University Daily Kansan, January 21, 1985
CAMPUS AND AREA
Page 3
NEWS BRIEFS
Professor in serious condition
George Lawner, professor of fine arts, yesterday was listed in serious condition in the intensive care unit at Lawrence Memorial Hospital after suffering an apparent heart attack early Thursday morning.
Professor to sneak about King
A Martin Luther King Jr. day lecture will be given at 3 p.m. today in the Forum Room of the Kansas University by Eleanor Johnson, professor of law at Georgetown University.
Lawner, 67, was taken by ambulance from his home to the hospital at 1:40 a.m. Thursday.
Norton, who served as chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Washington, D.C., from 1977 to 1981, will speak about King and civil rights.
Toddler in good condition
The lecture is sponsored by the office of minority affairs and the School of Law
OLATHE — The condition of a toddler found near death on a snowy field was upgraded to good yesterday, and doctors she soon would be able to return home.
Three-year-old Megan Birmingham from Brooklyn and freely frosted hands and feet Saturday.
The girl was admitted to Olathe Community Hospital as clinically dead. The
Doctors said it could be six months before they determined whether she suffered brain damage from the ordeal. But they said that her speech and memory remained good, indications she may have escaped complications entirely.
Trailways begins new route
Trailways Inc. started a new direct route service from Lawrence to Overland Park on Jan. 3. The bus leaves daily at 4:15 p.m. from the Union Bus Depot, 14:45 W. Sixth St. and arrives at 5:40 p.m. at the Overland Park depot, 1041 Melfaeg儿.
Before the new service, passengers going to Overland Park had to change buses at the Kansas City, Mo., depot, a spokesman for the bus line said.
TV manager to be KIHK guest
The return bus is scheduled to leave Overland Park at 5:45 p.m. and arrive in Lawrence at 6:40 p.m. The direct route takes one way and $11.40 for the round trip
Radio station KJHK will feature John Katich, general manager of TV 30, in its Alternative Conversations program at 6 p.m. today.
TV 30. Lawrence's first television station, began broadcasting Saturday. The low-power UHF station offers local newscasts, weather and video music.
During the Alternative Conversations segment, KJHK interviews a guest each week and gives listeners a chance to ask questions. The number to call is 864-4744.
Grief, loss workshop offered
A workshop on grief and loss will be given from 7 to 9:30 p.m. today at the Lawrence Public Library, 707 Vermont St.
the workshop, for women who must enter the work force because of divorces, disables them within their families or the ones in their care. The Kansas State Department of Education.
Beth Glass, counselor for the Turning Point Program, which is financed by the Adult Life Research Center, will present the workshop.
For more information, call 864-4794
Correction
The Kansas incorrectly reported Friday in its campus and area news briefs that a $15,000 grant had been awarded recently to Gerry Kelly, a professor of electrical and computer engineering who died Wednesday. Mr. Kelly's obituary, which also included information about the grant, which was awarded several years ago.
Official says food poisoning was not culprit
By TAD CLARKE Staff Reporter
Compiled from Kansan staff and United Press International reports.
Food poisoning was not the cause of a stomach illness that affected about 100 Hashinger Hall residents during last semester's final exam period, a Kansas Department of Health and Environment official said Friday.
"We did not find any evidence pointing to a food poisoning case," Boo Moody, spokeman for the department, said. "Most symptoms were probably passed by person-to-person."
A survey conducted last week by six Hashinger residents indicated that at least 97
residents were sick and that more than 30 made trips to Watkins Hospital during the last week of finals. Many students suspected the illness. The Dec. 16 dinner had caused the illnesses.
Food samples from that meal were taken to Topeka but were not tested for food poisoning, Moody said. He said a food sanitarian conducting interviews with residents after the incident did not think tests of the food were necessary.
MOODY SAID that everyone who became sick did not eat the same thing, and that residents also did not begin showing symptoms at the same time. Sicknesses were being reported anytime from one to 14 hours after eating.
"One generally expects to see food poisoning symptoms in two to four hours after eating," he said.
