4A NEWS
SYMPOSIUM
Alumnus offers shareholding plan
sneff@kansan.com
BY SARAH NEFF
Friday afternoon, Bob Hockett presented the final draft of a paper he began thinking about eight years ago when he was a law student at the University of Kansas.
NO HASSLE FOR YOUR TASSLE
Hockett spoke on a panel at the Kansas Journal of Law and Public Policy Fall 2007 Symposium. He presented his paper "Insource the shareholding of 'Outsourced' Employees: A Global Stock-Ownership Plan."
Hockett currently works as a professor of law at Cornell University. He said he was excited to be back at the University for a day, but said he couldn't shake the feeling that he was a student again even though he was on the other side of the classroom.
"I'm looking for financially engineered means of more equitably sharing the benefits of globalization and then more equitably sharing the risks as well." Hockett said.
Hockett has published over a dozen papers since he graduated from the University in 1999. He said he took a seminar course from John Head, professor of law, and he had come up with several ideas while in that course. One idea grew into his first publication in 2002 that landed in the Columbia journal of Transnational Law.
Hockett suggested through his research that the international community develop a shareholding plan, similar to plans created by companies such as GM, where the employees hold a portion of the stock in the company.
The paper he presented Friday proposed a solution to bridge the gap between the people gaining the most from globalization and the people gaining the least.
"It's wonderful, but humbling," Hockett said.
Beau Jackson, Wichita graduate student and president of the international law society at the University, moderated one of the panels at the symposium.
"I don't really have the expertise to say if it would work or not," Jackson said. "But from a theoretical point it was provocative to say the least, kind of a way to tie domestic law in with the international financial institutions to reach what is obviously a pretty good goal of helping the people who are losing out of globalization."
Ahemd Alyousef, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, graduate student, attended the symposium.
"They all give good solutions," Alyousef said. "The question is, do these solutions help?"
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Hockett said he took advantage of the availability of his professors while studying at the University. He said he would advise current University students to approach their professors to develop a richer and more educational experience.
Hockett's paper, along with the papers presented by five other speakers, can be found in the symposium edition of The Kansas Journal of Law and Public Policy, coming out in January of 2008.
— Edited by Meghan Murphy
[Edwards campus too]
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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN MONDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2007
University may implement test to assess students' skills Programs evaluate abilities acquired during college
》 UNIVERSITY SENATE
BY ERIN SOMMER esommer@kansan.com
"How do we know that you're going to be a successful, thinking adult?" Crowe said.
In the case of the University, Crowe said, it would allow administration to assess how much students learn during their time at the University.
The task force, Crowe said, will begin this spring by researching different ways to make learner outcome assessments. He said that they would continue through the summer and fall of 2008 by speaking with different departments and schools throughout the University before delivering a recommendation to the University Senate in December 2008.
"Everyone has a stake in this," Crowe said.
University Senate is looking into whether students should have to participate in an assessment of how they have developed during their time at the University of Kansas.
Possibilities for a learner outcome system are a standardized test that undergraduate students are required to take, a portfolio of work that a student continually adds to throughout his or her undergraduate career or an interview. Crowe said that several schools and departments currently held some exit interviews with outgoing students, but it was not required or standardized throughout the University. Crowe said that the task force would include KU students, faculty and staff.
Tom Cox, Shawnee senior and student senator, sits on the Executive Committee of University Senate. He said that an actual implementation of the learner system is years off, and he is skeptical that a standardized test could
Learner outcome programs are used in educational institutions and workplaces to assess the development of skills at that institution or workplace. It often involves an outgoing student or worker participating in an interview or test that analyzes knowledge or skills developed.
Bill Crowe, special assistant to the dean of library and president of the University Senate Executive Committee, said that tomorrow the Senate Executive Committee would finalize a task force to look into a possible learner outcome program for KU undergraduates.
work across the entire University. He said a fine arts major and a history major taking the same test upon graduation would be unfeasible.
"I'm curious about it. I definitely have an open mind and will listen to the task force," Cox said. "It's essentially the same theory as No Child Left Behind."
