University Daily Kansan, February 24, 1903
Page 7
Members refuse to let students decide Senate increases activity fee
By SARA KEMPIN Staff Reporter
Paul Buskirk, holderover senator, proposed that the Senate hold a referendum March 9 and 10 to give students the opportunity to vote on whether to follow the Senate's recommendations to increase the financing of certain groups.
The Student Senate voted to increase the student activity fee by $2 to $22.50 last night, but after a debate refused to pass a motion to allow students at the University of Kansas to vote on the proposed increase.
FOR A STUDENT referendum to be valid, 10 percent of the student body or one more person than voted in the last Senate election must vote in the referendum. If the voter turnout is too low, the election is voided.
The results of a student referendum stand for one year.
"When we talk about raising the activity fee, we are talking about a tax on students without any effort to comply with the tax; they just the increase." Bunkirk said.
Because the groups that Senate finances do not serve the Senate, but rather the students, the students should be the winner the groups get money, Buskirk said.
Lisa Ashner, student body president,
said that students should not be allowed
to vote on the proposed increases
because it was the senators' obligation
and responsibility to represent
students' views.
SCOTT SWENSON, campus director
or the Associated Students of Kansas,
said that if the Senate passed the
law, it would take effect in 2016.
Tom Berger, graduate senator, said that some groups, such as Graduate Student Council, might receive fewer votes than others because they had more funding.
But Buskirk said that because the Graduate Student Council received undergraduate money through the PCA, they would vote in the same way as other groups.
"The student population is not as stupid as we might say. They can make it work."
In the past, the Senate has refused to allow the students to vote on whether KU should finance ASK and have beer in Memorial Stadium, Buskirk said.
"I am deeply disappointed that the Student Senate, both in the past and currently, is unwilling to allow the student body as a whole to have a voice in any major issue that comes before us."
BUT LOREN Busby, chairman of the Student Senate Finance and Auditing Committee, said. "By voting to hold a referendum, the Senate would set a horrible, expensive precedent. To be consistent, we would have had to have a referendum every time we financed something."
Instead, the Senate voted to take the $1.25 out of the activity fee and to institute a $1.50 campus privilege fee to be used for building and equipment maintenance and repair at Robinson Center.
As well as recommending the 12.5 percent increase in the activity fee, the Senate decided to amend the Finance and Auditing Committee's recommendation, which would have given Recreation Services $2.55 and Robinson Operations $1.25 of the activity fee.
IF THE CAMPUS privilege fee for equipment at Robinson is approved, the total cost to students, including the privilege fee and the activity fee, will be $24.
Under Senate rules, a bill must be drawn up and considered by committee before the Senate can vote whether to institute the separate campus privilege
Busby said he was almost certain that the bill to separate recreation services funds into two fees would be passed unanimously, by the Senate at its March 9 meeting.
serve in its mission to increase the Senate also voted to increase the committee's recommendation of 40 cents for ASK to 45 cents.
Charles Lawhorn, chairman of the Student Services Committee and member of the finance committee, said he was disappointed that there had been little debate at the meeting about raising ASK's financing.
THE FINANCE committee had recommended that because ASK financing was a controversial issue, the question be debated on the Senate floor.
"They made no attempt at debate," he said. "I'm very disillusioned by the Senate. Any time something as significant it was, it's not debated, and it's only debated by a non-senator, there's something wrong with Senate and with the system."
News affects enrollment, profs say
By DAVID POWLS Staff Reporter
More KU students seem to enroll in Russian language courses when U.S.-Soviet relations are prominent in the news, the chairman of the Slavic languages and literatures department said yesterday.
William March, assistant professor of Slavic languages and literatures, who teaches Russian, said he agreed with Mikkelson.
"Enrolment seems to go up when the world focuses on U.S./Soviet relations," said Gerald Mikelson, the head of the program, to go down when the focus is elsewhere.
"It's not essential that we are doing worse or better with the Russians, but that our relations are in the limelight." March said.
HE SAID KU students' interest in Russia was strong in the late 1950s
when the Soviet spaceship Sputnik was launched.
"Interest grew out of respect for what the Soviets were doing then," he said. "Student interest in Russia went down when Russia's general image went down because of defections and their invasion of Afghanistan."
He said more foreign-language specialists were needed now because the United States could no longer expect international assistance to come to bargain for trade.
HE SAID Averill Harriman, a former ambassador to the Soviet Union, had recently donated $10 million to Columbia University for Soviet studies.
Mikkelsen said that the United States was short of Russian specialists and that many bills in Congress had language study provisions tacked onto
This semester's KU Russian language enrollment is 25 percent higher than in 1981, and 140 of the 250 students
in the Slavic department are taking Russian, he said.
Jane Lages, Springfield, Mo., junior,
said she was majoring in political science and taking Russian because she was interested in foreign service.
He said that the Russian program had 25 undergraduate majors and 25 graduate students, and that students come from nearly every KU department.
"Russian is more difficult than Spanish or Portuguese because of the vowel endings and verb tenses." Lages immediately be a challenge. But I like it."
DAVID PRINC, Olaita sophomore,
said he was majoring in mathematics
and taking Russian because many
materials were written in that language.
Prine said the gender of Russian nouns was easier to distinquish than the gender of German nouns.
Drop in broom sales leads to lavoffs
By United Press International
"It is the worst it been in 20 years, 22 years in fact, since I've been here,"
The association, which has made brooms since 1910, said it laid off 16 workers and reissued three others Jan. 31 because of a drop in business.
PITTSBURGH — The sour economy, which has ravaged millions of jobless Americans, has swept into the Pittsburgh Blind Association; forcing the layoff or reassignment of 19 blind makers of brooms and mops.
said association spokesman Betty Harvey...
THE ASSOCIATION'S broom and mop business has declined primarily because half the sales traditionally are made by a backbill hit by the nationwide steel stump.
As recently as 1979, the association was shipping 1,200 brooms a day.
But last year, association shipments slipped to 1,200 a week, and now there are 24,000 brooms in stock.
coming door-to-door sale will deplete the surplus.
Association officials hope an up-
ONE OF THE reissigned workers said he and his colleagues expected the move, but that didn't make it any easier.
"The brooms were piling up and piling up," said Mike Bayura, 62, who has made brooms for the association. "I think, we're all disappointed."
Bayura, who said he can make a broom in 3 $ \frac{1}{2} $ minutes, is now filling plastic envelopes with condiments for a local hospital.
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