CAMPUS / AREA
University Daily Kansan / Friday, March 6, 1992
3
Deafening cheers
As Kansas players are introduced, the field house crowd goes wild with deafening cheers and boos.
By Andy Taylor Kansan staff writer
KU fans may help the Jayhawks beat their opponents with their boisterous cheering. But the fans may not realize that their ears are taking a beating.
"Almost everybody comes out of the games with a temporary hearing loss," said John Brandt, professor of speech, language and hearing. "All the shouting and screaming batters the cells in the ear, and this ringing causes people to talk louder than usual." The president proved to cause some impairment.
How loud is a Kansas game?
Brandt said several students had conducted sound tests in the past at KU men's basketball games.
"It was consistently over 100饺ices throughout the game," he said. "Many times it is between 110 and 115饺ices. When the crowd gets really backed up, it can stay that way for several minutes."
Those figures are representative of all men's basketball games played at Allen Field House, he said.
Normal conversation from 12 feet—60 decibels
- Freight train from 50 feet — 80 decibels
Here is how crowd noise at the field house compares to several common sounds:
Auto horn from three feet — 110 decibels
Brandt said zero on the decibel scale was based on the lowest sound level that the unimpaired human ear could detect. The levels aremeasured exponentially. For example, 100 decibels is 10 billion times as
Now Hear This The Environmental Protection Agency
intense as one decibel.
"Allen Field House is not like the Metrodome in Minneapolis, which has become known for its loudness," he said. "That noise reverberates off the ceiling, which intensifies the sound."
Brandt, who wears ear plugs to the games, said if the field house were an industry, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration would limit the workday to 30 minutes.
The loudness in the field house even affects player participation.
Rex Walters, a junior guard for
the Jahawks, said the noise was deafening during the Oklahoma State game Monday.
"There was one spurt in the game when the crowd was just going nuts, and Coach Williams called time-out," Walters said. "The crowd was so loud that Patrick Richey was yelling right in my ear. That was the only way I could hear him, but it sure hurt the hell out of my耳. That was the loudest game I have been in."
"If we don't have the loudest place in the country, I would hate to play in the one that is," he said.
Maintenance procedures delay turning on the air
By Erik Bauer
Kansan staff writer
A string of unseasonably warm days has made sitting in class uncomfortable, yet because of the University's maintenance schedule, air conditioners in most buildings will not be turned on until about April 1.
"The weather has nothing to do with it," said Bob Porter, associate director of physical plant maintenance.
These buildings are heated with boiler systems and air-conditioned with compressors,he said.
Some cooling systems are operating because their yearly maintenance is costy.
But many others are not. Facilities operations usually schedules the winter work on the systems to continue until the spring.
If the weather warms before the beginning of April when the crews normally finish, little can be done to remedy the uncomfortable situation.
Porter said that if air conditioning compressors were activated too early, they could be damaged if the weather later became cold and the gas in the compressor liquefied.
plete, which only compounds a sticky situation. Porter said the central plant needed to be kept running to generate steam to heat the buildings.
Compressors remove heat from buildings by condensing the gases in the system and allowing hot air to travel out through a cooler tower.
The heat in these buildings cannot be shut off until maintenance is com-
Jim Nissen, Balwin, Mo., senior,
said the Art and Design Building
"They had the air and the heat on at the same time." Nissen said.
Porter said a few buildings on campus had automated heating and cooling systems that maintained constant temperature of 74 degrees throughout the year.
Dole Human Development Center,
Snow Hall, Anschutz Science Library,
Green Hall, Watkins Memorial Health
Center and recent additions to
Haworth Hall operate on automated
systems. he said.
Porter said Murphy Hall and older parts of Summerfield Hall soon may be air-conditioned again, if weather permits, because it was easier to switch back and forth with those buildings' water-heated and cooled systems.
"Their chiller cannot come on until we heat the off heat." he said.
But that process could take 72 hours, Porter said.
Porter said that when the water and air-cooled systems were no longer functional, they could be updated with automated systems.
Automated systems are more expensive to install but are more cost and energy-effective in the long run, he said.
Marion Temple, assistant director of facilities maintenance for housing.
said University housing faced a similar situation.
Temple said heating and cooling at the residence halls came from two separate systems, steam boilers and cooling towers.
In addition to taking two to three days to switch from heating to cooling, the cooling tower systems can be damaged if the temperature falls below freezing, he said.
He said the situation at Jayhawker Tower was different because the boiler heated the buildings with water and the air-conditioning system did not run off a cooling tower.
Temple said maintenance workers would have to drain the water from the toilet.
