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Friday, November 4, 1977
University Daily Kansan
Staff Photo by RANDY OLSON
Leftover pumpkin
Facilities Operations crews and campus police managed to clear the campus of the Halloween pumpkins that were left at such places as the Uncle Jimmy Green statue and the Jayhawk in front
of Strong Hall. But they missed this one and its partner, which were mysteriously but conspicuously perched on a ledge on the roof of Bailey Hall.
Chicano center's funds revived
Bv DAVID PARRIS
Staff Writer
The future of post-secondary education for many Chicanos was brightened Wednesday, when the federal Community Services Administration (CSA) reversed its decision to stop funding 13 infant American National Educational Services LANES (CNES).
One center threatened with closing was in a men's artery in Chicano recruitment.
KU attracts the second largest group of students recruited by the Topeka educational center. Ten per cent of the students who are advised by LANESC go to
In addition to recruiting students for post-secondary education, the centers provide school applications, financial aid information and job placement and counseling services to the largest federally funded program to serve primarily the Hispanic population.
DESPITE CSA APPROVAL of the center's performance, the center's national office was notified Sept. 14 by Gracia Olivarez, CA director, that CSA would no longer finance the Chicano program, because it had become an elderly, community food and nutrition and housing are listed as CSA priorities, Olivarez said.
The center had been given until Dec. 1 to locate a new financial sponsor.
"If education is not a priority of the only agency in the country established to improve the lot of underprivileged people, then there's something wrong somewhere because, as far as I'm concerned, education is the key to solving property," Anne Rodriguez, Topeka LNESC director, said yesterday.
WEDNESDAY, THE CSA decided, mostly because of congressional pressure, to extend its funding of the program until Sept. 30, 1978.
"I can honestly say this whole Kansas congressional district was very responsive and concerned — Martha's (Keys) office in particular," Rodriguez said. "That really is what did it — the amount of congressional support that we have."
Rodriguez said, "There was absolutely no way LNESC could have been picked up by HEW's Office of Education (a likely alternate sponsor) until C1. 1, 1978."
"The whole idea that a program of this size ($1.5 million) with 12 field centers would be funded by somewhere else in two other states is not true," services know. Wheels don't turn that fast.
"in effect, by only giving us two months to kill him," she (Olvarez) said this program. "I cannot."
HOWEVER, SHE SAID, had Olivarez not granted the extension, she would have been committing political suicide because the CSA depends on Congress for its funding and the centers are heavily supported by Congress.
"This program is the largest federally funded program which serves primarily the higher education sector."
Rodriguez said the centers were designed on three assumptions: That there is a need for education among the Hispanic people, that the existing education process has been completed, and that there is a lack of leadership among Hispanics to encourage post-secondary education.
She said the centers were opened under the assumption that a community-based group could better reach these needs than individual counselors or minority recruiters.
WHEN IT COMES time to take the ACT test, school counselors are often looking for teachers with high scores.
Because the Chicago population is spread throughout Kansas, the center has difficulties following up on contacts made with students living outside the Topeka area. Rodriguez said. Branch offices have been opened in Kansas City, Kan., and Wichita to give full attention to the students. said Much of the center's budget is spent for in-state travel.
The center operates on $21,000 a year,
excluding salaries.
Keeping Chicanos in post-secondary education is the center's major concern. Rodriguez said she did not have statistics on the retention rate of Chicano students, but said they were likely to drop out after one year.
*RETENTION IS SO important, and we affect it by finding to a way to deal more effectively with it.
Rodriquez said the Chicano student's background was an important factor in the retention problem. She said that Chicanó families were traditionally close-knit, and hesitated when a family member parted with a daughter, chose to go away to college.
"students are going to be lonely," she said. "They're used to having relatives around for support and they're not going to have this if they go away from home. That's a tremendous psychological factor that has to be considered."
Because of this psychological factor, the majority of students who seek counseling at the Topeka-based center attend Washburn University, which also is in Topeka.
WASHENB ATTRACTS 19 per cent of the students counseled by the center; KU attn's 10 per cent. Kansas State 7 per cent, Kansas City, Kan., Junior College 4 per cent. Penn Valley Community College in Kansas City, Mo., attracts 5 per cent.
The figures are based on a S-pletem sampling of 22 per cent of the center's clients attending post-secondary education institutions.
"Frankly one of the reasons I think that so many students say they're interested in KU is that KU is a big school," Rodrigue said. KU is so well known, "they don't even know there is a whole other way of private, state and vo tech schools to enter."
Some of the students with whom the student could do better at a smaller school, she said.
"They have problems and need as much individual attention as they can get," she said. "KU is just kind of an overwhelming experience. I think a lot would be better off at a junior college first or where the competition isn't so rough."
At its first meeting last night, an organization called the Tax Study Group voted to send a delegation before the Douglas County Commission with an informal petition requesting repeal of the state intangibles tax.
The three per cent intangibles tax is imposed on all income from interest and dividends on savings accounts, stocks and bonds. Douglas County receives 25 per cent of all tax collected, and the city and townships receive 75 per cent.
The amount of intangibles tax on the tax
cols for 1977 is more than $455,000.
Group to seek tax repeal
The tax group said it wanted to repeal the intangibles tax because it thought the tax was a form of double taxation and was unfair to the people on fixed incomes.
Beverly Bradley, county commissioner, said last night that she was not opposed to repealing the tax if another way of replacing the funds could be found.
THE TAX GROUP decided to set up a steering committee to study the effects of the repeal and to make recommendations for other sources of revenue.
Because both the city and county receive funds from the tax, both commissions would have to repeal it. If the city and county refuse to repeal the tax, the group plans to circulate a legal petition to force a referendum.
A legal petition requires the signatures of one per quarter of voters who voted in the last regional election.
If enough signatures are obtained, county residents would vote on the issue in a special meeting.
State Rep. Mike Glover, D-Lawrence, told the group the easiest way to obtain local repeal was by direct vote of the commissioners.
"Exhaust every administration remedy,
before startning work on a legal petition," he
Lloyd Davies, acting chairman of the said informal petition, which had
more than 250 signatures, would show the concessionaries that the public was serious about it.
He said he hoped the county commission would vote to abolish the tax and set a
precedent for the city to follow.
Davies said it would be difficult to get the taxing authorities to give up tax revenues, but he said, "This is something that's been bothering people for a long time."
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