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Tuesday, January 24, 1978
University Daily Kansan
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Comment
Unused editorials represent the opinion of the Kansas editorial staff. Signed columns represent the views of only the writers.
Study merits restraint
The federal investigation into KU's athletic training and care programs deserves close attention but enough restraint to keep from jumping to unfounded conclusions.
The study, being conducted by the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, is investigating allegations by a former women's trainer that discrepancies exist between men's and women's training and care programs. Subjects in the report are the tenth of the Title IX provision of the Education Amendment of 1972 which prohibits sexual discrimination.
The trainer's charge alone is not enough by which to judge the case. The situation is too complex and the facts too scanty to predict the outcome of the study.
BEFORE A judgment, answers are needed.
In question are the former trainer's identity and motives for filing the charges, HEW's undefined slide rule for translating differences between departments into discrepancies and the potential impact of an HEW finding.
In spite of unanswered questions, however, it also is too early to underestimate the value of the investigation and to shrug it off as routine.
The case itself is interesting, and more importantly, is the forerunner of a situation that the entire University will face in six months.
By July 21, KU and all federally funded institutions must comply with Title IX or face a possible loss of federal funds, totaling almost $15 million at KU last year.
THEN AS NOW, KU's athletic programs
are growing. There's no way around it. Skiers at KU are here.
Balls at KU are here.
And, then as now, the question of why and how to make women's sports "equitable" with men's will be as perplexing as it is controversial.
Although Title IX specifies that "equal athletic opportunity for members of both sexes" must be provided, the somewhat nebulous definition leaves many important issues and details open to debate. The provision does not even address the equitableness of revenue and non-revenue sports, an issue that currently obstructs assimilation of the men's and women's departments.
KU officials have pointed out that guidelines for complying with Title IX are not specific enough. Close consideration of HEW's findings should provide a needed measure for assessing the University's total compliance.
Fire codes no joke
Ample justification for the enforcement of the state's fire code surfaced Friday, when a blaze spread rapidly through the Delta Upsilon fraternity house and caused an explosion that destroyed the building andicates again that the state fire marshal must take his job as seriously as possible.
Much has been done in the area of local fire inspections since the August 1976 fire that killed five persons at Baker University. Much also remains to be done.
The Delta Upshire fire is a case in point. The state fire marshal made two inspections of the fraternity. After the second one, his report said that "very little has been accomplished" since the first inspection. Fortunately, the fraternity got the message and installed nine smoke detectors. The fraternity president said the detector on the
house's third floor, where the fire broke out,
was instrumental in evacuation of the building.
THE DEGREE of vigilance with which the fire marshal enforces the code has a direct impact on thousands of lives. Fire safety at the University's student housing historically has been a disgrace. Last fall, state and local fire inspectors examined fraternalities, sororities, scholarship halls, sports facilities, mall buildings, Stouffer Place Apartments. Numerous deficiencies in the state code were discovered.
As the local fire department launches its own inspections this month into Lawrence apartments, it should be as thorough and as possible. There can be no margin for error.
The Kansas Senate is now considering Bill 522, a measure to reorganize the state's computer systems. The debate about the bill illustrates the differences between pleas for governmental efficiency and those for departmental integrity.
Bill creates computerized mess
The bill originated with the legislative budget committee. It would organize every computer system used by every office in the state except one—the Kansas Board of Education, a three-member board in the department of administration. The board would have authority over arrangements for all computer use, leasing, purchases and programming. It would consist of one member appointed by the statute, two by the governor.
STATE TREASURER Joan Finney, however, does not like the bill. She does not want her state to become a system. She says she does not want the autonomy of the state to be used in the department of administration
Her arguments are worded strongly; she does not think that the efficiency of the treasury will increase under the bill and she sees the integrity of her office at stake.
At first glance, the bill seems a marvelous way to avoid needless expense. Agencies that could be denied it; those that already have unnecessary computer facilities could have them removed and placed elsewhere as extensively would be increased.
"In the area of receipts, the state treasurer is responsible for the money," Finney said Friday. "We've already had delays in getting receipts. At income tax time, sometimes it is too late to get them; it clears the computer system. I'm opposed to delays."
Others who might be opposed
to delays are the people who receive payments on state bonds and that money is issued by the treasurer's office, issued by the treasurer's office.
"In the past," Finney said, "we've experienced long delays in getting warrants printed and paying them." It is obvious that during these years miles of official channels as breeding grounds for delays.
Finney thinks she and her workers need quick, free access to a computer system to manage her office. She is as possible. She doubts greatly that the three-person board—three more members of the state government with over 500,000 in state salaries—will be much help.
FINNEY ALSO thinks that her department has enough restraints within itself to keep it from getting too busy, so it would not need any more.
"The checks and balances in transactions must be maintained within the office," she said. "Otherwise, it would be difficult to be accountable for the money."
