A bird is running in the rain.
Tomorrow's weather
The University Daily Kansan
Partly cloudy and warm with a high of 76 and a low of 57.
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
Sports: The 'Hawks pulled out an extrainnings win and swept Wichita State for the first time since 1993.
SEE PAGE 1B
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12, 2000
Inside: The Clinton administration is endorsing the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.
SEE PAGE 5B
(USPS 650-640) • VOL. 110 NO. 130
2nd student dies following train-car crash last weekend
WWW.KANSAN.COM
By Mindie Miller and Lori O'Toole writer@kansan.com
Kansan staff writers
Carlos Barnes still has the impulse to walk down the hall and knock on Jeffrey Mitchell's door to watch sports on television or just hang out.
Barnes, Wichita freshman, said things would be very different now. Mitchell, Beresford, S.D., freshman, died yesterday evening at the University of Kansas Medical Center after being removed from life support. He was 19.
Barnes said he hung out almost every day with Mitchell. They were floormates in McCollum Hall.
"I'm so used to going over there. I just want to knock on the door. But I know no one will answer now," Barnes said. "It's very different on this floor."
Mitchell and his roommate, Ryan Travis, also a Beresford freshman, were involved in a train-car collision early Saturday morning east of Lawrence. Travis died at the scene, and Mitchell was taken to KU Med Center, where he remained in intensive care until last night.
Chancellor Robert Hemenway offered his condolences.
"I don't know what to say," he said.
"All you can do is pray for his family and friends and hope it doesn't happen again."
"It's a very tragic event when this occurs." he said.
Mitchell's friends said he liked to play golf and was involved in intramural basketball. They said he had a good sense of humor and was very intelligent. Brian Pearson, Wichita freshman, said Mitchell wanted to be a physician.
Tammy Rundstrom, Kearney, Neb., sophomore, said Mitchell was an incredible person with a big heart.
"He was so outgoing and always happy," she said. "I'm so thankful I was given the chance to know him."
"I've kind of had time to digest it and make peace with it." Rundstrom said.
Rundstrom said she had been at the hospital with Mitchell's family Monday night, when his mom said the family might take him off life support.
Cast your vote
Listed are the times the eight polling sites will be open today and tomorrow.
Places to vote:
GSP Lobby Kansas Union Strong Hall Wescoe Beach Haworth Hall Burge Union Oliver Hall
Ekdahl Dining Commons
Residence halls:
Residence halls:
4- 7 p.m. Wed.; 11 a.m.- 4 p.m. Thurs
Haworth, Wescoe and Strong Halls:
8 a.m.- 4;30 p.m. Wed.
Kansas and Burge Unions and
Ekdahl Dining Commons:
8 a.m.- 7 p.m. Wed.
* all sites, except residence
halls:
8 a.m.- 4:30 p.m. Thurs
Jason Williams/KANSAN
Kansans stolen to protect coalition
By Mindie Miller
writer @kansan.com
Kansas staff writer
Two United Students senate candidates and a third person associated with the coalition's campaign confessed to stealing 6,000 copies of The University Daily Kansan yesterday.
RJ. Woodring, Lisle, Ill., Junior, Drew Thompson, Wichita sophomore, and Lindsey Gaston, El Dorado senior, emphasized in a confession yesterday that their actions were not endorsed by the United Students coalition. A fourth student involved in the theft has not come forward.
"This wasn't a coalition thing." Woodring said. "This was four guys being idiots at 5 in the morning."
Although it was too late for their names to be removed from the ballots, Woodring and Thompson said they had withdrawn from the United Students coalition and the race yesterday afternoon. Woodring and Gaston are already senators, but they said they would resign their positions.
Woodring, Thompson and Gaston admitted to stealing the bundles of newspapers
from the delivery dock at the Laurence Journal-World, 609 New Hampshire St., where the Kansan is printed, and dropping them in random trash cans downtown.
Although student activity fees cover the cost of one paper per student each, additional copies are 25 cents each. The theft of 6,000 papers constitutes a loss of $1,500 — a felony theft.
The three students said they woke up early yesterday to look at the Kansan editorial board's endorsements and an article regarding Interfraternity Council allegations against Ben Walker, the United Students presidential candidate. Walker attended a fraternity party at Lambda Chi Alpha last summer where unapproved alcohol was served.
They said that when they arrived on campus just before 5 a.m., the Kansan had not been distributed yet, so they went to the Journal-World to get a copy.
"The whole goal was to go and get one copy." Gaston said.
But Woodring said that when they read the article about Walker, they got angry.
"We felt bad that something that had
occurred six months ago was going to come and bite him in the ass for no real reason other than politics," he said. "The frustration set in, and we made an irrational decision."
Walker said he and Marlon Marshall, vicepresidential candidate for United Students, had no involvement with the theft.
"We've had a clean campaign from the beginning," he said. "We've stressed that with all the candidates and supporters. These guys broke that trust."
Walker said some people on the coalition had joked about stealing the newspapers when they found out about the IFC article Monday night.
"But I got real serious and said, 'No, we're not going to do this,' he said. "I encourage people not to make this the deciding factor in their decision."
Mel Smith, the Kansan delivery man, discovered the papers were missing when he arrived around 5:06 a.m. to pick them up. A Journal-World surveillance video confirmed that the papers were taken between 4:58 and 5:04 a.m.
