Section A · Page 6
The University Daily Kansan
Thursday, April 23, 1998
Students encouraged to take active environmental role
Charles Benjamin, legislative coordinator for Kansas Natural Resources, talks about how students can get involved in the environmentalist movement. The speech was held yesterday at the Kansas Union. Photo by Eileen Bakri/KANSAN
SUA speaker informs crowd of global issues
By Graham K. Johnson
giohnson@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
Charles Benjamin wants University of Kansas students to get involved in environmental issues after they leave school.
Benjamin, legislative coordinator for the Kansas Natural Resources Council, spoke to about 20 people yesterday afternoon in front of the Kansas Union. He talked about current issues in Kansas and how students could get — and stay — involved. The speech was sponsored by Student Union Activities and the Kansas and Burge Unions. Benjamin was paid $300.
Benjamin said students should start by getting an education but also should try to remain active after graduation.
"I would encourage you, as students, as you think about your careers, that you continue to remain aware of how your
everyday life is impacted by what you and others around you do, and how you can enter the policy process," Benjamin said.
Benjamin said that even if people did not choose an environmental career, there was plenty of opportunity to influence public policy, especially at the local level.
"I was a county commissioner for 16 years in Newton in Harvey county," Benjamin said. "We did a lot of things that affected the environment."
Benjamin said local politicians had great influence on local environmental issues, which were as important as global issues.
"There are some very important issues right here at home that affect you and the water you drink and the food you eat," he said.
Benjamin focused on water-quality issues surrounding the human and animal waste entering the Kansas River. Despite progress during the last 25 years, there still are problems, Benjamin said. One problem is the damage hog farms create for the environment.
"Pigs poop," Benjamin said. "And pig poop stinks. And pigs produce a lot of it. It's flushed into these lagoons. A lot of that gets applied to nearby fields and ends up in our surface water."
"Iwould encourage you, as students, as you think about your careers, that you continue to remain aware of how your everyday life is impacted by what you and others around you do, and how you can enter the policy process."
Charles Benjamin Legislative Coordinator
Benjamin said everyone, including environmentalists, farmers and future policymakers in the audience, needs to work together to come up with compromise solutions.
Diane Brown, Tucson, Ariz., graduate student, was impressed by Benjamin's ability to link so many issues to everyday life.
Anytime people are made aware of how harmful some of these issues can be, it motivates you to get involved, she said.
University may get Internet2 connection
By Aaron Knopf
aknopf@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
The University of Kansas might be among the first universities in the country to connect to Abilene, a high-speed national data network that will link several institutions in the Internet2 consortium.
Internet2 is a project to link research institutions nationwide via high-speed, highbandwidth networking.
Qwest Communications International Inc., Cisco Systems and Nortel will provide the technology for Abilene. Qwest already had been selected to provide the circuits for the Great Plains Network, a data network that would connect Arkansas, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma and South Dakota.
Abilene provides Internet2 institutions with an alternative to using the high-speed Backbone Network Service, commonly referred to as the vBNS, for connectivity. The vBNS, run by MCI and the National Science Foundation, had been the only national data network with enough bandwidth for Internet2 traffic.
Jerry Niebaum, director of Academic Computing Services, said Internet2 consortium members on the Great Plains Network, including the University, could be some of the first to use Abilene because of the pre-existing relationship with Qwest.
Previously, Internet2 members had to receive a connections grant from the National Science Foundation to use the vBNS.
"Now, the rules have changed," Niebaum said. "You no longer have to get permission, but you do have to be a member of Internet2."
Requirements for colleges and universities to become regular members of the Internet2 consortium are $25,000 per year and the approval of the University
Corporation for Advanced Internet Development, the company that oversees Internet2 endeavors.
Niebaum said the University learned that it had been awarded a vBNS grant before the Abilene announcement. He said the money that would have been used for paying to connect to the vBNS instead could be used for paying to connect to Abilene.
Because the University already is working with Qwest through the Great Plains Network, Niebaum said that connecting to Abilene instead of the vBNS might save the University as much as $250,000 a year.
"We will not have to pay a high connectivity fee because we're co-located in their switching system in K.C.," Niebaum said.
The Great Plains Network had planned to connect to the vBNS in September 1998. Niebaum said Qwest had said Abilene would be ready by January 1999.
Michael Grobe, distributed computer manager for Academic Computing Services, said Abilene could bring the high-speed power of Internet2 to many more institutions.
"To get a vBNS grant, you have to be involved in high visibility research," Grobe said. "Now, all you need is money in your pocket."
The downside of having more people use Internet2 is that it becomes more difficult to manage quality of service, a key goal of the Internet2 project. Grobe said.
Quality of service means that a user who needs a dedicated amount of bandwidth to run a certain application on the network for a given period of time is guaranteed that the bandwidth will be available.
"It could easily be argued that the quality of service dreams that UCAID started with were just that—unrealistic dreams," Grobe said.
Tottering on the beach
Erica Grover, Basehor sophomore, and Jennifer Pattorf, Topeka sophomore, solicit donations for diabetes patients on behalf of Alpha Gamma Delta sorority. Their teeter-tetter was in front of Wescoe Hall yesterday. Photo by Eileen Bakri/ KANSAN
Students help stock area plasma and blood banks
By Ronnie Wachter
wachter@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
As the majority of University of Kansas students prepare to leave Lawrence for summer break, area blood banks say that blood and plasma supplies will not face a shortage.
There is a lot of spare blood in Lawrence.
"It would take a serious catastrophe for us to use up the blood we have on hand," said Belinda Remher, public relations assistant for Lawrence Memorial Hospital, 325 Maine St.
Janice Early-Weas, director of community relations for the hospital, said that when too much blood was sucked out of the hospital's system, it turned to Kansas Blood Services, 535 Gateway Drive, for a fresh supply.
"They can have blood here in less than 45 minutes if there's a real extreme need," she said.
Adrianne Evans, director of community relations and recruiting for Kansas Blood Services, said it got a large amount of its
"We do at least one blood drive each semester, working with the Athletics Department," Evans said. "They felt that it was important that the students get involved in the community."
Evans said the next on-campus blood drive would be from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. tomorrow at Green Hall.
Many KU students are accustomed to donating vital fluids. John Orcutt, Hutchinson junior, said he sold plasma on a regular basis to NABI Biomedical, 816 W. 24th St.
Evans said that campus blood drives were important to the Kansas Blood Services because of its reliance on donations.
"We don't pay our donors because (paying) is not a common practice," she said. "Blood banks across the country are usually voluntary."
donations from KU students.
"I use that when I need money," Orcutt said. "I think it's a pretty popular place with students."
Aluminum Can, Blanket & Towel Drive to Support the Lawrence Humane Society
Evans said that all donated blood was checked for sexually transmitted diseases and signs of drug abuse.
(drop off your aluminum cans, clean towels & blankets at the SUA offices, Kansas Union, or the KU Bookstores Burge Union, April 20-24, 1998)
Sponsored by SUA & The Kansas & Burge Unions
864-3477
www.ukans.edu/~sua
A Public Lecture by
"Spirituality for a 'South Park' Age"
Aaron Barnhart TV Writer, Kansas City Star
3:30 p.m. April 27, 1998 Room 100 Smith Hall
Shows from "Nothing Sacred" to "Touched by an Angel" are overt treatments of religion on television today, but other popular series, such as "King of the Hill" and "Law and Order," also have simple messages that reflect our anxieties as millennium (not Millennium) fever builds.
This event is sponsored by the Department of Religious Studies