6A = THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NEWS
TUESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2003
Work-study programs may face shortfalls
By Cate Batchchelder
cbatchelder@kansan.com
Kansan Staff Writer
Work-study students may meet their salary ceiling earlier this year than last year because of the recommended 50-cent pay increase to all student hourlies making under $10.
If employers had not found money outside of federal funds, work-study students could have been without jobs mid-semester. Funds can only pay a work-study student up to $3,300 during an academic year
one of the financial aid office's work-study students. She recommended filling out the Free Application for Funding Student Amenities earlier to increase students' chances of getting work-study status.
"This year, I've had to stick it to a lot of departments saying you know, 'Sorry, can't do.'" Cooper said. "So we've just had to be more vigilant about spending money."
“It's nice to have a pay increase because you might not have to find a second job,” Vo said. “But what if you have to cut back hours or lose your job?”
Karen Cooper, work-study coordinator for the Office of Student Financial Aid, keeps tabs of all 503 work-study positions on campus. With the budget crunch and the pay increase, she said more departments were asking for federal money to pay their work-study students but wouldn't be getting it.
The libraries employ the largest number of work-study students on campus, using 20 percent of the University of Kansas' work-study budget. The libraries are also one of the lowest paying
employers with base wages now beginning at $6.
Linda Vo, Dodge City junior, is
"I think we simply hadn't kept pace with the other departments and, two, we do have a limited budget," said Sandy Gilliland, assistant to the dean for personnel. "We were planning to increase wages. The provost just happened to do it for us."
The library and other campus departments such as the School of Education will use other resources mainly money from their operating budgets to keep students working at the new wage levels.
America Reads, which hires 19
work-study students who tutor at-risk Lawrence elementary students, is a federally funded program working out of the School of Education's budget.
"Our services are pretty powerful for the Lawrence district in providing contacts between the University and schools to improve student reading skills," said Maria Kepka, America Reads coordinator and Hutchinson senior.
C. J. Brume, business manager for the School of Education, said she predicted the students who worked with America Reads
would reach the federal salary maximum before the end of the semester because of the wage increase. Brune said the school would fund the tutors until the end of the semester using operating budget funds.
Kepka's 19 work-study students made $7.50 before the pay increase but were bumped up to $8 afterwards.
Teachers
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"I imagine after they get their paycheck this semester they will be thrilled," Kepla said.
Edited by Amber Byarlay and Andrew Ward
training in Kansas City. Kan.. classrooms.
"In these types of programs around the country, the interest level has been in the hundreds." Lumpkin said. "We can be very selective."
Later this year, the University and the Kansas City, Kan., school district will seek 40 teaching candidates for intensive training courses during June and July 2004. The recruits will begin teaching in Kansas City, Kan., classrooms in fall 2004. During the school year, new teachers will continue to take training classes in Kansas City, Kan., and at the Edwards Campus in Overland Park.
Daniels said that candidates would come to the program with
20th year. Hallmark Cards Inc.
sponsors an endowment for the
class.
Design
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Faculty members in the department of design nominated
"This program is the only series of its kind that I know of in the country," Thomas Beisecker, chairman of the design department, said. "The partnership with Hallmark enables us to provide this experience for our students. People who have been very successful in creative venues show students what they can do with their degrees."
knowledge of their subject but a need for support in learning how to teach.
"This partnership will provide that support," he said.
In addition to courses at the University, each new teacher will be paired with a mentor from the Kansas City, Kan., district to promote retention. The district uses this mentor program for all new teachers. The mentor and the new teacher spend time together before the school year to get to know each other and talk weekly to solve problems. Daniels said that the school system found this mentor system to be successful.
"We're hoping to hire high quality teachers that will come to Kansas City to stay and be productive teachers for our students," Daniels said.
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speakers for each semester. The chosen speakers reflected the diversity of the design curriculum and demonstrated how design functions in the real world. Beisecker said.
The class of 72 students meets every other Monday for the spring semester, and is a required one-half credit class. The symposium is free and open to the public in the Spencer Museum of Art auditorium.
"It has a lot to do with possibilities," Joel Shaw, Parsons junior, said. "It's motivating to see professionals who came from KU doing cool stuff and doing really well."
Edited by Andrew Ward
Internet thief sentenced
The Associated Press
WICHITA --- A Wichita man who searched trash containers outside retail businesses for credit card receipts and traded for other credit card numbers over the Internet was sentenced yesterday to 10 months in federal prison.
John Vilavong admitted in court that law enforcement officers found about 108 unauthorized credit card numbers stored in his laptop computer.
Vilavong, 21, said he also obtained about 40 of those by
In addition to the prison time, Vilavong also was sentenced by District Judge Wesley E. Brown to two years of supervised release and ordered to pay $8,742 in restitution.
He admitted buying the laptop and other personal items using the unauthorized credit card numbers.
trading with others online, in addition to those credit card numbers he found in trash bins.
He pleaded guilty last year to one count of possessing in excess of 15 unauthorized credit card numbers.
Cancer claims Wichita broadcaster
The Associated Press
HOUSTON - Veteran broadcast executive Michael "OI" Mike" Oatman, a homespun Wichita radio personality for nearly 40 years, died early Monday at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. He was 63.
