University Daily Kansan, November 9, 1983
Page 3
NEWS BRIEFS From Area Staff and Wire Reports
Mother of ex-congressman loses lengthy legal battle
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A seven-year legal battle has apparently ended for the mother of Rep. Jerry Litton. Litton was killed in a plane crash the night he won the 1976 Democratic senatorial primary in Missouri.
Jurors deliberated four hours yesterday in federal court before deciding in favor of Beech Aircraft Corp., a Wichita firm, and against Litton's mother, Mildred. The jury returned a verdict shortly after 5 p.m.
Litton's mother, his estate and his wife's parents, Clifford and Vivian Summerfield, had originally filed an $18 million law suit. The suit was later reduced to $3.2 million.
U. S. District Judge Howard F. Sachs yesterday instructed the jury to consider claims brought by Litton's mother and not to consider those brought by the Summerfields.
Mildred Litton was seeking monetary damages for the income she would have received had her son not been killed.
Shortly after the verdict was announced, William H Wimsatt, attorney for the Litton family, had no comment. Plans of whether the jury could prevail are unknown.
Topekan named to education post
TOPEKA — The state Board of Education yesterday named veteran educator Harold Blackburn as commissioner of education effective Dec. 18.
Blackburn, now assistant commissioner of the Education Services Division of the Kansas Department of Education, had been a teacher and administrator in Topeka public schools for 16 years and a program director and regional director for the U.S. Department of Education for 15 years.
He replaces Merle Bolton, who is resigning Dec. 17 after eight years as commissioner.
Blackburn, speaking to a standing-room-only crowd of about 100 people, said education was the "largest and most important business in Kansas with the most important finished product."
The 55-year-old Blackburn said he was honored by the selection and promised to "work very hard."
1. follow a very fine commissioner," he said. "Following him will be a most difficult challenge."
ABC-TV crew to interview at Union
ABC-TV'S "Good Morning America" will be on campus today to shoot part of a segment about "The Day After" and the movie's effect on Lawrence.
Judy Billings, director of convention services at the Lawrence Convention and Visitors Bureau, said the crew would arrive in Lawrence sometime this morning. She also said that the morning news show did not want to concentrate on the issue of nuclear war, but wanted a picture of life in Lawrence.
Billings said the TV crew would be asking students at the Kansas Union what they thought about the film, produced by ABC-Circle films.
Several other news organizations, including Time and Newsweek magazines and CBS-News "Sunday Morning" and "60 Minutes," have written about the shooting.
The film, which depicts the catastrophe of nuclear war, made its premiere here Oct. 12 and is scheduled to be broadcast nationally Nov. 20.
KU is short of '83 United Fund goal
The University of Kansas is $3,663 short of its $50,000 goal for the 1983 United Fund campaign, which ends at 5 p.m. Friday.
University faculty and students have donated $46,367 so far, a volunteer worker said yesterday. Last year's donations totaled $48,605, with the $30,000 being from the University.
The $50,000 campus goal remains the same as last year because faculty salaries have not risen during the year, said Thomas Swearingen, a member of the United Fund campus steering committee. (Oakland Tribune)
Competing funding
Students can contribute to the fund by calling the Lawyer at United
Funding Officer, 915-243-7000. The Lawyer is responsible for the fund's use.
Fund office at 843-6626. The Lawrence goal for the fund drive is $432,099.
Money donated to the fund is allocated to 23 community service events.
The organizations include: the Boys Club; the Douglas County Association for Retarded Citizens; the Douglas County Child Development Assocation; the Lawrence Indian Center; Rape Victim Support Services; the Salvation Army; the Red Cross; and Women's Transitional Care Services.
AP editors praise Journalism School
The William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications last week was cited as one of the top journalism education programs in the country in a study by the Associated Press Managing Editors.
Editors meeting at an APME convention in Louisville, Ky., named Missouri, Northwestern, Kansas, Indiana and Columbia as the top five journalism schools.
The KU program was described as having broad favorable recognition among editors, especially in regard to which programs were sending them the best young journalists.
Extra conference funds go to charity
TOPEKA — Money left over from the Midwestern Governors' Conference will be donated to two United Way campaigns, Gov. John Carlin said yesterday.
Writer to speak on economic justice
Corporate sponsors and registration fees provided $73,275 for the three-day conference, which took place in Lawrence in October.
Of the leftover money, $3,000 will go to the Topeka United Way and $2,000 to the Lawrence United Way, Carlin said.
Markovic has written several books, including "From Affluence to Praxis" and "The Contemporary Marx." He is now a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
Mihalo Markovic, a former director of the Institute of Philosophy in Belggrade, Yugoslavia, will speak on "Economic Justice, Free Enterprise and Democratic Socialism" at 8 p.m. in Alderson Auditrium of the Kansas Union.
His lecture is the second in a series titled "Economic Justice and Free Enterprise" and is sponsored by the department of philosophy, the School of Business and the department of Soviet and East European studies.
GOT A NEWS TIP?
Do you have a news tip, sports tip or photo idea? Call the Kansan news desk at (913) 864-4810.
The number for the Kansan Advertising Office is (913) 864-4358.
Lack of staff to result in fewer poli-sci courses
Bv GINA K. THORNBURG
The department of political science is offering nine fewer courses next spring because it has been unable to hire new faculty to replace the loss of five professors, the chairman of the department, Paul Shumaker, said yester-
Staff Reporter
"The department is hemorrhaging, we're really having some significant weakness."
