CAMPUS/AREA
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Tuesday.May3.1994
3A
Doug Hesse/ KANSAN
A sign posted within Baker wetlands shows where the South Lawrence Trafficway would run through the wetland. The Douglas County Commission last week ordered the opening of the Environmental Impact Statement, which outlines how the trafficway will affect the area. Haskell Indian Nations University administrators and students have said the original statement, which was submitted in 1990, excluded their views.
County will hear wetland concerns
Haskell students lead effort to put opinion on record
By Denise Neil Kansan staff writer
Haskell Indian Nations University students and other members of the public will have an opportunity to voice their concerns about the South Lawrence Trafficway, Douglas County commissioners said last week.
But this time, it will be on the record.
The commissioners ordered Wednesday a supplement to the Environmental Impact Statement, which outlined how the building of the trafficway would affect the area. The official statement has been criticized by Haskell students and administrators since it was printed in 1990. Students and administrators said that their opinions were excluded from the statement.
Haskell students and administrators say that the trafficway's proposed route, which would run adjacent to the school's south campus along 31st Street, would destroy land used for sacred and educationalpurposes.
Craig Weinau, Douglas County administrator, said that hearings would take
place over the next six to nine months and would give Haskell students and the public a chance to have their concerns added to the statement.
The commissioners unanimously agreed to the supplement, Weinaug said.
"Haskell's main complaint has been that they didn't receive official notification through the EIS," he said. "We've spent the last several months trying to work out an agreement and solve the problem with Haskell and have been unable to do so."
Weinaug said that the portion of the trafficway west of Highway 59 was now under construction. But during the hearings, the construction to the east of the highway — which would affect the
Haskell wetlands — will be suspended.
Federal highway officials will have the final say about the alignment of the trafficway.
Adrian Brown, Haskell student senate vice president, said that he thought that the reopening of the statement would encourage officials to take students' opinions seriously.
"I think we should have ample time to comment on our concerns," he said. "They've known our concerns, but this is a formal document."
Brown said he was satisfied that students' opinions would be added to the statement.
"I'm very optimistic that this is going to make a difference."
Two KU researchers study different effects of AIDS
By Ashley Schultz Kansan staff writer
Two researchers at the University of Kansas are combating AIDS one from the medical point of view, the other from the psychological.
Allen Omoite, professor of psychology, is researching the toll taken on volunteers who work with AIDS patients. The three-city project involves the Kansas City area, Columbus, Ohio, and Minneapolis, Minn., where Omoite began his research at the University of Minnesota in 1988.
About 250 volunteers fill out questionnaires before and after they go through training and at three and six months after they begin working with clients, he said. The organizations are contacted about a year later to see whether the participants still are volunteers.
People with self-serving rather than humanitarian reasons tend to stay longer. Omoto said.
"There's no difference between those groups and how much they claim that they liked their work, but it's really how much they think the work was costing them," he said.
For example, Omoto said, people who volunteer to build their self-esteem by helping others tend to stay longer. People who see it as giving too much of themselves tend to drop out sooner.
Data collection is expected to end sometime this sum-
mer. The study will most benefit the AIDS organizations by helping them better understand their volunteers, Omoto said.
"People are strangers when they start, and then they get to know one another," he said.
Omoto said the relationships were interesting because one person knew the other was going to die.
"It's an interesting context in which those relationships are developed," he said. "There's a lot of stress involved. Many times there's some stigmatization and discrimination that's involved."
The American Foundation for AIDS Research supported the research with a total of about $100,000 over the first two years. The National Institute of Mental Health has kicked in about $575,000 over last three years. Omoto said.
At the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, Kan, Bill Narayan, Marion Merrill Dow distinguished professor of molecular immunology of aging, is studying the family of virus — the lentivirus that includes AIDS.
His work began in 1971 with the sheep lentivirus, which makes it way to the sheep's brains, causing dementia.
Narayan said that more than 10 percent of adult humans with AIDS develop either a neurological disease or "AIDS dementia." The dementia can lead to loss of thought processes and loss of control over movement and body functions. Consequences are even worse for babies who are born HIV positive, he said.
"HIV is a lentivirus of humans," Narayan said. "It did the same thing in sheep that HIV does in humans."
"These children fail to gain developmental milestones or are born with grossly destroyed brains," Narayan said. "Many of these children die by age 2."
The human virus is different from the sheep virus because the human virus suppresses the immune system, Narayan said. The lab's researchers are now studying a form of the disease found in monkeys to determine how that suppression affects the development of neurological disease.
The team is also trying to locate which gene enables AIDS to get to the brain.
"What we do is, we use molecular techniques to separate the genes from the virus," Narayan said. "We pull it from one gene and put it into another one, so we are gene-swapping the virus. This way we can find out which gene is important for what biological effect."
Narayan came to KU in January after 22 years as a researcher at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. He has received $1.24 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health.
The Marion Merrill Dow endowment gave him a $1 million lab at the Med Center and the opportunity to bring together 15 people from different medical disciplines.
KU theater graduate killed in San Diego drive-by shooting
A 1992 KU graduate was shot and killed in a drive-by shooting Sunday night in San Diego, Calif.
John Lentz, 24, was walking with a friend in Balboa Park, an area north of downtown San Diego, at about 11 p.m. when a man in a black pickup truck drove by and opened fire.
Lentz was shot twice in the chest and died at Mercy Hospital in San Diego a short while later. The friend, 23-year-old Dhyaan Burtnett, was shot in the arm. She was treated at Mercy Hospital.
Sgt. Gerald Alton of the San Diego Police said that Lentz was returning from the Old Globe Theater, a Shakespearean playhouse in San Diego, when the shooting occurred.
Charla Jenkins, public relations director for University Theater, said that Lentz was a theater major and had been in at least three productions at KU, including "The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui," "Pirates of Penzance," and a children's production called "This is Not a Pipe Dream."
CAMPUS BRIEFS
KU students recognized
Nine KU students will be recognized with awards honoring their achievements at a ceremony from 9 to 11 a.m. Saturday at the Kansas Room in the Kansas Union.
The students were chosen for the awards by the Chancellor's Student Awards Committee, which is made up of faculty, staff and students. The committee chose the students from nominations submitted by KU students, faculty and staff.
The students will receive plaques and cash awards ranging from $250 to $1,000.
The following students will receive awards:
Timothy Dawson, Topeka senior—Agnes Wright Strickland Award
Carmen San Martin, Wichita senior — Donald K. Alderson Memorial Award
Kathryn Price, Wichita senior — Class of 1913 Award
Kelly Dunkelburger, Woodland Park senior — Class of 1913 Award
Margaret Hu, Manhattan senior — Rusty Leffel Concerned Student Award
Jennifer Ford, Lawrence junior — honorable mention for Rusty Leffel Concerned Student Award
James Baucom, Topeka senior — honorable mention for Rusty Leffel Concerned Student Award
Shanda Vangas, Derby senior --- Caryl K. Smith Student Leader Award
- Kristi Keppler, Ellinwood senior — Alexis F. Dillard Student Involvement Award
Mall prohibits smoking
Smoking no longer will be allowed in the Lawrence Riverfront Plaza Factory Outlets, 1 Riverfront Plaza.
David Longhurst, Riverfront manager, said smoking would not be permitted in public areas of the building in order to comply with applicable state law and city ordinances. Smoking had been permitted in designated areas, but now smokers will have to move outside.
"We hope this change will enhance the shopping experience within the building and help us all to be more sensitive to the health hazards associated with cigarette smoking," he said.
Longhurst said he sympathized with smokers, and said he hoped everyone would see the policy change as a positive one.
Compiled from Kansan staff reports