THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
Tomorrow's weather
Kansan
Mostly cloudy tomorrow.
Monday
February 22, 1999
Section:
A
Vol. 109 • No. 99
HIGH 46
Online today
Sports today
Get a complete list of Grammy nominees, flash back to the Grammys' greatest clips or check out the photo gallery of your favorite musicians. http://www.grammy.com
The Kansas basketball coaches reach milestone victories during the weekend.
SEE PAGES 1B AND 10B
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University program strikes at violence
Kansan staff writer
The University of Kansas has implemented a new program designed to help employees feel secure from threats of violence at work.
The Campus Workplace Violence Program was not created because of violent incidents on campus but because of nationwide trends, said Ola Faucher, human resources director for the University.
The University always has adhered to the state's guidelines for handling violence in the workplace, Faucher said. The state policy says that anyone who makes threats or engages in violence on state-owned property, or who threatens a state employee conducting official business, could be dismissed, arrested and prosecuted.
"The nation has simply had a lot more incidents of violence, and higher education is not immune," Faucher said. "This is an effort to assure that people in the University community feel this is a safe place to work."
In addition to reaffirming the state policy, the new University program creates a Threat Assessment Team to evaluate potentially dangerous situations.
It also calls for a series of informational seminars and contains a weapons policy that applies to all students, regardless of whether they are employees.
Faucher said the program also emphasized the on-campus 911 system, which
reaches the KU Public Safety Office.
"Many people didn't seem to be aware that immediate help was available," she said.
The Threat Assessment Team's purpose is to review situations that don't require immediate help from security or police officers. For example, Faucher said, KU employees might feel uneasy if someone was following them around, making personal references, using threatening language or acting angry.
"You might not be sure what to do." Faucher said. "Depending on the severity of the situation, we would decide how to deal with it or call in someone else."
James Kitchen, dean of students, is on the team. He said that with so much violence in
THREAT ASSESSMENT TEAM
- Ola Faucher, director of human resources
- Ralph Oliver, director of public safety
- Pamela Botts, associate director of counseling and psychological services
- James Kitchen, dean of students
- Robert Shelton, ombdusman
workplaces nationwide, the University wanted to get a complete policy in place.
"we wanted to be proactive rather than reactive," he said.
He said he would pay careful attention to situations that involved students.
"If something does happen to a student worker, obviously I would have more of a
concern and more of a connection." he said.
concern and more of a connection," he said. If faculty, staff or student employees feel threatened, they should call the Human Resources Office from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. or the Public Safety Office any other time.
The University also has a weapons policy that prohibits students, employees and visitors from having weapons on campus.
It defines weapons as firearms, explosives, switchblades and knives with blades longer than 4 inches, tear gas and smoke bombs — although Mace and pepper spray are allowed.
The program was approved by the provost and chancellor Feb. 1. It became effective upon approval of the administration.
—Edited by Aerica Veazev
500 reasons to smile
KU scientist identifies new cat species
By Jennifer Roush
Kansan staff writer
A paleontologist at the University of Kansas has helped identify a new species of saber-tootch animal.
John Babiarz, an amateur paleontologist from Mesa, Ariz., who owns a large collection of sabertooth specimens, obtained the skeleton, which was originally found in Florida, by trading other specimens from his collection.
-Larry Martin, curator in charge of vertebrate paleontology at the Natural History Museum, discovered the new species by examining a skeleton during the past two years.
Babiariz hopes to start a natural history museum in Tempe, Ariz., and put his collection into it. To do that, he needed to have the collection described and cataloged.
Larry Martin, curator in charge of vertebrate paleontology at the Natural History Museum, is a paleontologist who helped identify a new species of saber-tooth cat. Martin had a plaster cast in his office from the original skeleton, which was found in Florida. Photo by Augustus Anthony Piazza/KANSAN
Babiarz was familiar with Martin's expertise on saber-tooth cats he called the KU professor to help identify the Florida skeleton, which is now at Arizona State University.
Babiarz said he did not know exactly what the skeleton was but that he knew that it did not fit with current scientific knowledge.
"I knew right off the bat it was suspect," he said. "But how often do
Martin was surprised to find that Babiarz's skeleton did not belong to either of the two known species of saber-tooths. The skeleton's teeth and legs didn't match what was known about saber-tooth cats when Martin first examined the skeleton two years ago.
you find something like that?"