"I would like the proponents of the legislation to assure me that this thing will not become an unmanageable monster."
One member of the committee that originated the bill is State Sen. Wint Winter, R-Ottawa, who has anticipated the response from offices such as the treasurer's.
"let me tell you," he said last week, "that a lot of bureaucrats aren't going to like the bill." He pointed out that Ways and Means Committee to the bureaucrats was to make the bill even more inclusive. In amendments last week, the government's Internet systems were brought online.
under the supervision of the board. Finney had asked that the treasury be excluded. It was not.
"Joan Finney has got a computer that is not compatible with anything else in the state," Winter said. He is not going to work at a computer unless he fives even when it talks about delays caused by computers.
Winter also said that the incompatible system was unable to be built from the same pattern and that the inability causes delays itself.
"We've recently spent $150,000 of the taxpayers' money getting a mess straightened out over there," he said. "I would not expect her to complain of inefficiency."
Winter also poo-hood Finney's objections about the expansion of the bureaucracy. He said the department is to the department of administration" the board it
self—and if she thinks it
unmanageable, then we have
different dictionaries," he said.
This is one fight that Finney probably will lose. The bill probably will not be passed as it is now, certain with no chances for one office.
Still, that office is the treasury, which is the collection and distribution point for the money of the state government. It is interesting to think back a few years, to when the treasurer was embroiled in a scandal involving his elective one rather than having it made appointee, thus giving the governor control.
POLITICAL MOTIVES can be invented for the entire bill—it always helps to talk efficiency in an election year. Fainn said, many years ago, he worried that the treasury, there will be someone trying to get at it."
Yet the talk of efficiency
under the new system has a hollow ring. With the vast computer network already in place throughout the state, it is easier to board members would not be able to handle the scheduling, the incoming requests, the keeping track of who is where and when, and the office. As needs for computers grow—and they will—the demand will become greater and the control systems definitely will expand, maybe the monster that Finney fears.
A little centralization is a dangerous thing. The bill to gather all Kansas state computers together is well-intended. But it will, in the long run, likely create another cumberness level of bureaucracy to which everybody, and especially Joan Finney, will have to pass the buck.
Cost of renovations, fire alarms justified
The living room of the Delta Upson fraternity house late Friday evening was a damal of celebration, congregation of shivering
Congress to alter nature's laws
young men gathered to console each other and to reflect on damage brought about by a fire in the house. The house near the house earlier in the evening.
By HENRY PETROSKI
DOWNERS GROVE, Ill.—After much debate in Washington among House and Senate conferences, Congress has been putting the finishing touch on legislation that will compromise legislation will have far-reaching effects on the American way of life, according to reliable Congressional estimates here during the holiday recess.
The bill would do the following:
- **Amend the law of gravity.**
  It is proposed that beginning Oct. 1, 1980, falling bodies will be allowed to fall by gravity only second. The legal rate will be lowered by increments until a new rate of 22 feet a second is established in 1984. This means that Earth would sink faster than Earth with about two-thirds the current pull of gravity, thus requiring less energy for us to fall. We also need water, among other things.
New sports records are being
counted upon to distract the population during the period of adjustment.
**MAKE CONSERVATION laws more liberal.** The present law of conservation of energy—the first law of thermodynamics—requires on energy accounting procedures. The new bill relaxes these requirements so that energy systems may be operated on a deficit basis. Power plants will be able to operate on a deficit efficiency, and there will be free lunchies for everyone
- Abolisht entropy. This measure repealing the second law of thermodynamics—the law that requires the entropy, or unavailable energy of the universe, to always increase—will make available vast amounts of energy tied up in formerly irreversible the process of chemical transformation of a non-technical spinoff of this action will be a reversal of society's decline.
- Lower the boiling point of
water. If, as required by this provision of the energy bill, steam can be generated at 150 degrees instead of 212 degrees Fahrenheit, it will take less power to heat power plants. Also, coffee will perk in less time, and commuters will be able to sleep a bit longer in the mornings, thus consuming electricity consumption.
- OUTLAW ROLLING friction. This is one of several measures intended to reduce the stress on wheels and wheeled vehicles. The House-Senate conference committee considered outlawing all friction until it was mentioned that the senate would make stopping rather difficult.
- Develop a broader diesel.
The new bill provides for a long-range, multibillion-dollar research and development program that would produce an internal-combustion engine that produces as much fuel as more fuel than it consumes. When this technological
- Postpone gallot metric. The present system of measurement must take into account a three-foot meter can be developed. This will reduce nationwide the commuting distance by almost 10 meters.
- DEREGULATE TIME. Daylight Savings Time is to be abandoned. Under the new bill, the government will reduce hours of peak energy use and slower during periods of low energy demand. By this move Congress hopes to achieve an increased contribution in total U.S. power needs.
