Tomorrow's weather
Kansan
Chance for showers and thunderstorms. Cloudy with the high 50 to 55 and a low of 37.
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
Sports: The 'Hawks blasted Baker 17-2 behind a total team effort.
SEE PAGE 1B
Inside: A six-year-old shot and killed a classmate in Michigan
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 1, 2000
SEE PAGE 7A
WWW.KANSAN.COM
Anti-parking vandals hit garage
Graffiti messages similar to those found at Wescoe may carry felony charges
By Sara Shepherd writer@kansan.com Kansan staff writer
Wescoe Hall wasn't the only building peppered with anti-parking messages during the weekend.
According to the KU Public Safety Office, several other derogatory remarks showed up in the parking garage Saturday afternoon. Obscene messages were written with green spray paint on the northeast interior wall of the garage's ground floor. There also were broken eggs, noodles and beans splattered on doors near the graffiti.
Lt. Schuyler Bailey said he could not confirm that the graffiti at the parking garage was connected to the graffiti at Wescoe.
According to the police report, parking employees asked officers to observe a garage surveillance tape that was recorded that day.
Bailey said detectives would rely on any witness accounts and technology, such as a possible video camera tape, to investigate the case. However, any information they discovered would not be available for release.
Donna Hultine, assistant director of parking, said there were 52 vehicles towed from campus last week. Thirty-one were towed for excessive outstanding violations, and 21 were towed for other infractions, like blocking fire hydrants or parking in restricted areas.
Hultine said about five people out of the 52 came in and were especially upset. She said the department normally kept the names of those individuals on record.
Hultine said that she did not recall any harassment directed at the parking department in graffiti form before but that vandalism to property was not uncommon. She said people had broken mirrors in garage stair towers or bent signs on campus, which was expensive for the parking department to repair.
"It just makes parking costs go up," Hultine said.
In a similar incident during the weekend, vandals spray painted "I will kill parking people" and other obscene messages on a Wescoe Terrace window.
Bailey said that because one message threatened to "kill" people, the vandalism was considered a criminal threat, which was a felony.
Hultine said those remarks were more disturbing than the usual vandalism.
"That sort of steps it up a little." Hultine said.
Hultine said that she was accustomed to
derogatory verbal comments but that newer employees were more distressed by the attention.
"I've been here for so long, I feel a little bit jaded about it," Hultine said. "I see it and it kind of rolls off me.
"We get a lot of flack at the windows. People are just rude — there's not really any other way to put that."
Hultine said the parking department planned to discuss ways to deal with the problem, including the possibility of turning in names to the dean of students.
“If there were more of a consequence for coming in and screaming a blue streak at a cashier, people might think twice before they came in here.” Hutline said.
Hultine said the hostility was disheartening for parking employees.
"It makes me sad," Hutine said. "I feel very bad for my employees."
David Beahm, Great Bend senior, Becky Holcomb, Olathe senior and Nathan Findley, Prairie Village senior, set their notebooks on their laps while taking notes in their Honors Western Civilization class. The class met yesterday in Alderson Auditorium because the class does not have a permanent meeting place because of a scheduling conflict. Photo illustration by Tara Kraus/KANSAN
Mix-up leaves classes without rooms
Kansan staff writer
By Mindie Miller
Several dozen KU students showed up for their first day of class this semester and found out that they didn't officially have a classroom.
Students in fundamentals of Social Welfare found out that the room in the Kansas Union where they thought they'd be meeting had not been reserved.
Gene Wee, reservations coordinator for the Kansas and Burge unions, said that at the beginning of the semester, he was unaware of several courses that both students and instructors thought were supposed to meet in the Union. He said scheduling officers in the schools affected had not contacted him to request the rooms.
Wee said the schools of social welfare and education and the linguistics department each had one course that was affected by the miscommunication.
"At this late point in the semester, I couldn't get them in the same room every time," said Bill Towns, operations supervisor of the unions.
Union officials found a temporary room for the social welfare students and then made room reservations for the class for the rest of the semester. However, the class meets in a different room every session.
Gary Grayson, Tulsa junior and social welfare class member, said that confusion surrounding where the class would meet each week, coupled with noise from the ballroom and the lack of desks or tables in many Union rooms, had put the
class about two weeks behind schedule
"Last Monday, there was a banquet right below us," he said. "Every time they clapped, if a student or the teacher was talking, you couldn't hear anything. A lot of people at the break just left because it was useless to try to get information from the instructor."
Melanie Hepburn, assistant dean of social welfare, said Union officials had bent over backward to accommodate the class when they weren't able to find a classroom elsewhere on campus.
classes meeting nearby, but the Union always tries to accommodate classroom requests. he said.
"The best thing about it is that we do have the rooms." she said.
"The Union is a non-academic building," he said. "We started hosting a lot of classes here at the request of the University after Hoch Auditorium burned. We always try to be available for classes because there seems to be a shortage of classroom space on campus."
Most Union rooms are not equipped with desks or tables, although lap boards are provided. Large luncheons and conferences can cause noise distractions for
Brenda Selman, associate registrar, said that classroom space was always tight and that several schools had lost classroom space either temporarily or permanently as a result of construction.
Wee said that 69 classes were meeting in the Kansas and Burge unions this semester, including small classes and discussion groups.