Martin said saber-tooth cats had been divided into two species: smilodon, which had short legs and long teeth, and homotherium, which had long legs and short teeth. While homotherium is fairly rare, smilodon is the cat most people imagine as a "saber-tooth tiger."
The 1 million-year-old skeleton, which is one of only two known to exist, was found in a cave in northcentral Florida. The other skeleton is at the University of Florida.
Judging from the size of the skeletons, the two may have been a mother and nearly-grown cub, Martin said.
"When I first saw this, I didn't think it was for real." Martin said.
He estimated that the cat weighed between 400 and 500 pounds, approximately the size of a lion, and would have looked more like a
He said the Florida cat possessed features of both species
small bear than a cat.
The Florida cat had a short, stocky build like smilodon and broad, vicious teeth like homotherium.
"We don't know exactly what it ate, but it probably ate whatever it wanted to," said Martin.
Martin said the cat most likely ambushed its prey, as smilodon did, rather than running it down.
These are the only two specimens to have been found, and the only thing left to do is to decide what to call it, he said.
Edited by Juan H. Heath
Campaign time prompts office spats in Senate
By Nadia Mustafa Kanson staff writer
Familiar complaints about campaign politics in the Student Senate office marked the beginning of another elections season last week
Julie Numrich, Senate executive chair, said that despite an office policy that prohibited candidates from discussing campaign issues in the office, some senators had complained of candidates using office resources for campaign purposes.
"You start to hear grumblings about this time of year, but we try to keep Senate out of it and conduct campaigns separately." Nurmrich said. "There's a lot of rumor mill. It divides Senate apart even more than it is now."
She said senators began talking about candidates and wearing coalition buttons in the office and at Senate meetings during campaign time each spring.
She said members of the executive staff needed to fulfill their terms by working on issues promised in last year's elections and that campaigns should be secondary.
The policy states that
there should be no campaign materials in the office and that candidates cannot use Senate resources such as phones, computers, fax machines, copy machines and email for campaign purposes.
Nicole Skalla, Senate transportation coordinator, said campaigning in the office was unfair to other candidates who did not have access to Senate resources. She said the office was supposed to be a place for senators to address students' concerns and that campaign politics interfered with that.
She also said that campaigning in the office created tension and competition between members of different coalitions.
Skalla said Korb Maxwell, Student Legislative Awareness Board legislative director, had used the office fax machine for campaign purposes. She said students, senators and potential candidates discussed campaign issues with Maxwell in the office.
Maxwell said that he received a fax about campaign posters and
"There is a certain level of people whispering," Skalla said. "Sometimes people have meetings behind closed doors about campaign issues. It happens quite often."
She said Senate did not want to deter student involvement, but that senators could discuss coalition politics in other parts of the Kansas Union.
buttons on the office fax machine, but that he did not give out the Senate fax number as his personal line. He said the secretary, who did not know that the fax was campaign-related, gave out the number.
Maxwell said that he did not conduct meetings about campaign issues in the office and that he did not want either coalition to campaign in the office. He said he would pay Senate for the resources he used.
"It was not a good precedent to set," he said. "It was just a human mistake by the secretary. It's a time-honored policy that has been broken every single year, and I'd like to make an agreement with Seth (Hoffman) that we keep buttons, posters and closed-door stuff out of the office."
Tom Moore, SLAB campus director, said it was inevitable that candidates would campaign in the office. He said that it had already
occurred within both coalitions, but that Numrich had taken corrective action by posting a warning on the Senate listserv.
"Politics is a part of what we do," Moore said. "This year's crop isn't any different from last year's. But I
don't think it has much stock in a candidate's style of personal campaigning. More than anything, it's a nuisance."
Seth Hoffman, Nunemaker senator, said some members of Delta Force had been wearing coalition buttons in the office. But, he said, he had discussed the issue with coalition members and it would not occur in the future.
Hoffman said wearing coalition buttons was different from using office resources financed by student fees.
"We haven't been receiving faxes or phone calls." he said.
Kevin Yoder, student body president, said senators had been compliant with his request to keep coalition buttons out of the office. He said he was not aware that candidates were campaigning in the office.
"It's important that the Senate office remain a neutral area in which no coalition or candidate is discussing or preparing for the April elections." Yoder said. "I don't want the Senate office to turn into a campaign arena for the spring."
According to Senate rules and regulations, the student body president or Senate can remove anyone that violates office policy from his or her position.
—Edited by Steph Brewer
A.