The University Daily KANSAN
University of Kansas Lawrence, Kansas
Wednesday, September 9, 1981 Vol. 92, No.13 USPS 650-640
Sexual harassment grievance policies lack centralization, opponents contend
By SHARON APPELBAUM Staff Reporter
While University officials have worked to define sexual harassment, their proposals may have fallen short of giving victims a specific course of action.
Drafts for employer-employee and faculty-student relationships list several offices where a harassed person can receive counseling.
"Ideally, in every case, there should be one place an individual can go to get help," George Worth, professor of English and an ex-officio senate member. Senate executive committee, said last week.
"By listing a number of different offices, you're encouraging people to go around, maybe getting a lot of sympathy, but not a real solution," Worth said.
At last Friday's SenEx meeting, David Adkins,
Topeka junior and SenEx member, expressed the
same idea.
"From a student's standpoint, I see a number of organizations made available for counseling, but the draft needs some kind of consolidation or focusing." Adkins said.
Those organizations include Affirmative Action, the three vice chancellors and the University of Houston.
A new "office" is the grievance procedure for individual departments, and Worth said the procedures might be the answer for harassed students.
Last year, a task force recommended that the University Senate Code be revised to require
"units," such as departments or divisions of departments, to implement grievance procedures.
That requirement went into effect this semester. Francis Heller, task force chairman and Roberts distinguished professor of law and policymaking at the units should be working on their policies now.
"With the old system, people with a grievance didn't know where to go with it," Heller said. This system aims at making it possible for people to understand where to take their grievances."
But other faculty members said the individual departments' procedures would not work for sexual harassment.
"What if it is an all-male department?" asked Elizabeth Banks, associate professor of classics. A female student might feel more comfortable that human faculty member were made available.
Rita Nipaer, associate professor of history, argued that University employees should not be required to work at the university.
"It ought to be somebody outside the academic community—perhaps a lawyer—somebody who is not necessarily a teacher."
In the past, Napier has helped students who have been sexually harassed. Since then, she and her staff have worked with students.
Heller said, however, departmental procedures had already succeeded with other detergents.
He said that in the early 1960s a student alleged he had been approached by a homosexual person.
"The guy (professor) was gone within a week," Heller said.
Napier, along with Shirley Harkess, associate professor of sociology and SenEx member, said the University should model its sexual harassment policies after Yale University's.
"Yale was the university that received the earliest and most attention," Harkess said.
She said a student filed a sexual harassment complaint under the federal Title IX guidelines. About the same time, a Yale and a book published about sexual harassment.
"They made Yale sort of notorious," Harkess said.
While both KU drafts are two pages long, the
 Policy devotes our pages to grievance.
Yale's policy provides for a standing board that handles only sexual harassment complaints.
The policy states, "A student may bring questions about procedure, seek informal advice or present a complaint to any member of the board, either orally or in writing."
KU's departmental policies would differ throughout the University. Heller said that in a large university, the policies would necessarily be decentralized.
But Napier said, "There's no clear-cut way the student can rely on."
SenExen will appoint a committee to study the drafts. Vickie Thomas, university general counsel, said the committee still could propose the Yale policy as a model.
Regents propose alternative standards for state's teacher education program
"The these are only drafts," she said. "The final decision is up to the chancelor."
Staff Reporter
By LISA MASSOTH Staff Reporter
The proposals are unpopular with the School of Education at the University of Kansas and with other institutions.
Potential teachers will be required to have a minimum 2.5 grade point average and pass an entrance exam before being admitted to the State Board of Education proposals become law.
Dale P. Scannell, dean of the School of Education, said the emphasis on entry into the school was not as important as competency at the time the certificate was granted.
Sandra McMullen, chairman of the Board of Regents, presented to the Board of Education yesterday a three-part approach that the Regents felt was more favorable than the Board of Education's idea. The plan included: an assessment of basic skills when the teacher is ready to begin teaching, a certification exam to teach, a supervised teaching internship for one year.
"We want to see the emphasis at graduation and when they're entering teaching and not several years earlier." Scannell said. "There are other reasons for people to demonstrate their ability to teach."
"We feel what we're doing is better than what they propose." "S. annell said.
The present requirement for entry to the School of Education is 2.2 or 2.3 GPA, dependent on test成绩.
This year, the School of Education instituted a new program for teacher education, increasing the number of credit hours needed for graduation from 124 to 160, which increased the number of students enrolled in the education students to complete at least 100-110 hours outside the School of Education and 50-60
inside the school. Citing the reason for the change, Scannell said. "We have always felt that the state requirement of 22 hours of professional education courses was not sufficient."
All students who become freshmen after May
181 are subject to the requirements of the new pr
edium.
To obtain a teaching certificate, a prospective teacher must have a diploma from the School of Education and a recommendation from the school. Scannell said.
Joe McFarland, acting executive officer of the Board of Regents, agreed admission to the School of Education should not require a 2.5 GPA.
"That time in a student's career is not the time it should be applied," he said.
He was also worried that all the affected students would not be fairly compared.
"Some come from junior colleges, some are changing from other majors and some were undecided," he said. "A 2.5 is realistic for a diploma or a certificate."
Lelop Carps, associate dean of the School of Education, also said graduation was a more important factor in the program.
"I test (testing) should be done at the end to determine the quality of people we're grading," he said.
The aims of the Board of Education and the Board of Regents are the same, but the methods used to reach these aims were the cause for disagreement, Capps said.
The Regents had several reasons for opposing the stricter requirements. The 2.5 requirement would block students who otherwise were qualified from becoming teachers, McMullen said, and it would discriminate against students attending institutions with tougher grading standards. It could also create transfer problems and it could discriminate against
"It is based on the idea of a more highly qualified teacher," Capps said.
students who are educationally disadvantaged but who want to enter teacher education programs, she said. Also, the grades would be lowered if teachers lacked on skills or knowledge related to teaching.
