeping busy," McDonough said.
Where to put your newspaper
Where to put your newspaper
Sherman Reeves, student body president, has proposed putting newspaper recycling bins by every trash receptacle in the school. Below are the main newspaper recyclable bins on campus.
Micah Laaker/KANSAN
Recycling financially unfeasible
Student president says more bins are years away
By Ian Ritter
Kansan staff writer
They plaster the floors of classrooms, scoot across the street in the wind and clutter the hallways.
Few would say that the newspapers littered on campus are a pretty sight.
Sherman Reeves, student body president, and Eric Medill, student body vice president, said during their campaign last spring that they wanted to improve recycling efforts on campus.
Now, Reeves said he would like to see recycling bins placed by trash cans all over campus. But students at the University of Kansas won't see that happen for a few years, he said.
"We've tried to emphasize the importance of newspaper recycling," Reeves said. "It's a money issue, ultimately, whereas I have told administrators that KU students want to recycle newspaper."
Reeves and Medill said that administrators were not willing to pay for newspaper recycling because it was not profitable.
Collecting the newspapers is the most expensive part of the plan, Medill said. "But I really don't know if it would be Senate's job to do that. That's not to say that we can't do something."
Mike Russell, an environmental health and safety officer for the University, said that Student Senate had a chance to set up a system for newspaper recycling but voted against it.
Russell said that he and the president of KU Environs, Amy Trainer, went before the Educational Opportunity Board in October and asked for a $5,000 grant to pay a part-time employee to be in charge of environmental issues on campus — especially recycling.
The grant proposal was denied.
But the Educational Opportunity Board's fund is intended for academic grants and is not part of Senate, said Reeves, who is the chairman of the board. The board, which was set up by the Kansas Board of Regents, awards need-based grants to KU students.
Money for the fund is taken from student fees, and the decline in enrollment last fall resulted in a 14 percent decrease in funds.
Trainer said that students needed to work with the administration to show that recycling was wanted and needed.
Russell estimated that a typical newspaper recycling program would cost between $50,000 and $60,000 annually. A better program could cost more than $100,000 each year, he said.
The Kansas men's basketball team looks to head off Donnie Boyce and the Colorado Buffaloes at 3 p.m. tomorrow in Boulder, Colo.
SenEx questions parking committee's proposals
Page 18.
By Matt Hood
Representatives from the University parking committee presented budget proposals for two new parking structures to SenEx last week. On Wednesday, SenEx prepared a list of questions that must be answered by the parking committee before SenEx will present a recommendation to University Council.
The University Senate Executive Committee won't validate plans for two new campus parking structures until it gets some questions answered.
Kansan staff writer
Wil Linkugel, chair of SenEx and professor of communication studies, said the parking committee's proposals were unclear.
"I think we want to clarify exactly what the committee is proposing." Linkuel said.
The parking committee has proposed an increase in parking fees for next year. They also proposed the budgets for two parking garages, one north of the Kansas Union and one to replace the current park at Jayhawker Towers apartments. A third garage, proposed for the area east of Carruth-O'Leary Hall, is not a part of current SenEx debate.
The following are some of SenEx's questions and concerns about the committee's proposals:
How will the proposed parking fees be spent?
The parking committee's report to SenEx included proposed rate increases for parking passes. The price of blue permits would increase from $85 to $100; red permits would increase from $70 to $85; yellow permits would rise from $53 to $65 and residence hall passes would jump from $55 to $65.
Donna Hultine, assistant director of parking, said that the majority of the increase would finance the bonds needed to build the garages.
How will the Jayhawker Towers parking garage be paid for, and who will be allowed to park there?
"Parking is user-supported," Hultine said. "All users support the whole system."
Hultine said that prices for resident hall parking permits would increase more than the price of other permits but that Towers residents should not be strapped with a disproportionately large increase.
The current proposal calls for an increase in price of all parking passes to pay for the new garage at Jayhawker Towers. SenEx committee members suggested that residents of Jayhawker Towers should bear more of the cost of the garage, or the garage should be opened for everyone's use.
Is the proposed spot north of the Union the best place to build a garage?
Some members of SenEx were concerned that more parking around the Union would not serve the needs of academic buildings at the bottom of the Hill.
■ Are new parking garages on campus a permanent answer to the campus parking problem?
Huline predicted that the benefits of a new garage by the Union would trickle down to the bottom of the Hill.
Committee members questioned whether shuttle parking had been investigated adequately. SenEx would like information about a possible park-and-ride system in which commuters could park at such lots as the Lied Center's and be ferried to campus by bus.
A shuttle system was studied in the earliest stages of the process, Hultine said. But it was not deemed feasible for the University at this time.
Jack Davidson, professor of physics and astronomy and member of SenEx, helped compile the list of questions.
"I don't like the package," Davidson said. "There's a large amount of smokescreen here."
SenEx asked the parking committee to answer these questions by next week so it can decide whether to recommend the proposed budget to the University Council on Feb 2.