TODAY'S WEATHER: Warmer with a high of 48. SEE PAGE 8A ARMED ROBBERY: Student injured at North Carolina university. SEE PAGE 3A
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
TALK TO US: Contact Leita Walker, Jay Krall or Kyle Ramsey at (785) 864-4810 or editor@kansan.com
KANSAN
WWW.KANSAN.COM
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
TUESDAY
MARCH 26, 2002
ISSUE 116 VOLUME 112
Students plan mad dash to Atlanta
Juniors Ashley Souders, Overland Park; Mollie McQueen, Oklahoma City; Shelly Ragsdale, McKinney, Texas; Ruthie Ramsey, Wichita; Julie Chonko, Overland Park; and Simmy Lancaster, Edina, Minn., chat about their upcoming road trip. The women are driving to Atlanta Friday to see the men's basketball team play in the Final Four.
KIMBERLY THOMPSON/KANSAN
By Mike Gilligan Kansan staff writer
While some students will be watching the Final Four at home or at local bars, others will make the 840-mile journey to Atlanta to watch the Jayhawks play Maryland Saturday.
Simmy Lancaster, Edina, Minn., junior, is driving to Atlanta with five of her Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority sisters. The women were selected in the student ticket lottery in January and confirmed their tickets at Allen Fieldhouse yesterday.
Lancaster said they planned on driving through the night until they got to Atlanta.
"Yahoo said it would take 15 hours to get there," Lancaster said. "But we're hoping it's more like 12 hours."
Lancaster said the six women decided to go to the Final Four long before the Big 12 Tournament started.
The women found out that they had won the opportunity to buy Final Four tickets in early February. They won't pick up their tickets until they arrive at the Georgia Dome on Saturday.
Lancaster said the women decided to spend more money to get the best seats possible. For lower-level tickets to both semifinals Saturday and Monday's championship, each girl will pay $165.
"They had tickets for cheaper than that, but we wanted good seats," Lancaster said.
Shelly Ragsdale, McKinney, Texas, junior and another of the group of six, said that if KU made it to the championship game, she and her friends were thinking of driving to Lawrence right
after the game ended.
"If they win, we want to be a part of the celebration on Tuesday," she said.
Graham Winch, Marietta, Ga., junior, said it would be too expensive to go to Atlanta. He said he wanted to be in Lawrence during the Final Four weekend.
"I want to be where the people are celebrating and partying," he said. "I
don't think I would have as much fun in Atlanta as I would in Lawrence."
Contact Gilligan at mgilligan@ kansan.com. This story was edited by Eve Lamborn.
Tickets scarce during 2002 Final Four
Bv Maqgie Koerth
By Maggie Koerth Kansan staff writer
Max Carr, Wellington senior, is one of the lucky few with a seat in Georgia.
KU basketball fans who don't already have tickets for the NCAA tournament probably won't be able to get them through KU.
The NCAA makes 4,500 tickets to Saturday's and Monday's Georgia Dome games available to the University, but those tickets have been spoken for since February.
Carr entered the student ticket lottery about a month and a half ago. He said about two weeks later he was told the sites for which he had tickets.
"I got tickets to about every site I wanted," he said. "But I know people who didn't get tickets at all."
Richard Konzem, associate athletics director, said students, faculty, alumni and staff who want tickets complete an order form in January letting the athletics department know what game sites they would like to attend. The department then holds a ticket lottery for each site. Winners are notified by the end of February.
Konzem said people who won the lotteries for the Final Four had until 5 p.m. yesterday to confirm that they wanted their tickets.
Konzem said the current ticket system had been in place since 1986.
"Before that, we really hadn't had a plan. It was just chaos," he said. "I remember standing on a trash can outside Allen Fieldhouse talking to hundreds of students who wanted to know how we were getting tickets."
Konzem said the current system rewards those who plan ahead.
nose who don't win the lotteries are given first chance on cancellations by the winners. He said there were usually cancellations.
"That comes from planning for this back in January. People's plans change and maybe they only need two tickets instead of four or they can't afford the tickets." Konzem said.
When cancellations do occur, Konzem said the athletics department calls people who lost the lotteries and other people on their waiting list to see if they want the tickets. If those applicants don't want them, the tickets are made available to the public.
Konzem said it was rare for there to be extra tickets left. If there were extra tickets, Konzem said it would be
announced by Wednesday in a press release. The tickets would then be available on a first come, first serve basis.
Beyond the KU athletics department, tickets are available through ticket scalpers.
A Web site called www.finalfourtickets.com has tickets for sale at prices ranging from $300 to $4500 for courtside seats.
The tickets' face value ranges from $120 to $160.
Another site, www.sportticket.com, posts offers for tickets as well as ticket wanted ads from fans.
Contact Koerth at mkoerth@kansan.com. This story was edited by Andy Gas-saway.
