THE UNIVERSITY OF IKANSAN
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2007
NEWS
3A
New Senate group to create platform featuring input from constituency
BY SARAH NEFF
sneff@kansan.com
Connect coalition wants more student involvement in government
》 STUDENT SENATE
A group of student senators has decided to take action against apathy in and toward Student Senate by creating a new coalition based on student advocacy, diversity and accountability.
PAIR
BRD ST.
Austin Kelly, Lawrence senior and student body treasurer, said he would run for Student Senate president representing the new Student Senate coalition, Connect. He said he wanted to give a voice to University students by running a grassroots campaign and involving the student body in the process.
"There is a general lack of confidence in the Senate, and there is a desire for change." Kelly said.
Kelly said there was a general
disconnect between the students and the Student Senate, and also within the Senate itself. He said that after about 20 of the 70 original senators dropped out of the Senate this semester, there was obviously something wrong.
Jack Connor, Overland Park senior and currently a student senator, said he looked forward to change and supported the approach Connect was taking.
"I don't think you could find more than a couple student senators that think things are OK right now," Connor said.
Connor, who ran with Delta Force last year, said he wanted to build better relationships with students to get a variety of viewpoints to bring into Student Senate.
Riley Dutton, Pittsburgh senior and chairman of the Student Senate finance committee, said he supported the coalition and had helped to create a Web site, Facebook group and Facebook application. Dutton was not previously connected to any coalition. He said the Web site had a pre-campaign survey so students could give Connect their input and ideas for the campaign.
Kelly said the coalition was
starting to campaign early to get input from students before it announced its platform.
Kelly said Connect was going to use the input from the students to decide on its platform, rather than just coming up with a platform it could sell to students.
Kelly also said the coalition was looking for a diverse group of
Jason Oruch, Plano, Texas, junior and current off-campus senator, ran with United Students last year. He said he was connected to Kelly through Senate alumni who knew that he shared the same ideals with Kelly. Both Oruch and Kelly said they wanted to give students a reason to care and a reason to vote.
qualified students to join Connect. He said he didn't want to follow the past tradition of finding friends to run with him. He said he wanted to do away with a lot of the "silly" traditions of past campaigns.
To Join Connect or to voice your opinion on the Onconnect platform, visit www.connectku.com.
Edited by Jeff Briscoe
ELECTION
Clinton knocks Obama's presidential ambitions Obama continued campaigning rather than voting on terrorist resolution
BY TOM RAUM ASSOCIATED PRESS
CLEAR LAKE, Iowa — Hillary Rodham Clinton suggested Monday that Barack Obama has too little experience and perhaps too much ambition, pressing an increasingly aggressive campaign against her chief rival for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Both candidates were in Iowa one month before the nation's leadoff caucuses, with new polls showing Obama had whitted away her early lead and they were virtually tied among Democrats in the state.
"So you decide which makes more sense: Entrust our country to someone who is ready on day one ... or to put America in the hands of someone with little national or international experience, who started running for president the day he arrived in the U.S. Senate," Clinton said.
Her rhetoric underscored the tightness of a race in which polls show a dead heat between them in Iowa, with former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina also in strong contention. Many Iowa caucus-goers say they still haven't made up their minds or could still change them.
Clinton accused Obama of a "rush to campaign" in not returning to Washington this fall to vote on a resolution naming an Iranian military unit a terrorist organization. The Bush administration supported the measure, as did Clinton — and Obama has criticized her for it.
"Presidents can't dodge the tough political fights," she said.
Obama spokesman Bill Burton retorted, "The truth is, Barack
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On the contrary, the Clinton folks said, hed made his plans clear to law school friends and even wrote an essay as a young child saying that was his ambition.
After an event in Iowa on Monday, Obama was asked to comment and said, "No."
Over the weekend, the Clinton camp sent reporters a memo taking Obama to task for saying he hadn't been planning for years to run for president — unlike "some of the other candidates."
Obama doesn't need lectures in political courage from someone who followed George Bush to war in Iraq, gave him the benefit of the doubt on Iran, supported NAFTA and opposed ethanol until she decided to run for president."
But then he said, "It's silly season. I understand she's been quoting my kindergarten teacher in Indonesia." He then walked out of the room without responding to additional shouted questions.
As for when Obama decided to run, there was a lot of back-and-forth about that.
Elsewhere in Iowa, Edwards mocked the Clinton campaign for sniping at Obama about his presidential ambitions.
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"It's like, boy, you can tell you're getting close to the caucuses," said Edwards in Waterloo.
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"I want to confess of all of you right now," Edwards said. "In third
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grade I wanted to be two things: I wanted to be a cowboy and I wanted to be Superman."
A new AP-Pew poll showed Clinton essentially tied with Obama in Iowa, 31 percent to 26 percent, with Edwards at 19 percent and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson at 10 percent.
Clinton's campaign events on Monday were all based encouraging voters to go to the Jan. 3 caucuses and to bring a buddy.
