CAMPUS/AREA
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Thursday, December 1, 1994
3A
Geographically, the Alvamar neighborhoods are the same size Lawrence was 40 years ago. Alvamar officials expect the area to double its total population of 7,000 within the next ten years.
Source: Bob Billings, Alvamar president Krista McGlohon/ KANSAN
Stone Meadows South
Alvamar sees growth; expected to increase
By Carlos Tejada
Kansan staff writer
It's Lawrence's fastest growing neighborhood, and it's going to get bigger.
"We've had more growth in the last seven years than we have had in the first 20," said Billings, who founded the company in 1967.
Today, Alvamar is a significant part of the city's economic and residential growth westward. But the first Alvamar neighborhoods built in the early 1970s weren't popular at first, said Bob Billings, president of Alvamar Development Corporation. The houses — large, two-story dwellings built along cul-de-sacs and placed near a golf course — didn't catch on until the 1980s.
Alvamar, a series of west-side subdivisions owned by a single corporation, already is home to about one-tenth of Lawrence's 70,000 people. Billings expects the neighborhood's population to double in the next 10 years. Alvamar planners already have drawn up the blueprints to build even more houses, which cost between $100,000 and $1 million, west of the current subdivisions.
Billings said he was initially surprised by the growth of his company, which was named after his parents Alva and Margaretta. He said he began the company with some partners as a part-time venture away from his former job as KU's director of financial aid.
"We were just going to build a golf course." Billings said.
Alvamar became popular when higher-income families began looking for a safe place to live away from metropolitan areas, Billings said. Many of those families in Topeka and the Kansas City area discovered Lawrence, a quiet college town that
fulfilled their needs. Today, about one-third of Alvamar families have jobs outside Lawrence.
Billings said many Alvamar residents are KU alumni who remembered how quiet the city was when they were students and wanted to raise their families there.
Lawrence also has improved in the amenities and cultural opportunities it offers to new residents, Billings said.
"Lawrence is a much better place to stay than it was 40 years ago," he said. "You didn't have drug and crime problems then. But in terms of educational and other opportunities, Lawrence has definitely improved."
Geographically, Alvamar is larger than Lawrence was in the 1940s. Billings said Alvamar has benefited from the city's population growth. In 1955, the city's population was 22,000.
But the Alvamar developments account for a little less than half of west-side growth, said Fred Sherman, city planner. He said additional neighborhoods north and south of Alvamar also account for Lawrence's increasing population.
Sherman also said Alvamar had a good track record in its attempts to plan its development carefully. He said his planners integrated green areas among the neighborhoods.
To accommodate the new residents who are expected to move to Alvamar in the next 10 years, Alvamar officials plan to build additional neighborhoods west of the city. Current plans call for neighborhoods to be built up to the South Lawrence Trafficway, which is being built about one mile away.
"Typically, you'll not see varied land-use," Sherman said. "Alvamar incorporates integrated land-use."
Ellsworth laundry renovation almost complete
Kansan staff report
Renovations in the Ellsworth Hall laundry room soon will be finished.
Students are still using the room while it is being renovated.
Ken Stoner, director of student housing, said the room should be finished by January, when students return for the spring semester.
A Sept 6 inspection by the Office of Design and Construction Management revealed several building code and fire code violations. After the inspection, five of the 14 dryers were removed from the laundry room as part of the renovation because the dryer vents were not long enough. The vents do not have fans to push lint through, which presents a posi-
ble fire hazard.
Jav Thornton/ KANSAN
The renovation also includes new doors leading to the laundry room, he said.
Stoner said the five dryers will be placed back in the laundry room at the end of the renovation.
When a fire alarm sounds in the residence hall, the doors automatically will close, securing the laundry room. However, the doors do not lock, so residents can use them to get out of the laundry room.
The east wall of the room also will be expanded so that the laundry vents meet building code standards, he said.
Stoner said he did not know how much the complete renovation would cost. Total cost will be figured after the renovation.
Kim Wilcox, associate professor of speech, language and hearing, talks to Michelle Jacobs, Rulosod, N.M., graduate student, about graduate school. Wilcox is a participant in the Vice Chancellors' Fellows Program, which allows faculty members to see the inner workings of administration at KU.
Professors learn to become KU administrators
By David Wilson Kansan staff writer
The life of an administrator at the University of Kansas isn't easy.