The Regents also believe each institution should have the right to make its own decisions instead of being forced to comply with a required admission examination.
Scannell said the school wanted to retain the right to develop its own entrance and retention standards. The school has an English competency test, usually given to sophomores, that is administered and graded by the English department as a study fails it, he must take English 359, grammar and usage for composition, and pass with a C or better to be admitted to the school.
"The uniformity of the entry level last bothers McMullen said. "We feel that puts a quota at the door."
"There are some areas you can't test on paper," McMullen said. "You can't test the ability and desire to communicate verbally. You have a common sense, warmth and enthusiasm."
More than a number score on a written exam needs to be taken on observation when being asked to participate in other activities.
The State Board of Education will vote on the proposed measures at its 10 a.m. meeting today. If the board approves the proposals, they go before a legislative rules and regulations committee which will hold hearings and either approve or oppose the proposed rules, McFarland will
McFarland tried to be optimistic.
If adopted, the regulations would be effective May 1, 1982.
"We're not speculating on what we're going to do until they do," he said. "We did what we thought was right. I hope their judgment is as good as ours."
KURT JACKSON/Kansan Staff
Chime of day
"The carillon is not an instrument for a musician with a very big ego," says Al Gerken, University carillonneur. The carillon—53 cast-bronze bells controlled by a console of oak keys—has been Gerken's pride and joy for the past 19 years, but often his weekly Wednesday and Sunday performances from the campanile go unnoticed. See story and photos. Inside on page 6.
Iowa voters decisively defeat use of Bible as school book
By United Press International
TFFEN, Iowa-Voters in the Clear Creek School District turned out in record numbers yesterday and overwhelmingly defeated a group to adopt the Bible as a supplementary textbook.
District officials said the vote was 689-90 to reject the proposal. The turnout was a record,
Ian Johnson, a University of Iowa Law student, forced a referendum on the issue by gathering a couple dozen signatures on a petition.
Johnson's proposal has attracted national attention, but few have spoken in his favor. He said yesterday that passage would be "a miracle of God."
Julie Golden, Iowa Civil Liberties Union executive director, said the proposition's defeat was the nation's "first real victory against religious zealots since the November election."
Golden said the proposed measure was unconstitutional, and that those who voted for the measure did not believe in it.
"But I knew that educated voters would vote with common sense," she said.
of the district, which includes
See BRLF. page 5.
Weather
Today will be clear with a high of 88 degrees, according to the KU Weather Service. Winds will be from the southwest at 3 to 8 mph. Tonight there will be continued clear skies with a low of 88 degrees.
Tomorrow will be mostly clear with a high in the upper 80s.
Bumper ragweed crop brings hay fever misery
By TERESA RIORDAN Staff Reporter
To the delight of honeybees and the dismay of hayfever sufferers, rageweed is at the height of its annual discharge of pollen.
Because of this year's high summer rainfall, raggedweed is lush this season, and hayfever sufferers, as they do every August and September, are chewing and scratching their red, watering eves.
'We are now experiencing a peak in ragweed pollen and we will experience another in about two weeks before the production diminishes around Oct. 1,' said Frederic Speer, a physician and the director of the Speer Allergy Clinic in Mission.
"We never have a crop failure of ragweed."
Small clusters of tiny, greenish flowers release the ragweed pollen in early morning and winds disperse and suspend the pollen for the rest of the day.
Speer, who has taken daily pollen counts for 25 years, said, "I don't even need to take the counts. My patients can tell me how much pollen is in the air just by how much they are suffering."
About 10 percent of the North American population suffers from hay fever, according to
Relief from hay fever comes from avoiding the pollen, taking allergy shots before the season arrives.
"People don't realize how important it is to keep the windows closed, especially since it hasn't been very hot," Bruce Pfuetze, a Kansas City, Kan., allergyist said.
If hiding from the pollen doesn't help, hayfever sufferers should consult their pharmacists for advice.
They don't necessarily need the air con-
duit on, but a high-efficiency air filter
hallo.
If those don't work, sufferers should go to an allergist for an allergy evaluation, Footez said.
Hay fever, also called poliinsuffis, is an allergic reaction to the pollen of some plants and is the most common cause of a seasonal illness.
Watkins Hospital is distributing about 50 orders for antihistamines daily for hayfever sufferers, John Baughman, Watkins pharmacist, said.
"The degree that the pollen is allergenic is just
The demand for the antihistamines, given only by prescription at wakthins, always increases with age.
Different people are sensitive to different pollens and many are sensitive to more than one kind. However, about 75 percent of people with hay fever are allergic to rauweed pollen.
as important as how much is present," Speer said.
There have been unsuccessful attempts to eradicate raagweed, a common plant that grows wild and flourishes in the moist, rich soils of the Midwest, Speer said.
"They tried to kill it in Chicago, but only got rid of about 20 percent," he said.
"When you're suffering, eight people beating on you is about the same as 10."
The best way to conquer ragged allergies,
the best way to do with the individual
hay sufferer safely in your home.
Since this is also the season for molds, some people may suffer from an allergy that pollen causes.
"Symptoms for mold allergies are sometimes similar, but generally, mold allergies involve the presence of spores."
"And molds can be indoors and in food, so closing the windows doesn't shut them out."
Friday, the pollen count was near 2,000 pollen particles per cubic meter of air but yesterday's count was 701, in a court done by Menorah Hospital in Kansas City, Mo.
"We really can't account for the fluctuations in the numbers," Jonathan Hydt, assistant public relations officer at Bloomberg Media.
"Winds and rainfall can make a difference, but we really don't know to what degree."