Tuesday
March 11,2003
Vol. 113. Issue No. 114
Today's weather
56°
Tonight: 39'
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
KANSAN
Contact Kristi Henderson, Jenna Goepfert or Justin Henning at 864-4810 or editor@kansan.com
Tell us your news
Women's basketball begins play tonight in Big 12 Tournament in Dallas p.1B
Chancellor wants budget leeway
With less state funding KU needs more freedom for efficient spending
By Lauren Airey
lairey@kansan.com
Kansas staff writer
In a time of state budget shortfalls, Chancellor Robert Hemenway wants more breathroom to spend the money the University of Kansas already has.
He urged legislators yesterday to free the University from tedious state regulations so the University could operate more efficiently.
"In a year when you can't give us much money, you could give us the ability to manage the taxpayer's money better and leverage it further." Hemenway said.
Hemenway and other state and University education officials testified before the Senate Ways and Means Subcommittee on Higher Education. He acknowledged the current state financial crisis but said budget cuts were not the only way to curb spending.
After he was asked for more specific suggestions, Hemenway told the subcommittee members that the Board of Regents was preparing legislation in three or four areas, including surplus property and state printing. Hemenway
cited Wichita State University as an example. Officials from Wichita State found if they weren't required to use a state printer, they could save a considerable amount of money.
Hemenway said if such reforms were enacted, the University would remain a state agency, subject to open records and meeting laws and other forms of accountability.
"The biggest difference would be a marked increase in our efficiency and effectiveness, despite the staff and funding reductions mentioned earlier," he said.
Hemenway gave the subcommittee a partial list of the programs eliminated at
the University to illustrate the effects of the state's budget cuts. His list of strategic reductions included a prenatal nursing program at the Medical Center, the mathematical geology section at the Kansas Geological Survey and public access to the Museum of Anthropology. He also said the University had laid off 44 people and eliminated 159 positions.
Sen. Paul Feleciano, D-Wichita asked Hemenway to explain why those programs were picked to be cut. Hemenway said each decision was not done whimsically and capriciously.
"You can cut across the board and have all elements decline, or you can cut strategically," he said.
Hemenway's statements echoed those of Kansas State University President Ion Wefald.
"Remember that movie, The Perfect Storm?" he asked. "We're in the perfect storm, aren't we?"
According to Hemenway's testimony, the University received $242 million in state funds in the fiscal year 2002 but the University's total revenue for the year was $708 million with tuition, room and board, private gifts and research grants.
"No other arm of state government generates this kind of immediate return on investment," Hemenway said.
Student joins world's best martial arts competitors
By Megan Hickerson
meganhickerson@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
Although most people have to pay for items when they break them, Jason Coleman has the opportunity to get paid for breaking things.
Coleman, Bonner Springs junior, has been involved in Tae Kwon Do for ten years. Coleman's interest in martial arts stemmed from childhood memories of watching The Karate Kid.
"I always enjoyed the movie, but I really got involved when a friend took me along to his Tae Kwan Do class," Coleman said.
Coleman began training at White Tiger Tae Kwon Do in his hometown of Bonner Springs. His practice paid off. After international competition, Coleman is now ranked second in the world in sparring, and he's ranked third in the world for team demonstrations. The first-place winner took home $2,000.
Coleman said that he's gained more than just strength training from Tae Kwon Do.
"It's all about respect and self-confidence," Coleman said. "It's really a mental game."
Coleman can muster up the concentration to break wooden boards with his head, and he can also break concrete with his bare hands. Aside from these traditional breaking materials, he has also broken a brick with a Tae Kwan Do belt during a creative breaking competition.
"It only hurts when you chicken out,"
SEE BEST ON PAGE 6A
Keeping Score
16 in the Big 12 Conference. It was the first team ever to go winless in the short history of the Big 12. Kansas became the first school ever in NCAA history to have one team go winless for 16 conference games, while its male counterpart went undefeated. The team also set a Jayhawk record for the fewest points scored in a game — 35 against Colorado's 70.
Those are not Marian Washington's types of records. Those are not the kind of things she will accept. Championship trophies line her office furniture. Awards and plaques cover the walls. Going 5-25 isn't Kansas women's basketball, and therefore, it's not Marian Washington either.
"I'm very grateful to the good Lord because I felt like I'd been in a fire furnace and the good Lord brought me out unscathed," she said. "You learn a lot from those times."
Unscathed, but with another below .500 season under her belt with this season's Jayhawks, the question now is will time be good to Marian Washington?
More than half of her life has been spent nurturing the Kansas women's basketball program. But in today's cut-throat atmosphere of Division I women's basketball, Washington is somewhat of a relic. She was a pioneer of her sport, but it
Can Marian Washington's 30 years at KU be upset by one dismal season?
seems that the sport has gone out on its own, challenging her to keep stride or lose her career.
Last season, A Bohl, Kansas athletics director, announced at the Big 12 Tournament that Washington would stay on as head coach, but just a few months earlier he had threatened that he wanted all Kansas athletics teams in the Top 25. That was somewhere Washington's team hadn't been since the '99-00 season.
"The teams that are not at that level we have to evaluate and make some changes so that they can compete at that high level," Bohl said. "Basketball is at that level, as is baseball, and I just heard that softball won, so they could also be ranked in the Top 25 soon."
Richard Konzem, associate athletics director, explained the the athletics' department's goal of having all of its teams in the Top 25 was just that—a goal, not a threat.
"That's the standard and goal we have for each of our other sports," Konzem said. "It's easier in some sports than others. This is a very strong league in basketball, both the men's and the women's teams."
And, at the regular season finale of this season, Washington, with one year left on her contract and a
SEE WASHINGTON ON PAGE 5A
Costa Rica plans indictments in KU student murder case
By Erin Ohm
eohm@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
Costa Rican officials will seek indictments in the murder of KU student Shannon Martin on March 20, the deadline for prosecution to seek indictment in the case.
The officials assured University of Kansas representatives Jeff Weinberg and Diana Carlin last week they would pursue indictments against three suspects and continue to search for new evidence in the case at a briefing in San Jose, Costa Rica.
March 20 is also the final holding date for a female suspect who has been in the custody of Costa Rican authorities since October 2001, six months after Martin's violent murder in Golfito, Costa Rica.
Weinberg, assistant to the chancellor, and Carlin, dean of international programs, traveled to San Jose last week for a briefing on the status of Martin's case. They met with Costa Rican First Vice President Lineth Saborio and Jorge Rojas, director of the Organization of Judicial Investigation.
"The vice president said, and director Rojas said, if this was a shut and closed case, they would have been for an indictment months ago, but this is not an easy case," Weinberg said.
Jeanette Stauffer, Martin's mother, said she was grateful for the assistance the University has offered her family during the nearly two-year investigation.
"It's been a marathon, an absolute marathon," Stauffers said.
Weinberg said he and Carlin had detailed questions from the Martin family and the University. After an initial meeting with Rojas Wednesday, the director arranged to fly in other officials for an additional meeting Friday.
At the meetings, Weinberg and Carlin discussed the following topics with the officials:
Rojas said the organization was still searching for a possible witness in the case, a taxi driver who may have picked up the suspects near the nightclub where Martin was killed on the night of the murder, Weinberg said.
He also said the organization showed him and Carlin a photograph of the possible witness, but that the man had left Golfito and officials believed he was somewhere in San Jose. Officials are still trying to locate the man.
SEE COSTA RICA ON PAGE 6A
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