Cindy Surber, a Montezuma graduate student who reported being sick, said she was encouraged to keep her students healthy.
"This is just their way of covering it up," Surber said. "It was all just a lie. They never were going to test the food.
"I don't believe it. There is no way that many kids could have gotten sick in that short of time."
Lenoir Ekdahl, director of food services for the KU department of housing, said KU officials were partly to blame for not obtaining results of the Kansas Department
of Health and Environment report before Friday.
"We were amiss there," Ekdahl said. "We were supposed to call them."
Ekdahl said she planned to meet with a Hashinger food committee tomorrow night to discuss problems with food at the hall. J.J. Wilson, director of housing, and Diane Washinger, a Hashinger, will also attend the meeting. Surber is one of the residents on the committee.
"We are getting together with a group to get some constructive suggestions," Ekdahl said. "A group that will channel the complaints and suggestions to the food supervisors is our goal."
Faculty shortage causing minor problem, dean says
By MICHELLE T. JOHNSON Staff Reporter
A faculty shortage in the School of Engineering has caused minor problems, but hasn't affected the quality of graduates, school officials say.
A story published last week in the Wall Street Journal said that the KU engineering school and other engineering schools across the country had suffered faculty shortages that might hurt the quality of future graduates.
But William P. Smith, acting dean of the KU school, said last week, "I think our quality is staying up there, but we have some issues that require the faculty up with the number of students."1
Smith said that about 85 full-time faculty members now taught in the school. Ideally, he said, the school should have about 100 professors.
Last semester, about 1,850 undergraduate and about 400 graduate students were enrolled in the KU school, said Robert P. Zervenk, associate dean of the school.
ZERWEKH SAID enrollment had sky- rocketed in the 1970s and the early 1980s, especially in the department of electrical and computer engineering.
Don Daugherty, chairman of that department, said about 575 students currently were seeking degrees in electrical or computer engineering. The department has the equivalent of about 15 full-time professors, he said.
"We certainly feel the effect of numbers. Our enrollment has roughly doubled since the 1980s. We do, do and at certain points we make hat choices on which elective courses to offer."
Don Rathbone, dean of engineering at
Kansas State University, said the main reason for the faculty shortages at engineering schools was the large number of students and the small pool of qualified professors.
"WE WORK AS hard as we can to make sure that we get our share — if not a little more," Rathbone said. "And I'm sure that does the same and works at recruiting."
Smith said the KU school recruited faculty members, but that the pool of qualified applicants was small.
The School of Engineering deals with its faculty shortage by limiting enrollment in classes and not offering some upper-level or graduate classes each semester. Zervenk
He said the school offered the required undergraduate courses to keep the students "moving through the system," but said the courses have the courses decreased class options for students.
Smith said a possible solution to tightening the student-teacher ratio was limiting the number of students in crowded programs, such as electrical and computer engineering, where alternative isn't an immediate possibility, he said, but it might be considered in a few years.
John Dean, Mission Hills senior majoring in engineering, said the faculty shortage caused minor inconveniences for students. He said that students sometimes didn't know who would be teaching a class until several days before the semester started.
A survey conducted last year by the American Society for Engineering Education said 279 engineering schools across the country reported that 8.5 percent of the positions for full-time professors were unfulfilled.
Regents approve plan to destroy buildings to pave way for center
Staff Reporter
By JULIE MANGAN
TOPEKA — Requests by the University of Kansas to destroy seven old campus buildings and to hire an architect to design final plans for renovation of the Kansas Union were approved Friday by the Board of Regents.
The destruction of the seven facilities operations buildings between Sunnyside Avenue and Stauffer-Flint Hall will have to be approved by the Kansas Legislature before action can be taken, Allen Wiechert, director of facilities planning, said last week.
The buildings are to be torn down to make room for a proposed Human Development Center. The center will provide research and training in education and treatment of headiacd people.
the facilities operations employee building and the University garage.