Although he said housing maintenance workers could shut off the heat at the Jayhawker Towers without activating the air-conditioning units, the switch would take two days.
"It's just not as simple as everybody thinks," Temple said. "It's not as simple as turning on the switch like at your house."
Temple said that the weather often presented difficulties and that he paid careful attention to daily forecasts.
"This has been really a rather unusual year," he said.
Jennifer Gibson, Elkhorn, Neb.
freshman, said she and her roommate at Lewis Residence Hall had found a way to circumvent the problem.
Students find alternative ways to earn money for spring break
"It's been pretty comfortable to us because we've kept our windows open," she said.
By Svala Jonsdottir
Kansan staff writer
When faraway places beckon, students donate plains, pawn their belongings and sell their old clothes to get cash for spring break.
Mark Lindrud, Avon Lake, Ohio, sophomore, said he had donated plasma several times at the Lawrence Donor Center.
"This is the second time I donated this week," he said. "I needed money to go back to Ohio for spring break to visit my friends."
"We get quite a few student donors,
probably 100 each week." Komma
Shelli Jantz, Roxbury freshman,
said she passed out when she donated
plasma yesterday.
said. "This week, a lot of people are trying to get some extra cash for springbreak."
Darin Komma, assistant manager of the center, 81W, 24th St., said people could earn up to $22 each week for a nursing masa, if they donated twice a week.
"I just came up here with friends to get 10 bucks," she said. "This is the first time I donated, but I don't think I will be back because I got sick."
The procedure itself is not painful, Jantz said.
She said she might have passed out because she had not slept much the night before.
"You sit there and watch a movie or read a book for 30 to 45 minutes," she said. "The pinprick is the worst, but it is not as bad as many people think."
Other ways that students have found to finance their vacation are by pawning or selling their belongings.
Barbara Jacobs, owner of Lawrence Pawn and Shooters Supply, 718 Hampshire St., said many students had come in this week.
"They come after the first midterm each semester, at the end of the semester and before spring break." Jacobs said. "They want the cash for gasoline to get somewhere or simply for spending money."
The average pawn is about $60, and the interest is 10 percent each month, she said.
"The majority of pawns are picked up again by the owner," she said. "Some people are leaving town and don't intend to get their things back, and sometimes the students wait too long so the interest gets so high that they cannot afford to pay it."
Used clothes can be traded for cash at second-hand shops.
Two coalitions to compete for student body presidency in April
By Jay Williams
Kansan staff writer
The race for Student Senate's top twooffices has begun.
Wednesday was the filing deadline for student body presidential and vice presidential candidates.
Chris Thomas, elections commissioner, said that two groups filed WOOS.
Brad Garlinghouse, who heads the Student Senate University Affairs Committee, will run for president on the Vision coalition. Lance Wright, social welfare senator, will run with Garlinghouse for vice president.
Brad Garlinghouse Lance Wright
Jean Winter, Emporia senior, will
run for president on the Unless coalition. Chris Stong, Wichita sophomore, will run with Winter for vice president. He will nor Stong has Senate experience.
dents.
"In the last couple of years, Student Senate has lost some of its approachability." he said. "People feel it is a group of elitists."
make Senate more accessible to students.
Vision's priority is to return Senate to the students, he said.
Garlinghouse said that his coalition had Senate experience and that such experience was an important factor.
He said the coalition would have to fight a perception that it was composed mostly of fraternity and sorority members.
"Somebody said we were 90 percent good, and that is not even close," he said.
Garlinghouse said he planned to recruit more off-campus residents to run for academic Senate seats.
"We are on the brink, culturally, socially and financially," Winter said. "We need one united group to present KU concerns."
Winter said one of her goals for Senate was to provide a cohesive front to advance University issues.
Winter said the Unless coalition said she could be seen as weak, she said could be seen as weak.
"Some may perceive us as upstarts, and that is somewhat true," she said. "It's new blood, fresh blood. When new people come in, they bring new ideas."
Winter also said her coalition would
try to improve communication between students and Senate.
Stong said an important goal was to set up open-forum meetings between students and the senators who represented them.
Wright said Vision had candidates with proven leadership experience.
Unless formally declared its candidacy Tuesday evening at a kick-off party for coalition members at the Big Eight Room in the Kansas Union.
Vision will have its kick-off party March25.
Both presidential candidates said they expected to run with full coalitions of 64 senators.
The elections will take place April 8-9. Senatorial candidates must file by March 18. Deadline for forming coalitions is the same day.
The deadline for write-in candidates who missed the original filing deadline is June 19.