University Daily Kansan, April 11, 1985
Page 3
CAMPUS AND AREA
NEWS BRIEFS
"Pot-Pourri" play canceled
One of the six plays in "Pot-Pourri Productions," productions acted and directed by KU students, has been canceled.
"Entertaining Mr. Sloane," scheduled to be performed at 8 p.m. Saturday in the Inge Theatre in Murphy Hall, will be replaced with "Extremities," which played to a sell-out crowd last night, according to Charla Jenkins, director of public relations for fine arts.
Tickets for "Pot-Pourri Productions" are available at the Murphy Hall box office. Public tickets are $3 and tickets for KU students are half price with a student ID
Judge to speak at conference
District Judge Cordell Meeks, Jr., of the 29th judicial district of Kansas, will be the keynote speaker at the Minorities and the Law Conference on Saturday.
The theme of the conference, which is sponsored by the KU chapter of the Black Law Students Association, will be "Legal Minorities in the New Revolution."
Workshops on career opportunities, minorities in the political era and corporate financial aspects will be conducted from 9:45 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. at Green Hall. Meeks will speak at a noon luncheon at the Burge Union.
Meeks is the president of the Board of Governors of the KU Law Society. He also serves on the boards of directors of the United Way and the National Conference of Christians and Jews.
Soviet defector to speak at KU
Arkady Shevchenko, the highest ranking Soviet diplomat to defect to the United States since World War II, will speak on campus next semester as part of the J.A. Vickers Sr. Memorial Lecture Series.
Vickers's Memorial
The former Soviet ambassador and undersecretary of the United Nations left the Soviet Union in 1978. He spent 22 years in the Soviet foreign service before defecting.
19 The lecture is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Sept. 23 in Woodruff Auditorium in the Kansas Union.
The Kansan is accepting applications for the paid positions of editor and business manager for the summer session and fall semester.
schester.
Applications are a available in the Student
Senate office, B105 Kansas Union; the
organizations and activities office, 403
Kansas Union; and in the Kansas business
office, 119 Stafer-Flint Hall.
Applications are due by 5 p.m. April 15 in 200 Stauffer-Flint Hall
200 Stauber-Flint Hall
Applications for other news and business staff positions for the summer session and fall semester also are available at the locations listed above. They are due by 5 p.m. April 18 in 200 Stauber-Flint Hall.
City managers to meet at KU
About 150 city managers and public administrators from the Midwest are scheduled to be in Lawrence for the 38th Annual City Managers Conference April 24-26 on the KU campus.
Administrators from Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Iowa and Nebraska will attend. Many are alumni of KU's Stone Graduate Program in Public Administration, which is one of the sponsors of the three-day meeting.
Weather
Today will be partly cloudy with a high between 65 and 70. Winds will be from the south to southeast at 5 to 15 mph. Tonight will be partly cloudy with a low around 50. Tomorrow will be partly cloudy. The high will be in the upper 60s to lower 70s.
Compiled from Kanson staff and United Press international reports.
Correction
Because of a reporter's error, a story in the April 5 Kansas housing supplement incorrectly reported the amount of a security deposit that landlords may request under Kansas law for an unfurnished apartment. Landlords may request that tenants pay one month's rent as a security deposit.
Engineering still a major step for women
By ANN PETERSON Staff Reporter
Staff Reporter
When a woman majoring in engineering walks into her first class in Learned Hall, she becomes part of a minority in a field that for years has been dominated by men and still is at the University of Kansas.
Women in engineering realize that they will have to work harder than they ever have in their lives and ignore the sexual bias against them, several women majoring in engineering said yesterday.
electric engineering The number of women majoring in engineering at KU has increased steadily over the years, but a wide disparity between the number of men and women in engineering still remains.
"It is kind of lonely at first being one of the only women in the class, but you get used to it." Kristen Patty, Fairway senior in electrical engineering, said.
