CAMPUS/AREA
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Thursday, April 21, 1994
3
Bill would combine senates
By Susan White Kansan staff writer
The Graduate Student Senate's hopes to remain separate from Student Senate were crushed last night by a majority vote.
Senators passed a bill that would merge Senate and Graduate Senate together. An amendment to the bill provides for an ad hoc committee during the summer to study the possibility of forming another graduate senate. The bill could face a veto by John Shoemaker, student body president.
Alan Pierce, non-traditional senator and sponsor of the bill, said that he had wanted
to pass the bill because the Graduate Senate represented a small portion of the student body that did not need a governance.
"If the graduate students are so interested, why don't they come and fill the 12 seats here?" he said. "That's why we have the graduate students' seats."
Jeff Gardner, executive chair of Graduate Senate, said he thought that the graduate group was viable at the University.
"We meet on a routine basis and represent about 6,400 students," he said. "The issue is not that we don't want to be part of Student Senate, it's a matter of time. Most graduate students have classes at night."
Ken Martin, Association of University Residence Halls senator, said that he disagreed with Gardner's argument for a separate senate.
After a long debate about the issue, Senate voted to amend Pierce's bill to form the ad hoc committee.
Pierce said that he did not dislike Graduate Senate and that he would like to start from scratch.
"I do not despise the group." he said. "I want to go back to a clean slate."
The summer ad hoc committee would consist of three graduate students selected
by Graduate Senate and three members of Senate, including the treasurer. The group would work with Pierce to decide whether to reinstate Graduate Senate or remove it indefinitely.
However, Pierce was not optimistic about the bill by the end of the evening. He said he thought that Shoemaker, student body president, might veto it before his presidency runs out next week.
"I don't have to do anything unless Shoemaker vetoes it," he said. "If he does, I will hold a special meeting to overturn the veto. It will take a two-thirds vote to overturn his decision."
Curt Wisnewski, Eudora veterinarian, helped by Lawrence Humane Society manager Renee Harris, administers three times the lethal dose of phenobarbitrol to a shelter dog whose time has run out.
Pets often abandoned in May
Disposal common when school ends
By Cheryl Cadue Kansan staff writer
This summer, like most summers, students will leave their Lawrence homes behind them — contributing to the deaths of more than 900 dogs and cats who may have been their pets.
Paul Grossdidier, state veterinarian for the Kansas Animal Health Department, said that every May, Lawrence — like other college towns — saw a dramatic increase in the number of abandoned animals and in the number of those animals that had to be destroyed because homes
could not be found in time
"When the student graduates, dogs and cats are put to sleep because they were simply in the way," he said.
As a veterinarian in Eudora, Grosdidier worked with the Lawrence Humane Society for more than nine years.
"I always hated May because it was the busiest month," he said. "It's really sad. You're there to help, hopefully make a difference and find good homes for the animal, but that often does not happen."
Harris said the large increase was due in
The Lawrence Humane Society, 1805 E. 19th St., found homes for 66 percent of the 5,000 animals taken last year, said Renee Harris, Humane Society manager. But of the almost 2,000 of those who came in during the summer, only 53 percent were adopted. The rest were killed.
part to cats not being spayed or neutered. But she said some animals had been brought by students who were moving out of town or into a place that did not allow pets.
Most pets brought into the shelter by their student owners usually were in good health, she said.
City and state laws require the Hurricane Society to hold an animal for three business days before the animal is put up for adoption. Depending on availability of space, Harris said, animals stay for a minimum of two weeks before being killed.
"When they have them, they treat them very well," she said. "But they don't keep them very long."
To lessen the number of unwanted pets, Harris said, watching an animal being killed should be mandatory for everyone.
"In June, July and August, reaching two weeks may be impossible simply because of a lack of space," she said.
"It isn't just a number on paper," she said. "It's life our society brought in, but being such a disposable society, we take it out and think it's no big deal."
"Iideally, we want the owner to realize that they are accepting the animal for the life of that animal," she said.
If the time commitment is too long, Harris said, students should think about owning a pet that has a shorter life span.
Though not all students make bad pet owners, Harris said, some students become belligerent when asked to show proof that their leases allow pets.
"Students can lie and lie very well," she said. "But they need to know we've heard all the stories."
PanHellenic volunteers win award
Kansan staff report
Black PanHellenic Council received the Roger Hill Group Volunteer Project of the Year award last night at a ceremony at the First United Methodist Church Fellowship Hall, 946 Vermont St.
John Alesch, executive director of the Boys and Girls Club, nominated Black PanHellenic Council for the award. He said the group — unlike other groups that volunteer on a one-time basis — had worked with the children at the club for two consecutive years.
The group was recognized by the Roger Hill Volunteer Center, 211 E. Eighth St., for organizing a Kwanzaa celebration the past two years at the Boys and Girls Club of Lawrence, 1520 Haskell Ave. Kwanzaa is a weeklong celebration that commemorates family, community and culture.
The group will receive a plaque, and its name will be added to a plaque that hangs in the center.
"The Black PanHellenic's celebration has come out here for the past two years," he said. "It provides a good way for our kids to come out and interact with college-age kids."
LanaeA Heine, coordinator of the Roger Hill Volunteer Center, said the volunteers deserved recognition.
CAMPUS BRIEFS
Man's body found by police; cause of death not known
Kansan staff report
Lawrence police found the body of a 20-year-old Lawrence man Tuesday morning in an apartment in the 2500 block of Redbud Lane.
Police identified the body as that of Daniel A. Childers.
Laurance Price, who performed the autopsy, said that a cause of death had not been determined but that there was no evidence of a violent death.
Meetings to focus on environment
The Episcopal Diocese of Kansas will sponsor "Caring for Creation, A National Conference of Environmental Awareness and Action" Friday through Sunday at the Westin Crown Center Hotel in Kansas City, Mo.
March to honor Native American
A march honoring the memory of Gregg Sevier, a Native American shot and killed by Lawrence police in 1901, will take place today.
It will begin at the Haskell Indian Nations University Auditorium and proceed to City Hall, Sixth and Massachusetts streets. March participants will gather in front of the auditorium at 3:30 p.m., and the march will begin at 4 p.m.
A brief rally will be held in front of City Hall at the conclusion of the march. Then a bus will transport march participants back to Haskell's student union for a potluck dinner and speakers.
Sevier was killed three years ago on this date when his mother, Orene Sevier, called the police to their home in east Lawrence. Sevier's mother asked that an officer be sent to come talk with her son, who was in his bedroom with a butcher knife. She told the dispatch officer that she thought that her son was having trouble with his girlfriend.
The two police officers said that when they had appeared at the Sevier home, Gregg Sevier had lunged at them with the knife, and they fired in self-defense.
The Sevier family maintains that the officers fired prematurely, before they had a chance to gather any details.