Just ask Meredith Lane
Lane, associate professor of botany and biological sciences, should know. This year, she is one of four professors in the Vice Chancellors' Fellows Program, which participates an up-close and personal view of the administrative workings of the University by pairing them with KU's four vice chancellors.
KU's four vice chancellors are Ed Meyen, executive vice chancellor; David Ambler, vice chancellor for student affairs; David Shulenburger, vice chancellor for academic affairs;
and Andrew Debicki, vice chancellor for research and graduate studies.
In addition to holding down their regular teaching duties, participants, or vice chancellor fellows, spend anywhere from four to 10 hours a week at Strong Hall, shadowing each of the four vice chancellors during meetings, planning sessions — and more meetings.
"They spend their lives in meetings," Lane said. "These people work incredible hours."
Watching administrators struggle to make decisions has given Lane a different view of the conflicts that sometimes arise between faculty and administrators.
"It's easy to sit back and have an us versus them attitude," she said. "The
purpose of this program is to expose mid-career faculty to what it's like in Strong Hall."
Meyen said the program was not a vice-cancellor-in-training program but that it might spark a faculty member's interest in administration.
"The intent is to allow them to develop an institutional perspective," he said. "We would hope that over time, we would create an interest in administrative roles for faculty."
Most administrators come from the ranks of faculty. Mween said.
One vice chancellor fellow, Kim Wilcox, associate professor of speech, language and hearing, said he hoped to follow that pattern.
Another vice chancellor fellow, Christopher Hepp, associate professor of music and dance, became interested in administration after he spent a semester as interim dean of graduate studies at the School of Fine Arts.
"I'm very interested in university administration," he said. "Part of me
wants to pursue that later."
"I was surprised that I enjoyed it," he said.
Hepp said he appreciated the opportunity to see how and why administrators made their decisions.
"They're pulling back the curtain at Strong Hall," he said.
And the vice chancellor fellows aren't the only ones learning from the program, Meyen said.
"We've found it to be enriching ourselves," he said.
Kansan staff report
Mechanical woes leave Stauffer-Flint, Kansan in the dark
In a literal fulfillment of some students' and professors' beliefs, the University Daily Kansan was in the dark yesterday.
From 11 a.m. to about 1 p.m., electricians from facilities operations worked to replace a fuse and a series of burned-out motors in the basement of Stauffer-Flint Hall. The breakouts cut power to parts of the building, including overhead lights and computers in classrooms, the advertising production room, and the Kansan newsroom.
Mike Richardson, director of facilities operations, said two burned-out air compression units and one burned-out air handling unit had caused electrical fuses to burst.
Facilities operations workers replaced the motors with temporary spare motors. Richardson estimated the replacement cost of the motors to be between $1,200 to $1,500.
Direct-lending program aids students
The Associated Press
That brings to 1,496 the number of schools in the program, representing 40 percent of the total loan volume, according to Education Secretary Richard Riley.
WASHINGTON — The Education Department added 346 schools yesterday to the list of those already offering federal loans directly to students.
"We are determined to take the expense and confusion out of how students finance and pay for higher education," Riley said a news conference at American University, one of the schools already participating. "We are working hard to make this loan process simple, easy and efficient."
the government guarantees about $18 billion in student loans issued under the Federal Family Education Loan Program. Riley said the direct-lending program
President Clinton issued a statement calling the program an important example of reinventing government to better meet the people's needs.
would save taxpayers $4.3 billion over five years.
Under direct lending, the federal government makes the loans to students through schools, eliminating the need for students to go through banks and other private lenders.
Benjamin Ladner, president of American University, called direct loans an extraordinary program that has made a great deal of difference.
"In general, it has meant for us that these loans have been processed in record time," he said. "Parents do not get late-night phone calls to transfer funds immediately."
To prove his point, Ladner had
his financial aid office demonstrate the program for reporters. Jennifer Graham, a senior from Newport News, Va., signed a form accepting her loan award. A financial aid officer then called up her application on a computer screen, executed a few commands and within moments, three copies of her loan papers popped up on a printer. Graham signed the papers, and the loan was final. The money will be in her bank account today, compared to a six-week waiting period under the old system.
Critics of direct lending point to the problems the government has had in reining in default costs. The Coalition for Student Loan Reform, a group of three dozen nonprofit guarantors of student loans, issued a statement urging schools to reconsider joining the program.
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