- milester is achieved,
passenger cars will cease to be sold, and only empty fuel trucks will be marketed. This new breed of vehicle would stop at service stations to empty fuel in pumpals required to fuel conventional vehicles.
- Provide a tax credit for sleep. For every hour beyond eight that an adult wage earner sleeps, he will receive credit on
his federal income tax. The tax credit will be a graduated one, being greater for light sleepers and less for heavy ones. "Sleep is darkness," an administration note says. "The darkness keeps the lights out."
- Admit the OPEC nations to statehood. This move would immediately reduce our dependence on foreign oil and make the United States energy independent.
- IMPOSE IMPORT quotas on weather. This measure is expected to reduce the number of winter cold fronts, all of which originate outside the continental United States.
- Henry Petroksi is a research engineer whose doctorate is in theoretical and applied mechanical engineering. He invention machines and says he has an example of every successful design.
- tequile mandatory personal insulation. Local service stations will be required to provide low-interest loans to individuals designing to have their blood streams insulated by sweeping frostbite during winter and heat prostration during summer months, without need for heat or air conditioning in homes and places of work. All infants born after July 1, 1980, will be required to be weatherized at birth. This is considered a temporary measure until a permanent development under programs to be sponsored by the National Science Foundation.
Letters Policy
The Kanas welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typewritten and include the writer's name, address and telephone number. If the writer is affiliated with the University, the letter should include the writer's name, faculty or staff position. Letters are not to exceed 500 words in length. The Kanas reserves the right to edit all letters for publication.
Steven Stingley
Editorial writer
Some had nothing left but the clothes they were wearing. Others were left only with water and watershed possessions.
The living room was the lone refuge from a mess of dripping water, soggy debris and charred wood. The bitter cold air had melted the windows and broken windows. Fire fires lay tangled on the muddy floor.
Despite the tragic atmosphere, the fraternity members stood huddled together among friends, feeling fortune that everyone had escaped unharmed.
SURELY THE living room would have been a gloomier place if one of the fraternity men were to set off the unexpected ramps of fire.
Only a month ago, the fraternity had completed induction training in a fire alarm system. The system worked as planned, alerting the men in the house to the fire that started in a corner room on the floor.
Installation of the alarm system was one of several things the fraternity did to bring the house up to standards set by the state fire marshal's office. Since a fire took five lives at a Baker University fraternity in August 1976, the state fire department also has stepped up their enforcement of the state's fire code.
The fire at Delta Upsiona signals yet another warning that the fire code should be strictly enforced and adhered to. Fire safety and alarm equipment is essential if the fire is detected because it is to be measured in dollar signs and not human lives.
THE LOCAL and state fire departments are taking a step in the right direction by looking more thoroughly at student housing at the University of Alabama. Other schools across the state.
Last December state officials conducted a 3½-week inspection of KU educational buildings, residence halls, scholarship halls and Stouffer Place Apartments. State officials stand in front of six scholarship halls five residence halls.
Before the Baker University tragedy and the state's subsequent inspection campaign, Kane had had been lax in assuring
Only three of 23 fraternities were in complete compliance with the state code. Five houses needed only one improvement. Four of 12 sororites complied with the state standards.
residents of sufficient fire warning protection.
But the houses have worked diligently at making the necessary changes and the situation has improved vastly.
A survey done by the state and local fire inspectors last fall showed that many fraternities did not meet state standards.
THIS MONTH the local fire department has begun inspecting apartment buildings and complexes. This effort promises to be a thorough investigation. L. Larry Stemmerman, fire department in Indiana, said that every building with three or more apartments would be inspected and that it would take more than a year to complete the project.
One can't help but think there are many fire traps in Lawrence, considering the nature of a transient student population. A student renting an apartment in the city landlord. Therefore, it is vital that the city force compliance with the state fire code.
Many fire safety changes require expenditures that are
unattractive to the landlord or Greek corporation board. According to the fire department, 5,000 porosites and sororites spent an average of $3,000 for such things as the addition of central smoke detector and alarm systems, water systems and improved exits.
Where structural changes need to be made, it will require more time and money.
The fire at Delta Upsilion destroyed an estimated $200,000 worth of property. It takes only an hour of flames to make any money spent on fire safety and equipment well worth it.
BUT THE expenditures are easily justified by considering the fact that the sudden flare-up of fire. A fire in downtown Lawrence last December caused $50,000 in damages and took the lives of three.
Uncontrolled fire is an enigmatic and vicious enemy of everyone. No one at the Delta Air Force has seen it. The expected arrival of such an enemy. But the fire did come and it did destroy-melting televisions and stereos, disengrating clothes and carpets.
We all must be on guard and ready for the next appearance of this awesome enemy.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
KANSAN
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