IN ADDITION TO those losses, two professors went on sabbatical this year, and another, Mike Harder, will be on leave next semester to begin his position as secretary of the state Department of Administration.
The political science department last year lost three professors from its regular staff of 24 when two faculty members resigned to take jobs in the private sector and one professor retired, he said.
As a result of the decrease in faculty, the number of students in many political science classes has increased. The number of law students in the department has decreased, he said.
"Political science has lost people in the last few years precisely because it's a good department," said Robert Lineberry, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. People are mobile and good enough to get other jobs."
Last year's fall enrollment was 6,911 student credit hours, and this year's fall enrollment is 7,325.
However, 350 students are majoring in political science, which is the highest number of students ever to do so, and more than 350 students, 198 are luminary and seniors.
The loss of faculty has also meant that some classes offered last spring will not be offered this spring, Shumaker said.
THE FOLLOWING COURSES, which usually have been offered in the spring, will not be offered next semester: POLS 601, political ideologies; POLS 606, quantitative political analysis; POLS 617, legislatures in the U.S.; and POLS 633, behavior in public organizations. The following courses will lose their value: Lawrence campus; POLS 637, public personnel administration; POLS 832, organization theory; POLS 843, public financial systems.
"It's impinging on our ability to give the best education," he said.
Two courses in the Masters of Public
Shumaker said that three-fourths of the faculty usually taught three courses in the fall semester and two in the spring, but, in order to compensate for the lack of professors this fall we were teaching more than their regular share of classes.
Administration program that are offered at the Regents Center in Overland Park and at the Capitol Complex and at the Capitol Complex are also not being offered next spring.
BUT NEXT SPRING, the professors will no longer be able to teach as many classes because they usually do more lessons in sprinting and teach fewer classes, he said.
James Drury, professor of political science, said he would teach a class next spring that he usually did not teach. Moreover, he will not be teaching a course next semester that he usually teaches each spring.
"We want to have more stuff so we can have regular teaching loads." Drum
But Lineberry said that the College did not hire and members last week, because of budget cuts.
The department of political science has been the worst hurt of anyDoctorate program in the nation.
MORE THAN $100,000 is required to hire the four full-time professors that the department needs, he said, and the College is not ready to hire them.
The loss of the faculty coincided with budget cuts but was not a result of the cuts.
Shumaker said that when his department lost faculty last year, the money that had been used to pay faculty salaries was used to restore the expenses budget of the College and was not used to hire replacements.
But the recent faculty and budget issues may damage the quality of institutes.
The College, however, allocated about $8,000 to hire a graduate teaching assistant and several practitioners in businesses to teach two-week courses
Shumaker said that the quality of the programs and instruction within his department had been steadily increasing during the last 10 years.
“If those losses are not, at least in part, replaced, we’ll lose other members,” he said. “If they sense the role is in action, they don’t want to be a part of that.”
Three parole board members quit under pressure
By United Press International
TOPEKA — Three members of the state parole board, confronted by what Gov. John Carlier yesterday said was their failure to devote enough time and effort to their jobs, resigned at his request.
The Kansas Adult Authority, long the butt of criticism from law enforcers, judges and most notably, Attorney General Robert Stephan, has come under increasing fire since August, when Allen County Judge John White Stephan to investigate the release of Nathaniel J. "Vorkie" Smith of Iola.
Smith was convicted of killing three people in the summer of 1982 — just three months after his parole from prison.
CARLIN, WHO SAID he was prepared to exercise his statutory right to
remove the adult authority members if they did not "professionally" tender their resignations, also criticized the board for routinely distracting as few as one or two members to conduct parole hearings.
The Democratic governor said he met with adult authority members late Monday and accepted the resignations of Chairman Simon Rob Rth Jr. of Hays and Carroll Mills and Alfredo Calvillo, both of Topeka.
"They all took the option of voluntarily resigning." Carlin said.
Under state law, the governor may remove parole board members for reasons of "disability, inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office." Carlin declined to say which reason he would have cited.
BUT INFORMED SOURCES said Roth, Mills and Calvillo were the subject of repeated criticism for not working 40 hours a week in what is by
law a full-time job. Members of the KAA receive an annual salary of $40,932 a year.
Roth is a practicing attorney while Mills and Calvino are psychologists. Both Mills and Calvino said Tuesday they worked full time at their jobs. Roth could not be reached for comment.
Carlin said other members of the parole board told him of routine situations in which one or two members conducted parole hearings, then turned in their recommendation to the full board for a vote.
"I think that when the Legislature finds out what I found out about not sitting in full panel, they will be as shocked as I was," Carlin said in announcing changes he will propose to the 1984 Legislature.
CARLIN SAID HE would recommend the KAA be composed of three.
full-time members who would sit as a panel in nearly all parole hearings. However, parole hearings for class D and E felons, the least serious of felony offenders, could be handled by fewer than three members.
Carlin said his legislative proposal would require a unanimous vote of the three-member panel on class A and B felios, which include murder, kidnapping and aggravated rape among others. Under the current system, it takes three votes of the five-member board to approve parole.
"The major problems I have been concerned about, and one which I believe these changes will resolve, is the amount of time and effort each member of the authority has been spending on the education process, or believe the adult authority is a full-time job and expect the members to treat it as such.