Oatman had been battling cancer and was admitted last week to the Houston hospital. His attorney, Sean MacEnulty, said Oatman died at 4:45 a.m. of liver cancer. He was surrounded by his family.
Oatman was a partner with Mike Lynch in Great Empire Broadcasting Inc. until his retirement in June, 2001. But Oatman continued until recently to do his five-minute daily show of poetry and humor on Wichita's KFDI/KFI1 radio, "Philosophy and Foolishness."
He also wrote a weekly column called "Life With OI' Mike" for The Wichita Eagle.
Oatman was a native of Marfa, Tex., and began his broadcasting career with a variety of radio jobs in Louisiana, Colorado and Texas. Lynch,
who founded Great Empire, hired Oatman from an El Paso station in 1964 to be program director and drivetime anchor for KFDI.
Oatman soon was promoted to station manager. Using his "Ol Mike" air name, he continued his KFDI morning show for 37 years. He also was co-host for several years of the KAKETVOL Mike and Mogie show.
Oatman and Lynch later became partners in Great Empire, which also owned KTTS AM-FM in Springfield, Mo.; KVOO-AM, Tulsa, and
WOW AM, Omaha, Neb. Great Empire was sold to Journal Broadcasting Inc. in 2001.
Oatman is survived by his wife, Peggy, Wichita; and three children, all in the broadcast business, daughter Melissa McDermott, CBS-TV overnight news anchor in New York; Andy Oatman, Tulsa, and Richard Oatman, Kansas City.
Services are scheduled for 11 a.m. Friday at Hughes Metropolitan Complex on the campus of Wichita State University.
Farmers trying to fund ethanol plant
The Associated Press
GARNETT — Backers of a proposed $36 million ethanol production plant in Garnett plan 52 investor meetings within a six-week span in the hopes of raising enough money to get bank financing for the facility.
Jack Porter, a South Dakota consultant hired by East Kansas Agri-Energy to put the project together said it would end or collapse on March 19.
The group must raise at least S14.4 million in order to get a bank to lend them the rest, Porter said.
The fund raising drive kicks off Feb. 10 with the sale of "membership units." The minimum investment is $10,000, the group said.
"We are in the process of raising money for the thing, but quite frankly all these get money raised when they get to this point," Porter said. "It is going to happen."
The proposed facility will be
designed to produce an estimated 20 million gallons of fuel ethanol per year. It will need 7.5 million bushels of corn and sorghum annually — the yield from about 85,000 acres — to meet that production level.
The plant would take about 12 months to build, once financing is secured, and is expected to employ 30 people.
East Kansas Agri-Energy was organized in October 2001 by 122 area farmers, businesses and
"We are in the process of raising money for the thing, but quite frankly all these get money raised when they get to this point." Jack Porter Energy Consultant
other individuals to pursue the ethanol project.
The Associated Press
Deputy attorney general's past draws interest
TOPEKA — The state's new deputy attorney general for consumer protection, who participated in mass abortion protests in Wichita in 1991, said yesterday he would look beyond his views on abortion in enforcing Kansas law.
Bryan Brown, 44, said he was hired by Attorney General Phill Kline because of his sense of justice and his desire to see people treated equally.
"I'm not a political hack brought in to shut down abortion in Kansas," Brown said.
Kline's office called a news conference late yesterday to discuss Brown's appointment, which has drawn attention because of Brown's background in the anti-abortion movement.
Kline opposes abortion and has promised to interpret the state's law more narrowly than his predecessor, Carla Stovall.
Brown was hired from the Tupelo, Miss.-based Center for Law & Policy of the American Family Association, a Christian advocacy organization. As a litigator for the past six years, Brown represented parties in state and federal cases on First Amendment issues.
Earlier this month, according to a news release on the group's Web site. Brown won a federal challenge to two Florida statutes restricting sidewalk distribution of certain kinds of literature. The case stemmed from two women's distribution of fiers critical of the Disney Corp. as they stood on a traffic island near Disneyworld.
Brown said Monday he had been arrested about a dozen times in the 1980s and early 1990s while protesting abortion.
One of those arrests occurred in Wichita during the 45-day "Summer of Mercy" protests staged by the group Operation Rescue in 1991, during which more than 2,700 arrests were made. He spent more than two months in jail in Kansas, he said, and ended up living in Kansas for more than two years.
Then as now, the Wichita clinic of Dr. George Tiller was a chief target of protests because Tiller is one of the nation's few doctors who perform late-term abortions. Brown said he would not shut down Tiller's office.
Brown said that now that he is an attorney,he no longer participates in protests. He said abortion probably does not fall under the jurisdiction of consumer protection.
Brown received his law degree in 1996 from Regent University School of Law in Virginia Beach, Va., a Christian institution. He is licensed to practice law in Kansas, and his wife, Anne, is a Kansas native.
Senior deputy attorney general Eric Rucker said Kline was aware of Brown's background, and Kline found him the most qualified candidate.
Kline did not attend Monday's news conference because he was at a hearing in Kansas City, Mo., on the proposed sale of the Health Midwest hospital network, said spokesman Whitney Watson.