UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Mondav. April 18, 1994
5
CLAS Alumni Week to offer speakers
Organizers aim at promoting college, renewing interest
By Susan White Kansan staff writer
Lynn O'Neal has been busy for the past few months between his ophthalmology practice and working on the preparations for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Alumni Week.
O'Neal, Lawrence physician and president of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Alumni Club, said he was being worked with the KU Alumni Advisory Board, which is arranging speakers and publicizing the event.
"The week is intended to promote the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences by bringing alumni back to discuss what they have done with the education they received from the college," he said.
Chris Reedy, Topeka senior and member of the alumni board, said the board members hoped that the week would show students that graduating from the college was more than just receiving a diploma.
"We want to bring the focus of the college back to education, not just the final degree," he said. "Hopefully the week will become a longstanding tradition."
Sally Frost-Mason, associate dean of liberal arts and sciences, said the advisory board asked individual members of the faculty what topics they would be interested in discussing during the week. The most common request was for language and linguistics, so the college invited speakers who were experts in this field.
"Our opening speaker, Gary Blumenthal, is an alumnus of the college, and the Gardners, who will discuss communication with chimpanzees, were featured in a special on PBS, "Frost-Mason said. "I think all our speakers are super."
Blumenthal is the executive director of the President's Committee on Mental Retardation. Allen Gardner and Beatrix Gardner are from the Advanced Study Institute on Ethnological Roots of Culture.
Erin Spiridigliozzi, assistant to the dean of liberal arts and sciences, said the college hoped to have a big turnout for the day.
"We sent out about 30,000 CLAS Notes, the college newsletter, and 5,000 went to local alumni," she said. "We also gave personal invitations to all faculty and asked them to bring people. All students also are invited to the week's events."
All events for the alumni week are free except the picnic, which is $7 for adults and $3 for children.
Week's events
Monday: Lecture — "Reflections from KU to D.C.," with Gary Blumenthal, executive director for the President's Committee on Mental Retardation, 7 p. to 8 p.m. at 2092 Dole Center followed by a reception.
Tuesday; Lecture — "Early Signs of Language in Children and Cross-fostered Chimpanzees," with R. Allen Gardner and Beatrix Gardner of the Advanced Study Institute on Ethanological Roots of Culture, 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Alderson Auditorium in the Kansas Union, reception following
**Wednesday:** Movie — "Gorillas in the Mist," at 8 p.m. at the Woodruff Auditorium in the Kansas Union.
**Thursday:** Lecture — "Why do All Societal Issues Seem to Become Court Cases which go on Interminably?" with Judge James Logan of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, 7 p.m., to 8 p.m. at 205 Hall.
**Friday:** Tour of the Spencer Museum of Art at 2 p.m.
Lecture — "Learning by Word of Mouth: The Acquisition of Word Meaning by Children," at 4 p.m. in the Spencer Museum of Art.
CLAS Alumni Club Reception — 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Saturday: CLAS picnip with performances from "The Heidi Chronicles," from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Potter Lake. Admission is $7 for adults and $3 for children.
All events, except the picnic, are free and open to everyone.
The sun drenched the KU campus with bright rays and 80-degree temperatures yesterday, forcing down convertible tops, off shirts and on sunglasses.
Spring blows into town
By David Wilson Kansan staff writer
Picnicking couples on blankets enjoying the warm breeze dotted the west side of Campanile Hill. Many were fully clothed and wearing brim hats, but others were slathered with suntan lotion in an attempt to brown the fluorescent-white flesh of winter.
KANSAN
Some students, burdened with guilt about neglected studying but determined to catch some rays, combined the two activities.
Katie Meier, St. Charles, III, junior, lav on her stomach while poring over
pharmacy notes. Next to her lay Leslie Northcutt, Toledo, Ohio, senior, who said yesterday was her and Meier's first attempt at tanning.
"We didn't do fake bake like everyone else," she said. "We thought we'd do it naturally."
A trio of shirtless frisbee golfers honed their accuracy by tossing at a flowering tree, knocking a flurry of pink buds to the ground. The golfers played in a circle around Potter Lake, where two cream-colored Labrador retrievers thrashed in the water near the bank.
A horse-drawn trolley took people from Spencer Museum of Art to the Natural History Museum and vice versa as part of the festivities for Museum Day.
Behind Oliver Hall. a stack of amplifiers carried the folk singing and guitar strumming of Jeremy Bauer, Toledo. Ohio, freshman and resident of Olver.
In contrast to the numerous pick-up games going on all over campus, many students found themselves stuck in Watson Library.
Bauer and two local bands, Lone Mitter and Blues Head Beggars, were playing for a field full of football-tossing and volleyball-playing Oliver residents as part of Dirt Day, a quasi-Earth Day festival that included free brownies and tie-dying.
Matt Huss, Omaha, Neb., graduate student, was hidden behind a fortress of thick books. He was working on a thesis about eyewitness testimonies and said he did not want to be bothered.
New book rates states' health
Kansas ranks 18th Missouri is No.47
LAWRENCE — People worried about their health should head to Minnesota and avoid President Clinton's home state of Arkansas at all costs, says a company that publishes state statistics.
attend," said Scott Morgan, president of Morgan Quitno, the Lawrence-based publisher of state statistics.
The "Health Care State Rankings 1994" rated Minnesota as the best state to live in and Arkansas at the bottom of the heap.
The second annual rankings are based on 23 statistical factors of health chosen by the editors of "Health Care State Rankings 1994", a 520-page annual reference book that compares the states in 472 health care categories.
Factors included the percent of adults who smoke or are overweight, the death rate by AIDS, the infant mortality rate and the percentage of drivers who wear seat belts. Positive factors included the number of community hospitals and the percentage of children entering kindergarten who were fully immunized.
*If Minnesota ever offers courses in health care. Arkansas may want to
The rankings
Last year's ranking in parenthesis
1. Minnesota (6)
2. Vermont (15)
3. New Hampshire (12)
4. Nebraska (10)
5. Hawaii (4)
6. Utah (1)
7. Washington (5)
8. Connecticut (19)
9. Massachusetts (34)
10. North Dakota (8)
18. Kansas (23)
47. Missouri (48)
Source: The Associated Press
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