In 1975, only 5.7 percent of all engineering students were women. Last spring, women accounted for 15 percent of engineering students.
students." THERE'S STILL THE mystique that women can't do math and many women still believe that." Den Daugherty, acting chairman of the department of electrical and computer engineering, said yesterday. "The psychological idea is still out there."
Several women in engineering said they had problems adjusting to the heavy workload and technical homework in engineering classes.
Mary Beth Krantz, Topeka senior in electrical engineering, said she majored in engineering because of her interest in math and science. But as a freshman, she had no idea how demanding engineering classes would be.
would be.
Kathie Hoffmaster, Topeka junior in electrical engineering, said she realized early in her freshman year that she wasn't
going to be able to make grades as high as those she had made in high school.
"THERE'S NO WAY you can sit in class and understand everything that is going on without going home and studying forever." Hoffmaster said. "And that's frustrating when you see everyone else being able to do other things."
Several women said they thought men had been brought up to learn and enjoy high-tech majors more than women.
makes it more important. Sue Coleman, Valley Fields junior in electrical engineering, said that as they grew up, women -- unlike men -- never had the opportunity to spend countless hours in a garage working with technical equipment.
In her first lab class, she said, most of the male students already knew how to use equipment she had never seen before.
But even though women sometimes feel inferior at first in the classroom and lab, several women said they felt the male students and professors were always helpful.
"ENGINEERING IS A give-and-take situation," Coleman said. "When there's a project to be done, none of us try to do it by ourselves."
observes.
Several women in engineering said that as their college years had passed, they had felt more at ease working in their major.
Bill Barr, professor in mechanical engineering, said the women adjusted to working in a male-dominated environment and competed on equal levels.
He said that the women he had taught were usually excellent students and academically well above the average student in the class. He also noted the prospects of engineering as well as the men did.
According to engineering statistics from spring 1984, electrical, civil and architectural engineering were the most popular majors for women in engineering.
Cautious deficit cuts called for by senator
Coleman said she thought women as a minority in engineering would have more job opportunities than men.
Staff Reporter
By NANCY STOETZER
Staff Reporter
How the United States chooses to cut its continually huge federal deficits will determine the future direction of the country. Sen Charles Mathias, R-Maryland, said yesterday
"The debate in Washington now is as much over the kind of community we are and should be as it is over the debt burden we are carrying," Mathas told a crowd of 200 in Woodruff Auditorium in the Kansas Union.
Mathias' speech, "Deficit Dilemmas." A Time for Political Courage," was part of the University of Kansas Pearson Lecture Series formed former Sen. James B. Pearson of Kansas.
Mathias, who has served in the Senate since 1968, said deficit reduction must be tackled with a clear view of the government's place in our society and future.
"Our task is not just to distribute both wealth and sacrifice," he said. "We must invest both for a better life.
"EDUCATION IS THE most obvious area of such mutual enterprise. The minds we train and strengthen are the ones we rely on to advance our society's horizons."
Mathias said that, while striking a balance between budget cuts and tax increases, the United States must measure both social justice and self-interest on a common scale.
"We cannot have a robust population in a poisoned natural environment or a vigorous community in the midst of urban decay," he said. "We cannot slash our social investments today without cutting off the growth of society tomorrow."
Mathas praised current efforts at tax revision.
"Now is the occasion to reform and simplify the tax code," he said, "so that the tax burden falls more fairly on those who can shoulder it and who have prospered too long under artfully contrived but socially unproductive shelters."
MATHIAS SAID MANY of the proposals now at the center of the budget debate were only short-term economic remedies.
only should it be true. "The flaw in that logic is its presumption that last year's budget reached a degree of equity," he said. "It's a way of saying that the government made its choices once, and we do not choose to choose again."
"That is an evasion of responsibility, a quick fix that fixes us in the past but doesn't prepare us for the future."
Mathias called the approach a form of blackmail.
"I call it 'debtsmall' because it uses the real threat of continuing deficits to extort from our future the payment for past errors and for a limited, present ease," he said.