Committee deliberates financial aid improvements
By Meredith Carr Kansan staff writer
Rv Meredith Carr
Janet Roecker, associate director of Student Financial Aid, gave a presentation to the committee that addressed how financial aid needs and funds will grow over the proposed five-year tuition increase phase-in period.
The Office of Student Financial Aid met with the Ad Hoc Committee on University Funding yesterday afternoon to discuss how to improve financial aid in light of the proposed tuition increase.
The office considered pushing the deadline for applications back to April 1 to allow students more time to complete the forms, but Chris Johnson, associate director of Student Financial Aid, said if the deadline was pushed back, the financial aid money would have been overspent.
Considered improvements included library facilities, better technology and improvements to the physical structures of KU buildings. The committee is also looking into creating additional faculty positions, improving graduate teaching assistant salaries and offering more minority recruitment programs.
He also said students currently in the Office of Student Financial Aid's database would have their financial aid needs met, but students that have not applied will be allocated the moneyleft over.
The committee also worked on how to spend the proceeds of the tuition increase, and committee members discussed uses for the funds.
The committee will rank the possi bilities according to the importance of
"We have limited funds, and we're hoping this will influence students to apply earlier," Johnson said.
the improvement and the appropriateness of using student funds for those purposes. Committee members expect the state will continue to meet its obligations to funding for the University.
"The furthest we've gone is looking at the state's role in what we think they should pay for in their role for higher education," Bell said.
Jamel Bell, graduate senator and committee member, said the committee has not looked at the current $685 million budget shortfall the state is facing.
KU administrators are still lobbying for the Kansas Legislature to increase KU funds and pass State Bill 345, which would increase faculty salaries.
The committee will meet again in an open meeting at 1 p.m. on Thursday at the Kansas Room in the Kansas Union.
Dallas Rakestraw, Nunemaker student senator and committee co-chairman, said he hoped to see more students at Thursday's meeting.
"We have limited funds, and we're hoping this will influence students to apply earlier."
Chris Johnson Associate director of Student Financial Aid
"We value the students' perspective and opinion." Rakestraw said. "Most of the time they bring up issues that sometimes got lost in committee."
Contact Carr at mcarr@kansan.com. This story was edited by Anne Mergenneier.
Greek petition threatened by technicality
By Sarah Hill Kansan staff writer
A student-generated petition to give greek housing off-campus representation in Student Senate might not appear on the senate election ballot this spring, due to a technicality.
The ballot option would ask students if they support residents of greek housing being represented by off-campus senators. Residents of greek housing are currently represented by Panhellenic and Interfraternity Council senators.
Andy Knopp, engineering senator and Interfraternity Council president, spearheaded the initiative after a bill failed in Senate last month. Knopp collected more than 1,100 names, KUIDs and signatures of students who supported the initiative. However, the petition did not ask for the students' addresses and phone numbers, which is also required information for a student-generated petition.
"For us to say that we won't follow the rules and regulations portrays our body as arbitrary and biased." David Mitchel
David Mitchell Elections commissioner
COMING IN THE KANSAN THIS WEEK:
Knopp said he printed all the petitions and then saw the required information in the Senate Rules and Regulations, which outlines rules for Senate and the elections.
"I still didn't think it was necessary," he said.
Knopp said he called Elections Commissioner David Mitchell to check whether he needed the extra information. He said Mitchell told him it wasn't needed.
"I've had probably a thousand meaningful conversations about the elections code and rules and regulations over the last couple of months," Mitchell said. "Hopefully people will understand if I can't clearly remember exactly what I said."
Mitchell said that he couldn't remember their exact conversation, but said Knopp's proper course of action would have been to consult the rules and regulations or someone in the Senate office.
Mitchell said that because of debate this year about the election code, he wanted to make sure that the elections commission upheld the rules and regulations in every case.
If it appears on the election ballots, the initiative would show student opinion on the issue of greek representation, but would not change the rules and regulations until next year.
"For us to say that we won't follow the rules and regulations portrays our body as arbitrary and biased," he said.
INSIDETODAY
Knopp said that he was going back through the petitions and adding the phone numbers and addresses of the students. The issue will appear on the ballot if this process is completed in time. Knopp said the process was frustrating but worth the effort.
"Over 1,100 students want this on the ballot," he said. "It's a big enough issue that small details shouldn't get in the way."
The petitioning commission will meet at 5:30 p.m. tomorrow at Alcove B in the Kansas Union. The meeting is open to everyone.
Contact Hill at shill@kansan.com. This story was edited by Sarah Smarsh.
CAMERA ON KU ...2A
HOROSCOPES ...6A
WEATHER ...8A
CROSSWORD ...8A
STUDENT SENATE ELECTIONS: A breakdown of the campaigns of each of the four coalitions.
SMALL WORLD: Local women help international women learn English and American customs.
The University Daily Kansan is the student newspaper of the University of Kansas. The first copy is paid through the student activity fee. Additional copies of the Kansan are 25 cents. Subscriptions can be purchased at 119 Stauffer-Flint Hall.
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