Crowe said that the chair of the task force would be Dan Bernstein, director of the Center for Teaching Excellence and professor in applied behavioral science. He said he expected about seven others to be named to the task force. Those people will be determined tomorrow when the Senate Executive Committee meets at 3 p.m. in the Regents Room.
Crowe said that assessing students as they graduate is an issue at universities across the country and that the University was ahead of the nation by looking at the issue before the Board of Regents requires it of all universities.
"In part, this is coming as a natural progression of assessment, and in, part is coming out of the Board of Regents," Crowe said.
Edited by Kaitlyn Syring
NASA
Space station finds metal shavings
BY MARCIA DUNN ASSOCIATED PRESS
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Spacewalking astronauts doing construction work outside the international space station Sunday made a disturbing discovery: what appear to be metal shavings inside a joint that is needed to turn a set of solar power panels.
Tani radioed down that metal shavings were everywhere.
The rotary joint, 10 feet in diameter, has experienced intermittent vibrations and power spikes for nearly two months. Space station managers were hoping a thermal cover or bolt might be hanging up the mechanism, which would have been relatively easy to fix, and were disheartened when Daniel
"It's quite clear that it's metal-to-metal grating or something, and it's widespread." Tani said.
The shavings resembled small flakes and were clinging to the joint as if to a magnet, Tani said.
The astronaut used tape to dab up some of the shavings. It will be returned to Earth aboard Discovery next week for analysis. NASA is uncertain whether the flecks are actually metallic, possibly from the aluminum foil lining the thermal covers, or some other material.
of the space station, to make sure they're facing the sun. The joint for the left solar wings is working fine.
This rotary joint, launched and installed just four months ago, controls the huge solar panel wings on the right side
The right rotary joint will remain in a parked position as much as possible until the problem is solved, Mike Suffredini, NASA's space station program manager, said. Flight controllers were trying to determine whether any more inspections or even repairs will be needed in the coming week, or whether they can continue to work around the problem following Discovery's departure.
It's too soon to know whether the joint — if it continues to malfunction — will affect science operations aboard the European laboratory that is scheduled to fly to the space station in December, or the Japanese lab that will follow, Suffredini said.
》 PAINTBALL
Students pelted, painted
BY MARK DENT mdent@kansan.com
FRANKLIN COUNTY — All 296 KU students participating in the free National Guard Paintball Tournament Saturday weaved through and hid behind the same blow-up rubber obstacles. They ran around the same grassy area. They held the same black paintball gun with a case of marble-sized orange paintballs on top.
But they didn't all think of paintball in the same way. Paintball can be thought of as a serious sport, a train to train for military purposes or a fun activity.
Soden takes paintball seriously. Plenty of Americans would likely place paintball in the same category as ping pong and air hockey, but Soden has seen what makes paintball a real sport. One time he brought an athletic friend to the paintball fields.
Put Caleb Soden, Baldwin City sophomore, in the first group. He came to the tournament with a high school friend, Matt Kretzschmer, who goes to Baker University. They'd been playing paintball for the last five years.
"He said it gave him more physical activity than football," Soden said. "You'll wake up sore the next day."
Soden and Kretzschmer also map out strategies when they play. The goal, they say, is to quickly move to the sides and then fire toward people in the middle. They also said paintball involved lots of communication.
That's why the Army likes it.
Nancy White, Sergeant First Class for the Kansas Army National Guard, said the Army often used paintball for training. Communication and strategy, two ingredients necessary for good paintball, are also needed for army missions.
But White wanted to make sure people didn't link them too much. She said real-life missions aren't all about shooting and that bullets are much more serious than paintballs.
For Brian Cordes, Lansing sophomore, and his aerospace engineering friends, painball means something different from White and Soden. It's about fun. Cordes had never even played paintball before Saturday.
"It was free paintball," he said,
"and I wanted to shoot something."
His team, A.E. Thug Life, didn't use any secret tactics. When they did something smart, it was by accident.
"I think we had strategy because we're aerospace engineering students," Cordes said, "and we're nerds."
Edited by Rachael Gray