THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS KANSAS
TUESDAY, MARCH 24, 2019
NEWS
3A
STUDENT SENATE ELECTIONS 2009
United Students platform highlights financial issues
Textbook and tuition refunds, reduced cost of sports tickets make the cut
BY BRIANNE
PFANNENSTIEL
bpfannenstiel@kansan.com
Campaigns are in full swing for Student Senate coalitions as they prepare for the April 15 and 16 elections. The Kansan will be running a three-day series explaining the issues each coalition plans to run on.
UNITED STUDENTS
United
United Students, the incumbent coalition, nominated Mason Heilman, Lawrence junior, and May Davis, Clay Center junior, to run as president and vice president. They said their platform issues were ones that were feasible and practical.
Heilman
"We are about implementing practical measures that improve students' experiences of KU." Heilman said. "We don't want to propose something that we know can't be done. What we want to do are things that will save students money, give them more freedom in their choices."
Davis
CREATE A CLASS "SHOPPING WEEK"WITH 100 PERCENT TUITION REFUND
If students choose to drop a course, they receive a 90 percent refund during the first week of classes and a 50 percent refund after the first week. United Students said they wanted to give students a full refund for courses dropped during the first week of classes. After the first week, the tuition refund scale would be gradual.
EXTEND THE TEXTBOOK REFUND DEADLINE
KU Bookstores currently gives students a full refund for textbooks returned within 30 days, but students are able to drop classes for up to two months. United Students would like to allow students to return unused textbooks for a full refund for the full period they are able to drop classes. It would also like to allow students to return
prepackaged books that have been opened for a partial refund.
PROTECTING AND INCREASING STUDENT VOICE IN DECISIONS
- Increase student representation on University governance committees from 20 to 30 percent
Recommend all University governance committees meet after 5 p.m. to accommodate students' class schedules
Facilitate board orientations each spring for new members and all interested KU students to explain what each committee has done, what it will do and how it operates
- Create a "suggestion box" on the main KU Web site that poses questions for students and faculty to respond to. Responses would be sorted and sent to the appropriate governing board for revision.
Use increased student voice to achieve other platform goals such as:
■ Reviewing the +/- grading sys-
*om
Saving Stop Day
THREE-ALLOWANCE POLICY FOR THE AMBLER STUDENT RECREATION FITNESS CENTER
- Saving Stop Day
- Lowering the price of a yellow parking permit
Students are not allowed to enter the Ambler Fitness Recreation Center without their KUID. United Students said a system change that would cost about $50,000 would be able to access online photo identification so recreation center staff could admit students without their KUIDs. United Students said it wanted students to be able to access the recreation center without their ID up to three times per semester.
United Students suggested closing the recreation center between the end of the spring semester and the beginning of the summer session. It said the savings could be used to finance the system change.
LOWER ALL-SPORTS COMBO PRICE AND INCREASE STUDENT SEATS FOR BIG GAMES
United Students said it wanted to eliminate winter break games from inclusion in the All-Sports Combo Pass and in return lower the overall
price of the pass by $15. It said many students went out of town for the break and were not able to take advantage of those tickets. It would also like to make tickets to those games easily accessible to recent alumni and available to students for $5. United Students also wants to make more student tickets available for big-ticket games, such as the Border Showdown and Sunflower Showdown rivalries.
FINANCIAL PLANNING CENTER
MULTICULTURAL
LITERACY
CERTIFICATION
United Students said it wanted to create a Multicultural Literacy certification that would appear on student transcripts, indicating they had completed a curriculum in multiculturalism. It said it hoped the certification would encourage more students to take part in cultural programming.
Heilman and Davis said they planned to help foster financial literacy on campus by creating a financial planning center in the Kansas Union. Business students would volunteer to work and provide free financial advice to their peers.The center would help students with taxes,loans, rent contracts and financial aid applications.
A COMMITMENT TO SUSTAINABILITY
- Place recycling bins in central locations for students to use as drop-off points. The bins would circulate around campus on a schedule so students would know when and where they could take their recyclables.
- Phase out unnecessary inter campus mail. United Students said it would like to see departments on campus use more e-mail and eliminate excess mailing.
- A greater use of native plants in campus landscaping. Heilman said plants that are better suited to the area required less maintenance, returned year after year and would add a historical aesthetic to campus.
- Increase student, faculty and staff education regarding energy saving and environmentally friendly practices.
- Work with the campus Coke contract to provide reusable mugs
NATIONAL
Octomom nixes nonprofit nannies
LOS ANGELES — Octuplets mother Nadya Suleman has fired a nonprofit group of nurses that helped care for her children, accusing the group of spying on her and reporting her to child welfare officials, her spokesman said Monday.
Jeff Czech, Suleman's attorney, said the relationship started badly between Suleman and Angels in Waiting, which
has been training nannies paid by Suleman at her La Habra home.
Last month an attorney for Angels in Waiting filed a complaint against Suleman with child welfare officials, seeking an investigation into whether the mother could provide suitable care for her 14 children.
to incoming freshmen.
Suleman later had several confrontations with the nurses, Czech said, and the situation grew unbearable Sunday when Suleman came to believe that Angels in Waiting founder Linda West-Conforti was allegedly filing a report against her.
Harness kinetic energy from the Ambler Recreation Center for use as an energy source.
later scaled back its offer to only provide training to Suleman's nannies. Suleman has said the offer was changed because the group wasn't receiving donations, but Allred has denied that claim.
"It started out adversarial and never really resolved itself," Czech told The Associated Press. "Nadya felt that she was being judged wrongfully and she didn't need it. All it did was make a difficult situation worse."
Use inter-residence hall, scholarship hall, student organization and Greek house competitions to encourage energy saving.
Angels in Waiting had initially offered to provide around-the-clock care, to be paid for by public donations, but
Associated Press
Czech said that Suleman will have her nannies trained by nurses from the Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Center, where the octuplets were born on Jan. 26.
United Students said it would like to see various departments take responsibility for funding various projects.
MAINTAIN AND SEEK
FURTHER GUARANTEED
ENERGY SAVINGS
The University currently pays Chevron Energy Solutions to determine energy saving opportunities and to train faculty and staff to be more energy conscious. United Students said it would like the company to expand its training to students. United Students said it planned to work with corporations to ensure the entire KU community was aware of and actively engaged in efforts to minimize energy consumption.
INCREASE CITY OF LAWRENCE PARTNERSHIPS
NATIONAL Plane in Montana crash carried too many people
For more information about United Students' platform issues, visit its Web site, www.unitedstudents09.com. Check with the Kansan throughout the week for information about Students of Liberty and Envision.
BUTTE, Mont. — Investigators say a plane that plummeted into a cemetery next to Butte, Mont.'s airport — killing all 14 people aboard — was designed to hold just 10 people.
United Students said it wanted to strengthen existing relationships with city officials to maintain a student voice in city decision making.
Edited by Susan Melqren
The National Transportation Safety Board said Monday it first
thought the plane could hold 11 people. But after talking to the owner, they realize it was designed only for 10.
Seven of the 14 passengers were under 10. Mark Rosenker, chairman of the NTSB, says children under 2 years old can sit on adults' laps but only one of the children was that young.
Associated Press
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