THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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THURSDAY, MARCH 26, 2015
PAGE 3A
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CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
University architecture students Savannah Greenlee, Tu Tran, Kyle Killian, Taylor Monsees and Ashton Martin are part of a team that was selected as a finalist in the 2015 Housing and Urban Development Affordable Housing Student Design and Planning Competition. The team will make its presentation on April 21 in Washington, D.C.
Architecture students advance in competition
KWANG HYUN
@ChwangWitit
A team of University architecture students were selected as one of the four finalists in the 2015 Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Affordable Housing Student Design and Planning Competition (IAH).
The team includes fifth-year architecture students Savannah Greenlee of Kansas City, Mo.; Tu Tran of Olathe; Kyle Killian of Lawrence; MBA student Taylor Monsees of Overland Park and Ashton Martin of Lawrence, a student from the Department of Urban Planning.
"Our team actually got put together because we all showed interest in working on it outside of the school over the break," Greenlee said.
The team was created the second week of January after the competition information was released in December. After submitting the project in early February, the team found out it was one of the four finalists on Feb.21.
A key part of the competition is the inclusion of a non-architecture student
in the team. Greenlee said several members of the team fit this bill: Monsees is currently studying for his MBA and Martin came from the department of Urban Planning.
"What makes this competition different [than] in the past is that it requires non-architecture students," Tran said. "It's a teamwork of interdisciplinary fields to create this competition — that's what I was looking for."
For the competition, teams from different universities create an affordable housing design based on a site provided by HUD. This year's site is a senior housing complex for 300 residents in Houma, La., which the teams visited earlier in the year. Teams can choose to either replace the existing design with a new one or rehabilitate the current structure.
The other three competing teams are from UCLA, New York University and the University of Minnesota. HUD selected these four teams for their unique ideas, said Tran.
an innovative way of financing it, so I think that's part of the main reason that four teams are chosen," Greenlee said. "We've come to the table with new ways of incorporating different financing mechanisms that would work together and help affordable housing be improved over the years."
the winning team will receive $20,000 from HUD and the runner-up team will receive $10,000. The team will make its final presentation in Washington, D.C., on April 21 in an auditorium in front of 500 people.
"One of the things that [HUD] want to focus on it is
"It's a little intimidating," Greenlee said. "It's also really exciting because the School of Architecture has been really supportive in helping us get all of our team members to the site and to D.C. and helping with funding."
Greenlee said the University has been incredibly supportive in the team's efforts.
"We usually present in front a jury of like 20 people." Tran said. "But I'm more excited than nervous."
Carbon monoxide chambers for shelter animals may end
KELLY CORDINGLEY
@kellycordingley
Edited by Callie Byrnes
Last year, the bill passed the Senate but never made it out of the House committee, this year legislators went about it another way. The amendment to ban carbon monoxide chambers was added into the Senate bill which creates an institutional license to practice veterinary medicine. Humane Society of Kansas State Director Midge Grinstead said Rep. Ponka-We Victors (D-Wichita) and Rep. Sydney Carlin (D-Manhattan) found a bill to tack this amendment onto, making it more likely to pass. Now with the amendment, the bill will head back to the Senate to be approved by its house of origin.
Grinstead said she is hopeful that it will pass this time around.
"I'm disappointed that Kansas is one of only 10 states that doesn't ban these chambers," Kate Meghji, Director of the Lawrence Humane Society, said. "I hope that we're not the last state to ban this."
Kansas is currently one of 10 states that still allows the use of carbon monoxide gas chambers for euthanasia in animal shelters. If a bill passes through the Senate on Wednesday, these chambers would be illegal in Kansas and animals could only be euthanized intravenously with a series of injections that "put them to sleep" in a matter of seconds instead of the minutes of stress and fear chambers can evoke.
"Carbon monoxide is a very archaic way to euthanize an animal; it's cruel, it's unsafe," Grinstead said. "The bill was to simply ban the use of carbon monoxide in shelters in Kansas. It will bastily stop those three shelters that still use it from using these
chambers."
Victors spoke in favor of this bill, and said via email she felt the bill was necessary because her constituents reached out to her concerned that places in Kansas still use this method of euthanasia. Grinstead said the chambers are terrible things and sees no use for them ever to have been used.
"I don't think anybody wants this type of euthanasia in our state," Grinstead said. "I think some legislators don't understand. It's horrible for the animals, and it's also horrible for the people who have to do it. With euthanasia by injection, the brain goes in seconds and the body right after."
"I didn't think I was moving to Kansas to get Kansas to ban gas chambers," Meghji said. "I was really disappointed to see some of the things we wanted to get passed this year that didn't get passed. I always thought animal welfare was a non-partisan issue."
Meghji moved from Illinois for her position at the Lawrence Humane Society, and said she was disgusted this issue had turned partisan.
Meghji has testified at the Capitol before in her capacity at the humane society, the Pet Animal Coalition of Kansas and as a member of the Society of Animal Welfare Administrators to help pass other animal welfare laws. But she said she found surprising pushback from legislators on issues as simple as requirements for animals' access to water.
"I thought surely, surely this wouldn't be an issue," she said. "But for some reason some legislators, usually out in Western Kansas, see animals differently."
Grinstead said she recalls a number of horrifying stories
depicting what happens to an animal in the chambers, and to the person who is responsible for that job. She said the animal, in this case a dog, screams and bangs its head against the wall. Sometimes the animal has to spend more than one round in the chamber before he or she is put out of their misery. Additionally, the person who is responsible for this job is left scarred, Grinstead said.
"It is so emotionally draining,"she said.
In addition to the emotional toll and ordeal the animal goes through, the chambers are unsafe and expensive to keep properly maintained, Meghji said.
"It is incredibly inhumane and it is incredibly dangerous," she said. "There is no fiscal reason to use carbon monoxide chambers. It isn't any less expensive. It's actually more expensive in some cases. It is appalling this day and age when we have access to very inexpensive drugs that allow us to euthanize animals in a painless and calm way that there are still places that use gas chambers."
Grinstead said it's time Kansas and some of its legislators caught up with the times and treated animals like companions instead of a "commodity on the shelf"
"I would love to join the ranks with the rest of the people in the 21st century and change the way we treat our animals here," she said. "It's really hard when we're the type of people we are and we love dogs, and you go up to Topeka and some people don't care and think what you're asking is ridiculous."
Edited by Lane Cofas
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