THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
SECTION TWO
5B
TUESDAY, MAY 4, 1993
Sexual harassment attitudes
Most students say University has problem
By Ben Grove kansan staff writer
It is a topic that puts many men on edge and enrages many women.
The words sexual harassment, once virtually unspoken, are now the focus of back office discussions and angry marches everywhere.
It is a subject that the new sensitive college student has accepted as part of society — as part of the real world somewhere out there beyond graduation.
But what attitudes encompass sexual harassment at the University of Kansas?
That is a question a University communications studies class sought to answer in a telephone survey of 510 KU students done for the Kansan.
The results reveal that more than 50 percent of KU students think sexual harassment is a problem at the University. And 34 percent — that translates to about 9,000 students — said they had experienced sexual harassment here.
Connie Burke, children's programs coordinator for Women's Transitional Care Services, said the numbers did not surprise her.
"Before the 1970s there wasn't a term for sexual harassment," she said. "This is a new way to define an old problem."
She said that the dismissal hearings at the University this semester for Emil Tonkovich, professor of law who is accused of sexual harassment, had put the spotlight on an issue that before existed in the dark corners of University conscience.
Burke said that now University students were beginning to define sexual harassment for themselves, which is why more students are recognizing it on campus.
"Women have been in a position for a long time to have to respond to innuendo," she said. "The status quo is being questioned."
Howard Sypher, head of the department of communications studies and instructor of the class that conducted the survey, said it was interesting to examine a subject at KU that is now being discussed more in society at large.
What you think about harassment
To gauge student opinions on sexual harassment a communication studies class conducted a telephone survey. There were 510 participants; 55 percent were female, and 45 percent were male. The survey's margin of error is four percent.
Harassment defined
Students were asked to comment on the following statements.
3% Disagree 7% No comment
Sexual harassment is a problem at KU.
Harassment scenarios
Survey participants were asked to comment on hypothetical situations.
An instructor tells a dirty joke to a female student in his office. He finds the student's anatomy amusing. Is this sexual harassment?
As a joke, a group of male students paste nude photos from Playboy on campaign posters of women running for student government offices. Is this sexual harassment?
12% Disagree No comment
An instructor implies that a student will receive a good grade in the course by date. Date next week, is this sexual harassment?
13% No comment
The victims
Two male students and a female student enter an elevator. The males make comments about the females anatomy. In this sexual harassment?
survey participants were asked about incidents of harassment in their life.
What constitutes misconduct seems hard to determine
By Jess DeHaven
Dan Schauer / KANSAN
Story continues. Page 3.
Kansan staff writer
A look, a touch, a comment, rape.
Any one or all of these can be defined as sexual harassment depending upon who is defining it.
Defining sexual harassment has become as controversial as the issue itself.
More than 50 percent of those surveyed for the Kansan said they either disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement "Sexual harassment is easy to identify."
Differing opinions of exactly what constitutes harassment have made an already sensitive issue even more confusing.
Tom Berger, acting director of affirmative action, said differing ideas of harassment could lead to misunderstandings.
Source: Department of Communications Studies
"It's critical that people understand that everyone may have a different perception of what harassment is," he said. "When is looking just looking and when does it become oting?"
He said people's experiences often determined how they defined harassment.
"Harassment itself is a problem. At one end of the continuum you have whistles and catcalls while at the other end you have rape," he said. "Within those boundaries people don't agree where the line should be drawn."
Sandra Wick, assistant director of the college honors program, said her own definition of sexual harassment was broad.
"I think sexual harassment is treating another person with a lack of respect using sexual overtones," she said. "Really, it's an overall attitude."
Betty Campbell, assistant professor of English, defined harassment in a way similar to Wick.
"Any unwelcome and unwanted approach that is sexual in nature is harassment," she said. "This can be any number of things such as touching or speech."
Story continues, Page 3.
State foster care system overloaded, understaffed
Kansan staff writer
By Shelly Solon Kansas staff writer
Bobby, a lanky boy with an endearing yet sinister smile, entered Marge Kellner's home about three years ago.
But after spending the three most stable years of his life there, he left the Kellners' home the same way he arrived — kicking and screaming.
All the love he received from the Kellners would not erase the uncontrollable anger that afflicts him. The Kellners hope Boby will return to their home soon after undergoing treatment at the Marillac Center in Kansas City, Kan.
But Bobby, only seven years old and a victim of early sexual abuse, already is a witness to the instability of state foster care.
