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Kats on Kampus
Students, faculty find cats really annoying when they are on campus
Rv T R Miller
Kansan features editor
Ricky B. Wilde, Burlington. Colo. junior, spends most of his time indoors these days.
Sgt. Jake Job, Lawrence underground police, said that as the temperatures start to rise, more and more students are bringing their feline friends to campus. Although cats are seemingly harmless animals, their presence lately has been a menace.
Wrapped in an overcoat and holding a cigarette in his trembling hand, Wilde smiles when remembering his days at the University of Kansas.
memoir.
"They (students) are always walking their cats, tying them up to trees, letting them run around," Job said. "This campus turns into a giant litter box in the spring."
house. Wilde is not describing a phobia toward cotton balls. On the contrary, Wilde's traumatic experience is a result of students bringing their cats on the KUcampus.
"I had so many friends, I even liked my teachers," he said, taking a quick drag off his cigarette. "But ever since that evil gray and white ball fur crossed my path, I'm afraid to leave the house."
Cat feces and fur balls on the sidewalk are just a few of the problems that can occur when cats are on campus. In Wilde's case, a cat formerly known as Hope, bit him while playing Frisbee with her owner.
"The cat dropped the Frisbee. I was just trying to help it out,"
he said. "Then all hell broke loose."
Tamara Boyle, Kansas City.
Mo. freshman, said she was sick of having to dodge cat poo.
"I feel like I'm playing Pac-Man out there," she said.
"Except I don't want to eat the stuff, I want to avoid it."
According to the University's Institute of Research on the Quantity of Waste Left on the Campus Each Day, or IRQWLCD. students should not walk down Jayhawk Boulevard if they want to avoid cat feces.
Dave Witherpoon, New York sophomore, said he liked to bring his cat, Kitty, on campus while he was in class. Witherspoon usually ties Kitty to a tree near Fraser Hall. Kitty was attacked on Monday by an unidentified cat in front of Fraser.
"I came out of class and saw this gray and white cat pounce on Kitty." Witherspoon said. "Of course, the cat was not on a leash."
"There are many alternate paths around campus, such as using the stairs behind the buildings, which are not near the grassy areas on which cats like to congregate," said Lindley James, researcher for IRQWLCED.
Even cat owners themselves find the rise in the on-campus cat population a problem.
He said he rescued Kitty by pushing the attacking cat away and yelling threatening phrases such as "You want a piece of this?" and "Bring it
on."
Kay Fay, administrator for miscellaneous affairs, said that yelling threatening phrases were not necessary in controlling a cat. She said that simply removing your cat from the situation would be the most mature thing to do in a cat attack. When told about
Witherspoon's method of defense, she responded with "What a jerk."
Instructors and professors are also finding cats on campus a problem. The constant meowing and caterwauling is distracting to class instruction, said Finny Cain, professor of semantics and regional cuss
words.
"To put it lightly, the cats need to stay at home," Cain said.
Fay said that cats were not a menace on campus and that any incidents involved with cats were few and far between.
"People just need to realize that cats are people, too," she said.
Study reveals Lawrence as barren, frozen wasteland during break
By Gerry Doyle
What the. . ? Massa chussetts Street turns into an endless pile of snow and ice during spring break. Researchers said that if students would stay in town and continue to partywith reckless abandon, Lawrence would not have turned into a snowy wasteland. Photo by Augustus Anthony Piazza
By Gerry Boyle
Kansan managing editor
A new study at the University of Kansas has shed light on a perennial mystery of spring: What happens to Lawrence when students are gone for spring break?
The answer, said Bob Dooheslaf, associate professor of molecular biology and sociology, is a cold, hard truth.
"Quite simply, all motion, even at the molecular level, ceases," he said. "Lawrence, in effect, turns into a snowy wasteland, with only a few pretty leafs and lakes to break the monotony. I like leaves."
The study, called "Holy Toledo, It's Boring In Lawrence With No Students," was released Sunday.
The change, which begins the Thursday evening before spring break weekend and ends generally the final two days of break, is sparked by students leaving the Lawrence area. The energy that the college students bring to Lawrence cannot be underestimated, Dooheslaf said.
"Without the constant vibration, oscillation and plasmoid reteniology that students provide, Lawrence begins to grind to a halt," he said.
said.
Plasmoid reteniology is the highly combustible compound created when college students move energetically at bars, clubs and house parties. It is the major source of dynamism in Lawrence, he said. Dynamism is a synonym for "energy."
"We found that students, by doing their groovy student thing, are what keeps this town going." Snackovichy said. "When students start actually trying to be energetic, bad things happen — bad things."
Many students do not seem to realize that they play such a key role in the area's warmth and vigor, said Jilla Smackovich, professor of hairdressing and one of the study's co-authors.
Smackovichy said flamboyant forms of insanity could crop up when students tried to consciously alter the energy flow.
"Most of them, we found, set themselves on fire and began running around saying, 'Hello,'
I'm Sputnik," she said.