Mathias said that because inflation had slowed and new jobs were being created monthly, some government officials said the country was experiencing perpetual economic growth.
"That's a happy fable, but it isn't believable and it isn't believed." he said.
Mathias said the United States had borrowed at such a rate that it was a net debt to the world for the first time in nearly 70 years.
"Instead of borrowing from others for consumption today, we must invest from our own wealth for the expansion of production and opportunity tomorrow," he said.
Steve Zuk/KANSAN
Sen. Charles Mathias, R.Maryland, defends his vote for the MX missile at a press conference. After the conference yesterday, Mathias spoke about the federal budget deficit to an audience of about 200 in Woodruff Auditorium in the Kansas Union.
Conference committee will consider issue
Center's tax status to go before Legislature
BY DENEEN BROWN and NANCY HANEY Staff Reporters
The tax exempt status of the Adams Alumni Center may be decided in the Kansas Legislature before the case reaches the state Board of Tax Appeals.
After months of debate between the University of Kansas Alumna Association and the Douglas County Appraiser's office on whether the Adams Alumni Center, 1266 Oread Ave., should be exempt from personal property and real estate taxes, the arguments now will be considered by a House and Senate conference committee.
The committee will consider the issue as part of an amendment added to a bill approved earlier in the session by both chambers. The bill would grant tax exempt status to state-owned property. The amendment, added by the Senate, would extend this exemption to alumni association buildings located off state-owned college or university property.
IF THE AMENDMENT is adopted and the bill becomes law, it may affect hearings already scheduled before the tax board to decide the issue. Brad Smoot, attorney for the Alumni Association, said he could not comment on whether the amendment would help the Alumni Association's case when it was presented before the tax board.
Smoot said he asked that the amendment be introduced to help clarify a Kansas law that said all institutions used exclusively for educational purposes were exempt from personal property and real estate taxes.
On Dec. 19, the Alumni Association paid half the amount of its personal and real estate property taxes on the alumni center under protest. The county appriser's office had ordered the Alumni Association to pay the taxes.
THE ASSOCIATION OWED $63,332.78 in real estate and property taxes. It paid $24,667.39 in real estate taxes and $7,249 in personal property taxes, as allowed by state law when a taxpayer pays under protest.
Smoot said earlier that the Alumni Association would base its argument for tax
exempt status on a clause in Kansas law that said all property used exclusively for educational purposes would be exempt from taxes
Smoot said that the Alumni Association would use a 1984 Kansas Supreme Court decision in arguing its case before the tax board. The 1984 decision ruled that a state's education department's offices in Johnson County were tax exempt because they were used to benefit education.
they were elected to the tax board had been scheduled to hear arguments from Douglas County and from the Alumni Association.
THE TAX BOARD hearing was postponed because attorneys for both sides requested more time to prepare their arguments. The hearing is postponed until the Legislature votes on the bill. The House and Senate must agree to the conference committee's version of the bill before it can be signed into law by Gov. John Carlin.
Gov. John McCain disputes the dispute between the Alumni Association and the appraiser's office may hinge on the presence of a private club in the alumni center. Don Gordon, county appraiser, said he thought the private club made the building
"I look at it like an Engels or Elks Club, and they must pay taxes," he said.
State Rep. James Lowher, R-Emporia and a member of the conference committee, said he thought the amendment would pass with little opposition.
a social center rather than an educational building.
UNTIL 1893, THE Alumni Association's office was in the Kansas Union, which made it exempt from personal and property taxes.
When the Alumni Association moved its offices from the Union to its current location, it lost its tax-exempt status. The land that the alumni center now sits on was owned by the Kansas University Endowment Association until it was transferred to the Alumni Association for the center.
State Sen. Fred Kerr, R-Praff, said it was not unusual for the Legislature to pass a bill that concerned something that was in the court system at the same time.
court system in the state." "If there is some gray area in a law, then the legislature can pass a bill so others can see what the legislative intent is." "Kerr said"