Tom Eblen. Kansan general manager, said
Smith took the remaining papers and began delivery on campus, placing papers in distribution boxes along Jayhawk Boulevard. At one point, Smith backtracked and discovered that young men in a dark sport utility vehicle were removing papers. Woodring, Thompson and Gaston denied taking any papers from campus.
Ralph Gage, Journal-World general manager, agreed to print 7,500 more papers to replace the stolen ones. Smith picked them up about 8:30 a.m. and completed his distribution rounds.
Eblen said the Kansan and the JournalWorld would work on a resolution with the students.
"We would expect all of the extra costs to be covered," he said. "I appreciate them stepping forward and taking responsibility."
Eblen said the Kansan would not press charges, although the Douglas County district attorney's office could. Dolph C. Simons Jr., Journal-World editor and publisher, and Ralph Gage, general manager, could not be reached for comment last night.
Safe Underground
Lee Spence, president of Underground Vaults and Storage Inc., Hutchinson, drives a golf cart through labrynth of tunnels and storage bays in the Hutchinson salt mine. The mine's isolation and constant 60-degree temperature and 50 percent humidity provide perfect conditions for storing microfilms, paper records and movie films.
Hutchinson salt mine acts as backup for University's most precious resource
story by doug pacey . photos by matt daugherty
The trip down the salt mine shaft is quick and dark. The trip covers 650 feet, or almost six Fraser Halls stacked on top of one another. To top off the experience, there's no light for most of the minute-long ride.
Salt may have been the original reason for the elevator, but fear of loss and hope for the future keep it running. The mine is one part of a network of archives and warehouses — some secret — that the University of Kansas maintains as an archival hedge against man and nature.
The 77-year-old elevator that takes mine employees down the shaft looks like a cage made out of chain link and plywood.
In the caverns, left empty after the salt was excavated, Underground Vaults & Storage Inc. in Hutchinson operates a 26-acre storage facility. There, beneath the plains of south central Kansas, the University of Kansas and 15 other colleges from across the country
along with Fortune 500 companies, hospitals and Hollywood — store their irreplaceable. The seven dwarfs are down there, too, in the form of the original negatives of the Walt Disney production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
The University and the other institutions and companies are serious about archiving. Oil companies store selsim readings that tell them where to drill for oil. Hospitals keep patient records and cities and counties keep property deeds on microfilm in the mine, said Lee Spence, president of Underground Vaults & Storage, Inc.
The only visitors allowed into this isolated archive are its caretakers.
The University stores roughly 400 rolls of master copy microfilm in a safety deposit vault in the mine, to ensure that students and their great-grandchildren will always have the reference materials they need to write their papers and essays.
"Five years ago when I got here, there was a lot of great demand to store things offsite and make copies of the microfilm," said Brian Baird, preservation librarian for the University. "It's important, not only for KU to have them backed up, but also to contribute to a national effort to preserve the documents."
He said the Kansas Collection has many items on microfilm in the mine and much of the Slavic Collection is there because Brad Schaffner, Slavic Librarian, received a grant several years ago to put brittle books and journals from different collections on microfilm.
See INSURANCE on page 6A
One of two counter-balanced elevators plunges downward into the Hutchinson salt mine, where Underground Vaults and Storage Inc., has a 26-acre storage facility. The University stores about 300 rolls of microfilm in safety-deposit type vaults in the mine.
By Warisa Chulindra and Sara Shepherd
writer@kansan.com
Kansan staff writers
Lynn Bretz, interim director of University Relations, issued a statement yesterday afternoon following the verdict.
Ex-professor gets $35,000 in lawsuit against KU
Alan Johnson, one of Aquilino's attorneys, said his client was happy with the verdict.
Aquilino originally filed a state gender discrimination complaint and a federal employment discrimination lawsuit after the University denied her tenure in 1998. That claim was dismissed before the trial.
A former assistant professor of art history won a civil lawsuit against the University of Kansas yesterday afternoon at the federal courthouse in Kansas City, Kan.
The jury awarded Marie Aquilino $35,000 in compensatory damages and money to cover legal costs. The verdict was based on her contention that the University retaliated against her by denying her an unpaid, ad hoc affiliation with the graduate faculty and an unpaid, adjunct research associate affiliation.
"Dr. Aquilino was very pleased and gratified by the verdict and felt justice had been done." Johnson said.
"We are disappointed in today's verdict," she said in the statement. "The University believes it did not retaliate against the plaintiff. We are considering an appeal."
Bretz said that because the University was considering an appeal, she could not comment further.
Aquilino could not be reached for comment.
However, Aquilino alleged that after her complaint and lawsuit, the University retaliated against her by denying her unpaid adjunct and ad hoc positions, which affiliate people with the University without paying them for their work or research, a year after she was denied tenure.
Barbara McCloud, assistant general counsel for the University, argued during the trial that the University wasn't retaliating when it denied Aquilino the unpaid positions. She said Aquilino's teaching performance and research record made her unqualified for tenure and justified the denial of unpaid positions.
McCloud could not be reached for comment.
This was the second lawsuit the University had faced this semester. Last month, the University won a discrimination lawsuit brought against it by Cynthia Annett and Ray Pierotti.
Annett, a former assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, alleged that the University had denied her tenure because of her gender and had retaliated against her for opposing discrimination in the department's program. Pierotti, her husband and an associate professor in the same department, alleged retaliation by the University and the department chairman, Thomas Taylor.
Despite the verdict from Annett and Pierrott's trial, Aquilino was not discouraged from going through with her lawsuit, Johnson said.
---