"My goodness, you can't even buy a decent drink," she said. "I mean, I suppose it would be OK if it were just cold, but when you have to spend all day huddled up in front of the fireplace or television, that's just boring."
I snip, spot, see. Said.
The landscape of Lawrence changes drastically without a student presence, said Floooky McDougal, dean of the School of Autonomy.
Dooheslaf enumerated some of the changes that Lawrence undergoes when students are away: There is no fun; there is no loud noise; there is no heat; there are no buildings, and
there is no skipping class.
"Is this some kind of sick joke?" asked Jack Revetahw, No Name, Colo., junior. "Look, everyone knows that Lawrence is overrun by the annual cicada migration during break. That's why they plan it when they do."
"Of course there's no skipping class," he said, "There are no classes to skip."
Some students were incredulous about Lawrence's transformation.
Pinut Greene, assistant vice overseer of University affairs regarding students, said that cicadas had no part in planning spring break.
"Well, mostly they just annoy us with their
Overall, the discovery of Lawrence's icy transformation probably will not change much, Dooheslaf said. Students still will go away, residents still will endure the arctic temperatures and Lawrence still will become the barren wasteland that is life without students.
little chirping sounds," he said. "We know what happens to Lawrence and campus when the students take off to their little getaways. Heating bills are astronomical. Book checkouts double at the library. The ice floes are a constant driving hazard if you can get your car to work."
Yak infiltration! Goal: Co-ed impregnation
By Steph Brewer Associate features editor
When Fluffykos Yakley first walked into Carolyn Mollett's Biology class, Mollet was struck by his rugged good looks
"He was so masculine, so virile," Molett, Hutchinson junior said. "And those big brown eyes, he was irresistible."
Mollett noticed that Yakley had an abundance of coarse brown hair but said she didn't think anything of it.
"I just thought he needed a haircut," she said, "No idea he was a yak."
stikk too hard for John Homme, professor of English, who had Yakley in his class, said he was suspicious of the yak's language skills.
The yak had convinced everyone from Office of Study Abroad coordinators to admissions officers that he was a Himalayan exchange student.
"We noticed that he smelled odd, a bit gamey, if you will, but we weren't going to say anything," a source from the Office of Admissions said on condition of anonymity. "What were we going to say, 'You stink too bad to be a human?'
"Now I'm no expert on the Himalayan region of the world, but this boy, excuse me, yak, didn't say anything but 'meuh.'" Homme said.
"He had a mountain man kind of appeal," said Jane Fille, graduate teaching assistant in Biology. "The girls in the class were devastated when Fluffykos was expelled from the University."
Despite Yakley's odor and lack of speech skills, Homme and Yakley's other professors said the yak was enormously popular with female students.
Opportunity University administrators contacted government authorities when Mollett discovered Yakley was not of human origin.
Yakley is still at the zoo, waiting for the government to decide his fate.
"It was horrible," Mollett said, sobbing softly. "We went to my apartment after a date, he took off his shoes, and I saw hooves."
give me an answer why he deceived the University and fellow students, Yakley said, "meuh."
Mollett said she immediately called the police who restrained the yak and transported him to the local zoo.
"Meuh' is really all yaks can say," explained head zookeeper Helga Imaginare.
University officials said they didn't understand why a Himalayan yak would want to attend the University of Kansas. But Herb Fou, assistant professor of hairy mammal zoology, claimed that he knew why.
"It's a conspiracy," he said. "The yaks are attempting to infiltrate the United States. Government officials are fools not to recognize the danger."
foreground.
You said Yakley disguised himself as a student in order to seduce one or several female students and impregnate them. ...
"This yak, and there are others like him, wants to create a sort of yak-human hybrid, a yako sapien," Fou said. "Can you imagine what that would look like? The horror! The horror!"
Mollett said Yakley might have been successful with other KU women had he stayed but that she never would've been tricked into having intercourse with the animal.
into his bag there the second I saw the hooves," Mollett said. "No way I would've gotten in bed with him."
given her authority University officials insist that Yakley posed no threat to students and probably just wanted to get an education.
Features page is a fool's paradise
Today's edition of the University Daily Kansan's features page contains completely made-up stories.
"Remember in grade school when you used to play jokes on your friends on April Lst?'' Miller asked. "Well, now the joke is on you."
Kansan features editor, T.R. Miller, said that she wanted to use the page to remind students that today was April Fool's Day.
Miller said she developed the page because she wanted an opportunity to spell cat with a "k."
"When you spell cat with a "k," it's just seems more krazy, she said;
seems more likely.
Associate features editor Steph Brewer was out of the newsroom at the time this brief was written.
Steph would have said that this page is the best features page ever because of the vaks, had I interviewed her," Miller said.
Kansan managing editor, Gerry Doyle also volunteered to write for the page
Jason Benavides, features designer,
seemed to be amused by the psycho cat
pictures but had no comment about the
Kansan's second annual April Fool's Day
feature page.