Bobby, which is not his real name, is one of more than 25,000 children in the custody of Kansas Social and Rehabilitative Services.
It is a system that is overloaded and understaffed and that often leaves children in abusive homes, places them in homes and institutions inappropriate to their needs and sometimes even puts them in foster homes as abusive as the homes they have left.
Kansas rates seventh in the nation in the use of foster homes, hospitals or rest homes for children, according to data collected for
CHILDREN
Kansas Social and Rehabilitative Services must balance an inadequate budget with a heavy caseload. Page 4
Disaffected youth are flooding the juvenile court system docket.
*Page 6*
Two single mothers battle the state welfare and federal housing aid system. Page 7
District Court Judge Jean Sheppard could be the most consistent influence in the lives of many children. Page 7
"The state is not a good parent," says John Alquest, service delivery chief for SRS Youth and Adult Services. "In the long run, parents who abuse and neglect their children still do a better job than the state does."
The result is an unstable and often traumatic environment for children in the state system.
Kids Count, a collection of statistics on child welfare nationwide.
Bobby was three years old when SRS pulled him away from his parents, who had sexually abused and neglected him. At that point, perhaps, Bobby had a chance. But Bobby ended up in four different foster homes in one year.
When one foster mother became ill, Bobby went to another home. Another foster couple divorced, and Bobby moved on. In two other homes, the parents could not handle Bobby's behavior. He kept moving until he found the Kellners. That was before his fourth birthday, Sept. 14, 1989.
The Kellners wanted to adopt him, but his behavior was too much for them, too. SRS stepped in again. This time Bobby had was forced from the most permanent home he had ever known. Now he jumps back and forth between the Kellners and Marilac.
Traveling through the system has left Bobby with a long and confusing list of care workers as well.
As foster parents, you cannot let kids make your life miserable," Marge Kellner said. "You don't need chaos. Your home has to have harmony, or these kids will just be in the same environment they came from."
Story continues, Page 4.
Marge (left) and Dennis, with their daughter Diane (right), have provided a home for more than 50 children during the four years they have been foster parents. They currently are taking care of five foster children in their North Lawrence home.
A reminder to the world
The U.S. Holocaust Museum, which opened April 22, serves to remind all people of the atrocities of the period.
See story. Page 5.
Tight job market prompts entrepreneurship
Bv Brian James
Being named one of the top ten college entrepreneurs in North America is nice, say business partners Ehi Muhl and Martin Hess. Having your sports marketing company gross nearly $50,000 in the past year is comforting, too, they say.
Special to the Kansar
But Muhl, Salina senior, and Hess, Desito senior, agree that they have profitted in a different way from creating EMI Sports Marketing three years ago.
"I wasn't concerned so much about losing money as I was about gaining experience and business sense for the real world." Muhli said.
jobs.
Like Muhl and Hess, a small but growing number of college students and recent graduates are founding their first companies before they find their first
jobs:
David Meadows, the campus development director for the National Association of Collegiate Entrepreneurs, said Muhl and Hess received the annual award because EMI exemplified everything a student-run business should be: It is creative, has a positive history, solid growth and a unique vision.
"It was impressive that they balanced their time between a successful business and going to school — something that's not easy to do." Meadows said.
necessary. For some students, the thought of owning their own business, being their own boss and lining their own pockets with profits satisfies a life-long entrepreneurial dream.
But for others like Muhl and Hess, the entrepreneurial incentive goes beyond financial independence.
And it's really bleak out there.
This year alone four major corporations, Boeing Co., McDonnell Douglas Corp., United Technologies Corp., and Sears Roebuck and Co., announced they would cut a total of 100,000 jobs. Cutbacks like these are forcing college graduates to compete against off employees with years of job experience.
A report issued last December by Northwestern University showed that companies hired 56 percent fewer college graduates last year than in 1988.
Launching their own business guarantees them a shot at earning a decent living rather than facing job searches in an already bleak job market.
It all adds up to the fact that business ownership seems more appealing to today's college student. In a recent survby by Roper College Track, a unit of the Roper Polling Organization, 38 percent of the 1,200 students questioned at 100 colleges said owning a business represented an excellent opportunity for a successful career. That was far more than the 24 percent who said the same of working for a large corporation.
"Today's students are very individualistic, and entrepreneurship would be very consistent with that," said Eric Dey, associate director of the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California Los Angeles.
Kathy Bryant, assistant business dean and a faculty sponsor for KU's chapter of the Association of Collegiate Entrepreneurs (ACE), agreed.
Story continues, Page 2.