Two-week Asian-American festival begins today
By Ryan Blethen
Kansan staff writer
By Ryan Bieffen
writer@kansan.com
This year the Asian-American Festival at the University of Kansas will include a lesson on how to write your name in another language and an Asian dinner.
The two-week festival, organized by the Asian-American Student Union, begins today at Wescoe Beach with people learning to write their names in several Asian languages.
Venus Sung, Leavenworth junior and AASU public relations officer, said the festival was a chance to expose students to Asian Americans on campus.
Asian America The events are designed to both be fun and teach people about Asian culture. Sung said.
ding saat.
The title of the festival is "Building New
Partha Mazumdar, Pittsburgh, Pa., graduate student and leader of some of the festival's events, said the festival began in 1990 when some faculty members brought speakers to campus to talk about the Asian-American experience. This is the ninth year that the AASU has organized the festival, he said.
Traditions." Binh Thai, Larned junior and president of AASU, said the festival involved the traditions of Asian-American culture but was not limited to old traditions. The title is a reflection of that, he said.
"We're actually just starting new traditions," he said.
The event spawned the creation of the Asian-American Student Union, Thai said. "It's what created the interest in the
"It's what created the interest in the organization," he said.
Thai said the festival has three main
ASIAN-AMERICAN FESTIVAL
Different language name writing: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. today at Westcoast Beach
a. m. to 2 p.m. today at Vesey's Leadership Conference: an all day workshop that will feature speakers and performers for college and high school students. 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Friday on the fourth, fifth and sixth floors of the Kansas Union. Here and Now: a theatrical group preforming about issues in Asian American society. 4 p.m. Saturday at Woodruff Auditorium in the Kansas Union
objectives. The first is to educate the community about the different Asian-American groups on campus. The second goal is to promote multiculturalism, and the third is to encourage Asian Americans to be proud of their heritage.
Origami Folding>10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Monday. Waves Beach
Henna Tattoos: learn how to draw tattoos with henna ink. 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. March 10 at Wescoe
Taste of India: a dinner featuring a variety of Asian foods. Performances and a dance will follow the dinner. March 11. Dinner, 5:30 p.m. at Ecumenical Christian Ministries. Performance and dance, 7:30 p.m. in the Kansas Union.
The festival is scheduled to end March 11, with the Taste of Asia dinner at Ecumenical Christian Ministries, 1204 Oread Ave. Afterwards, Asian-American groups will perform at a dance in the Kansas Union.
Legislators aim to reinstate presidential primary in April
By Katrina Hull
writer @kanson.com
Kansan staff writer
As some legislators scramble to resurrect the Kansas presidential primary this week, others say time is running out.
With a heated presidential race and unexpected dollars in the state budget, State Rep. Phill Kline, R-Sawnee, said reviving the primary quickly was possible with a little political maneuvering.
Legislators scrapped the April 4 primary earlier in the session to save about $1.5 million, but Kline said Kansans deserved to be heard at the ballot box.
"Elections are foundational to a healthy democracy, and there is not any more important election than selecting our nation's president." Kline said.
The important race in Kansas, however, will be placing a bill on Gov. Bill Graves' desk by the end of next week to reserve an April date.
kline said he would.
Kline said he won like an April 11 primary. But the Secretary of State's office said it needed at least 60 days to prepare for the primary, including 10 days for candidate filing, 30 days to prepare the ballots and 20 days for advanced voting.
Kirsten Funk, director of communications for Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh, said if legislators eliminated advanced voting, 40 days might be possible, but the rush to print ballots could increase the primary's price tag.
House Speaker Robin Jennison, R-Healy, told the Associated Press Friday that the timeline was too short, while Senate President Dick Bond, R-Overland Park, said the primary would not be reinstated.
"Elections are foundational to a healthy democracy, and there is not any more important election than selecting our nation's president."
Known as "gut and go," attaching the proposal to a Senate bill allows it to bypass Senate committees and go straight to the full Senate — if it passes the House committee and full House first.
Phill Kline R-Shawnee
Robert Choromanski, Lenexa senior and Bill Bradley's statewide campus coordinator, said he was excited to hear that the primary could return.
Kline, along with House Majority Leader Kent Glasscock, R-Manhattan, and Speaker Pro Tem Doug Mays, R-Topeka, said the plan was to eliminate advanced voting and attach the primary proposal to a Senate bill in the House Federal and State Affairs Committee.
"It's been eight years since Kansas had a primary and its time to do it again," Choromanski said.
Austin said the national Republican Party required Kansas to say how it would select its 35 delegates for the 2000 convention in July 1999 when Kansas still had a primary scheduled. Without a primary, Austin said Kansas would select delegates through state Republican Committees.
But reinstating the primary may be the only way to ensure that Kansas had a voice in July's Republican National Convention, said Karl Austin, executive director of the Kansas Republican Party.
"The danger in losing votes would come if someone challenged the way we selected our delegates." Austin said.
And the best way to avoid a challenge would be to hold a primary. Austin said.
The Kansas Republican Party also supports a born-again primary, because Kansas could make a difference in the Republican race where Arizona Sen. John McCain is gaining on Texas Gov. George W. Bush.
"Without a primary, Kansans are removed from process in a year that Kansas could matter," Austin said. "When the primary was canceled, there seemed to be a clear front runner and that's no longer the case."
"It's likely that a mid-April primary could bring the presidential campaign trail through Kansas."