She held a campaign event at the Surf Ballroom at Clear Lake, the same hall where three Rock'n Roll legends performed before their death in a plane crash in February 1959.
"I am old enough to remember Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper," Clinton told her audience. She said she felt like hearing Valens" "La Bamba."
She was late for the Clear Lake event after a campaign plane carrying reporters ahead of her remained on the runway after landing when the cabin began filling with smoke. The plane had to be towed off the runway before Clinton's plane could land. The source of the smoke was not immediately apparent, the pilot and campaign aides said.
"We were circling and circling and circling," Clinton said.
While her husband Bill was president, she said, "we created" millions of new jobs during the 1990s.
causes we believe in. It's what I've been doing for 35 years."
The Iowa caucuses are Jan. 3, and New Hampshire votes Jan. 8. Several other states quickly follow, culminating in races on Feb. 5 when two dozen states hold contests.
She pledged to be "a president who wakes up every morning ready to fight for our families ... and the
Clinton assailed the Illinois senator on Sunday for a political action committee he controls that has contributed money to elected officials in early voting states. Obama has brushed off the criticism.
Clinton is fighting to nurture a sense of inevitability and to stop Obama or Edwards from undercutting it with an Iowa victory.
Later, in another campaign appearance in Sioux City, Clinton did not mention Obama or the tight competition among Democrats, instead appealing to members of the audience to show up at the caucuses.
"Caucusing, if you've never done it before, can seem a little daunting," she said.
Even later, wrapping up her campaign day with an early evening event in an aircraft hangar in Council Bluffs, Clinton said: "The eyes of the world are going to be on Iowa."
"I wish I was an lowan" so she could participate herself in a caucs, she added.
CAMPUS
Calendar changes would feature stop day demise
BY ERIN SOMMER
esommer@kansan.com
The calendar committee, part of University Governance, is looking into whether to eliminate stop day from the University's calendar.
As University of Kansas students look forward to stop day, a group of KU faculty members and students is looking into whether the day should exist at all.
Barbara Phipps, associate professor in the School of Education and chairwoman of the calendar committee, said that the issue had come up a lot during the past several years.
Phipps said that the calendar committee would consider the vote and make a recommendation in the
In the e-mail, Phipps said that she would like the committee members to consider the change as part of a larger issue of making the University's calendar more flexible, including possibly starting class a few days later.
Mark Pacey, Manhattan graduate student and student senator, is another member of the committee. He said some faculty were concerned with the amount of binge drinking that happened among students the night before stop day.
On Sept.18, the calendar committee voted via e-mail on whether to recommend to University Governance to eliminate the extra day.
spring. She said that if it decided to recommend that stop day be eliminated, the committee would present options of an "acceptable trade-off" to Student Senate. The committee must finish a report with a recommendation by April 1, 2008.
"It wouldn't be done without a careful consideration." Phipps said.
Phipps also said that more student input would be garnered before making a recommendation.
Pacey said that he voted against eliminating stop day because he worked as a resident assistant for Student Housing for two years and saw students use the day productively. He said that binge drinking would happen with or without stop day.
"Students are going to make bad decisions whether they do it on a Thursday night or a Friday night," Pacey said.
The vote happened in the same semester that Hannah Love; Dodge City senior and student body president, asked the KU administration to look into implementing a "dead week" the week before finals. During a dead week, professors would be prohibited from giving assignments or tests to students.
Phipps said that looking into dead week was not something the calendar committee had been asked to do. She also said that if any changes were made to stop day, they would not go into effect until 2012 because the University sets its calendar several years in advance.
- Edited by Jeff Briscoe
COURTS
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Family sues railroads for injuries from crash
John and Marcia Hamstra of Grandville, Mich., along with their daughter-in-law and grandchildren, are seeking damages from the railroads in a lawsuit filed in Cook County Circuit Court.
CHICAGO — A Michigan family sued Amtrak and Norfolk Southern on Monday, three days after being injured when a passenger train rammed a freight train sitting on the same track on Chicago's South Side.
"The element of damage has yet to be determined," said their attorney, Thomas Prindable.
The Hamstras contend the railroads were negligent during the Friday accident, which injured dozens aboard the train traveling to Chicago from Grand Rapids, Mich.
John Hamstra, 63, fractured his shoulder and suffered a concussion in the crash. The rest of the family was treated and released for various minor injuries.
Spokesmen for Amtrak and Norfolk Southern Corporation declined to comment Monday.
Federal investigators say the train was speeding moments before it hit the stationary freight train.
Most of the 187 passengers on board the Amtrak train walked away without major injuries from the impact, which catanulled people from their seats.
The accident sent 71 people to hospitals. Three people — one Amtrak crew member and two passengers — were hospitalized overnight. The two workers aboard the Norfolk Southern freight train, which was headed to Chicago from Elizabeth, N.J., were unhurt.
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