The facilities operations offices now housed in the seven buildings will be moved to West Campus and other locations, Wiechert said. Those offices include: the temporary landscaping office building, the temporary Venetian blind repair shop, the landscaping shed, the temporary office building, the temporary laboratory building,
The Regents also approved Friday the Kansas Union Memorial Board preliminary plan for removing the Kansas Union. The board will accept the proposal of an architect to continue planning the project.
THE HUMAN Development Center will be built with $9 million in federal funds. Sen. Robert Dole, R-Kan., announced the federal allocation last October.
Long, who has been working on the Union renovation project for about 15 months, said the architect would develop plans to keep the building in compliance with stay within the $5 million projected budget.
Work on the nearly 60-year-old building could begin as early as June 1986, said James
The architect should complete final plans and a timetable for the project by June or July.
The Regents also approved the use of $23,000 to install an automatic fire extinguisher system in the basement of Robinson Gymnasium and amended an exchange agreement between KU and the University of Rica to include Kansas State University.
Donna Griffin, Lawrence junior, Daphne Green, St. Joseph, Mo., senior, and Steve Blackburn, Chesterfield, Mo., senior, left to right, work on plans for the proposed science and technology library. The three architecture students participated in a design competition Saturday at the Kansas Union as part of Design Week, sponsored by the School of Architecture and Urban Design. See story page 10.
Thomas Long/KANSAN
Pay plan for classified workers elicits compliments, questions
Bv CECILIA MILLS
Staff Reporter
A proposed three-part state pay plan drew mixed reviews yesterday, but classified employees — who haven't had merit-pay increases in three years — generally are pleased with the outlook, the president of the KU Classified Senate said.
Neva Entrikin, Classified Senate president, said she needed time to look at the plan more carefully but already saw some weaknesses.
"They're asking the long-term employee to sacrifice compensation," Entrikin said. "The plan is philosophically good, but they left the longevity out."
Classified employees can ask questions and present complaints about the plan at a public forum Saturday with John Myers, chief of Gov. John Carlin's policy staff. The forum is scheduled for 10 a.m. at the Lawrence Public Library, 707 Vermont St.
MARVIN HARDER, state secretary of administration, presented the plan Thursday at a joint meeting of the Senate and House Ways and Means committees.
Under the new plan, merit pay for classified employees would be replaced with a "job rate" schedule calculated from market surveys of salaries for similar jobs in the private sector. S salary increases would hit a ceiling after 20 years of service.
The second part of the plan would give state-employed secretaries a 15 percent salary increase to make their pay comparable to that of secretaries in the private sector. The median pay for a state clerkystypist would increase from $9,660 to $11,196.
A $500 performance award is the third part of the pay plan. Any employee who has shown some kind of excellence on the job would receive the honor.
STATE REP. JESSIE Branson, D-Lawrence, announced the Saturday forum
and urged all people with questions about the plan to attend. Branson said the plan would affect nearly 5,000 Douglas County residents who are classified employees.
Classified employees are state employees whose job descriptions are identical throughout the state, such as clerk-typists.
Branson said, "I think I've heard more about the state pay plan since I've been in the job."
"Our employees here perform a very valuable service for the University. I think they don't like being treated as second-class citizens.
"From my experience, merit pay simply hasn't worked. Many say it would not have worked even if it had been funded. The idea was to help the long-term employee, but we definitely want to get this determined so people understand it better."
BRANSON SAID SHE had worked hard on the section of the plan that would raise secretaries' salaries. She said the increase in gender discrimination eliminate discrimination against women.
"Secretaries are the most underpaid, and the state-employed secretaries' salaries are lower than those of the marketplace," she said.
Harder said the second part of the plan was a "down payment on comparable worth" because 99.9 percent of state secretaries were women.
He said the proposal would establish levels of similarity comparable to those in the public sector.
The existing pay scale has seven steps based on the merit of classified employees work. Work performance is divided into factory, above standard and outstanding.
The existing pay scale, adopted in 1881, would have awarded merit-pay raises to classified employees based on type of work and performance.
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