TUESDAY, FEB. 19, 2002
STATE
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN = 5A
Universities consider tuition waivers
The Associated Press
LAWRENCE — With tuition increases looming, several state universities are considering offering waivers to employees and their children.
Final plans aren't in place, but officials at Emporia State said they would create a waiver program in the next five years. Administrators at Fort Hays State University and Pittsburg State University said they also are considering waivers.
Though Kansas State University and University of Kansas administrators have not included waivers in their five year tuition plans, some faculty
and student leaders have shown support for them.
The interest in tuition waivers has been spurred by the possibility of stiff increases to make up for money universities won't be getting from the state, which faces a budget shortfall. Also, the state's new concept of "tuition ownership," which allows universities to keep the tuition they collect instead of having it forwarded to the state, would allow universities more control of tuition policies.
Alfred Lata, a chemistry lecturer and member of the University of Kansas' Faculty Council, said waivers would help recruit and retain faculty and staff.
waivers) would keep anyone from coming to KU," he said. "It would be much more pleasant to come if they knew free tuition was in the future."
But giving out free tuition to some while possibly doubling rates for other students might be politically unpopular.
"I don't know if (not having
"The board's been pretty vocal for a long time about the challenge of recruiting and retaining quality faculty," said Kim Wilcox, president of the Kansas Board of Regents. "Finding ways to get faculty in Kansas is a major goal. Raising tuition the same time we're giving tuition waivers is a difficult policy decision we'd have to look at closely."
Those concerns were enough to convince Wichita State University officials to not pursue waivers.
"We feel it's more important to keep tuition low," spokesman loe Kleinsasser said.
It's unclear how much tuition waivers would cost universities, which must first decide who would get them — faculty, staff, their spouses and their children all could be in the mix — and whether to provide total waivers or partial ones. Tuition waivers also could convince more children of faculty and staff to attend the universities where their parents work instead of going elsewhere, costing those universities even more.
Bills challenge common law marriage
The Associated Press
TOPEKA — Testimony from a 16-year-old southeast Kansas girl helped move the Senate Judiciary Committee to endorse a bill yesterday ending common law marriage.
Sara Shelton, of Buffalo, told of giving birth to two children by a family acquaintance by age 14. Jerry Paul Crooks Jr was convicted of rape and sentenced to 25 years
but claimed during his trial that they had a common law marriage
Her case led Sen. Dwayne Umbarger to advocate legislation invalidating common law marriages entered into after June 30 of this year.
"I don't see that we need common law marriages today," said Umbarger, R-Thayer, who serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Both Umbarger and Sen. Derek Schmidt, R-Independence, said Shelton's case brought the issue to their attention.
Common law marriages, which require no marriage certificate, have been recognized in Kansas since at least 1886, when the Supreme Court upheld a Shawnee County man's bigamy conviction based on the law. Only the District of Columbia and seven other states still recognize such marriages — Alabama, Colorado, Iowa, Montana, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and South Carolina.
Tradition makes some legislators hesitate to ban the practice. The House Judiciary Committee has a bill that would require a parent, guardian or judge's approval if one of the parties to a prospective common law marriage is under 18.
House Judiciary Chairman Mike O'Neal, R-Hutchinson, said common law marriages gave partners, particularly women, property rights, should those relationships end.
"I would be reluctant to completely end it," he said of the practice. "Our bill modernizes it."
Shelton told legislators she
Later, while Crooks was living in Wichita, the family moved to Augusta, she said, and Crooks became a frequent visitor at their home. In 1999, at 13, she became pregnant again and had a second son, and Crooks was arrested for rape.
was 10 when Crooks, then living with her family in Texas, began having sex with her. She became pregnant, gave birth to a boy and put him up for adoption.
Now living with her son in a Buffalo foster home, Shelton said she worried during Crooks' trial that his claim of a common law marriage would give him access to the boy.
Couple sues realtor for selling "murder house"
The Associated Press
OLATHE — Pam and John Westhoff followed the news reports of a grisly killing in Leawood — an elderly man beaten to death with a baseball bat, his new wife badly injured.
Eighteen months later, they bought a house in Leawood.
The Westhoffs didn't connect the two events for another year. A neighbor's chance remark to a contractor told them what nobody else had; that they had bought the house where Lawrence Kubik, 77, was murdered in 1999.
The Westhoffs have filed a lawsuit in Johnson County District Court, claiming they were victims of misrepresentation. They also claim the sale violated Kansas consumer protection laws.
Disclosure that a house was a crime scene is not required in either Kansas or Missouri, where the Westhoffs lived before moving to the Kansas side of the Kansas City metropolitan area.
Their lawsuit alleges that the previous homeowners and the real estate professionals had a duty to disclose that a "gruesome murder" had occurred in the house.
The defendants said they had no such obligation, although in court documents answering the accusations, they maintain that an agent working for the Westroffs was told about the crime. The Westroff's agent denies the claim.
The lawsuits names real estate agent Ginny Kirsch and her
employer, Re/Max First Realtors, as defendants, along with the nephew of former owner Marguerite Bacher-Kubik, Fred Allen Cloud, and the trust established to handle Bacher-Kubik's affairs.
Kirsch declined to comment, as did Cloud's attorney.
In their lawsuit, the Westhoffs are asking for more than $200,000 in property damages; $500,000 for pain and suffering; and $5 million in punitive damages.
ram Westhoff, however, said the intent of the lawsuit was to prompt a change in real estate disclosure requirements.
Jan Moore, the agent who represented the Westhoffs in the transaction, said that if Kansas law did not require such disclosure, then the law needed to be changed.
one disclosure form that the Kansas City Board of Realtors has developed for use in both states covers the scenario, in Moore's opinion. One section requires the seller to disclose any condition that "materially, adversely affects the value of the property."
Pam Westhoff said she had heard of the crime, which occurred more than a year before she and her husband bought the house, but had no idea of the specific address.
"We would definitely not have taken the house if we knew," she said.
Some have suggested that the Westhoffs should resell the house to someone else, but Pam Westhoff said she and her husband couldn't do that.
Dannie M. Thompson Jr. Owner Jack Flanigan's Bar & Grill shows off the largest burger in town (12 oz.) which is 1/2 price every Tues.
"The University of Kansas student population is a very important part of the demographic of my patrons. That is why I choose the Kansan to target that audience. Every time I run an advertisement for the Jack Flanigans Thursday 'Ladies Night' with a 'Girls get in free and pass the line coupon' I see hundreds of coupons being used that night. I know my advertising dollars with the Kansan are well spent!"
Sincerely,
Dannie M. Thompson Jr.
Owner Jack Flanigans Bar & Grill
Just off 23rd behind McDonald's • 749-HAWK
LAWRENCE AUTOMOTIVE DIAGNOSTICS INC.
842-8665
2858 Four
Wheel Dr.
ASIAN FESTIVAL!
Presented by the Asian-American Student Union
Tonight: Sinagtala Dance Troup 6-7 PM in Kansas Union Auditorium
Feb.25: Learn the Art of Origami in the Kansas Union Lobby11:30 AM-1:30 PM
Watch for more events next week!
Coming Soon ...
TASTE OF ASIA
Hands-On Communication
Free Couple's Massage Training with Professor Dennis Dailey and Lunaria
Tuesday, February 19, 2002 7:00-9:00pm
Big 12 Room, KS Union
Sponsored by Emily Taylor Women's Resource Center
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