Campus/Area
University Daily Kansan / Tuesday, October 10, 1989
3
$60,000 grant to help psychology research
By Anita Meyer
Kansan staff writer
To a person with AIDS, death is an everyday threat. To volunteers who work with AIDS patients, death means the inevitable loss of a friend.
Allen Omoto, assistant professor of psychology, said few other volunteer situations dealt with the sort of impending death that AIDS volunteers faced.
He recently received his second $80,000 grant to study the effects on volunteers who deal with AIDS patients. He said the financing would cover research through December 1990.
Omoto said the University of Kansas shared the grant with the University of Minnesota.
Effects on AIDS volunteers monitored by prof
Omoto said he had divided his AIDS research into three phases.
The first phase will study the motivation of a person who volunteers to do AIDS research.
"We want to know what the volunteers expect," Omita said. "Why do
they volunteer to the AIDS cause? People will sometimes volunteer because they want to meet new people and make friends or 'do good.'"
The second phase, Omoto said, would study the experiences of AIDS volunteers.
"These relationships are interpersonal," Oromo said. "When a person in assigned to be a 'buddy' to an AIDS patient, there is a sort of asymmetrical relationship. Someone's going to know how does this affect the volunteer?"
He said the third phase of the research would focus on the consequences of volunteers' experiences with AIDS.
"How do the experiences change volunteers' attitudes toward life?" he said. "How does it change their attitudes toward death, toward social activism? How does it change their
Omoto said this phase also would involve talking to friends and associates of the volunteer.
self-esteem?"
"The volunteer might talk to his friends." he said. "Does this affect their attitude toward AIDS or homosexuals? Does it make them want to do volunteer work for the AIDS cause?"
Omoto and his students also investigate longitudinal and cross-sectional effects. They track volunteers after they have stopped working with AIDS patients and survey current volunteers.
"We want to see if they experience long-term effects," he said.
Omoto and his students work with two main volunteer organizations: the Topkea AIDS Project and the Marshan Project in Kansas City, Mo.
by Oromo to AIDS volunteers who work for these projects. The volunteers are paid with grant money for answering questionnaires.
Douglas County has its own AIDS project, and Omotis on is its board of directors. He said he hoped the project would help him own his own training sessions by January.
Omoto said one of the most important aspects of volunteerism was the training they received.
"You need to be upbeat and positive." he said.
Tasha Akhtarkhavari, Hays senior, said she had done research on the attitudes toward different contractions of AIDS.
She gave subjects either positive or negative information before reading them a letter from a hypothetical AIDS patient.
At Aktkarkhavari's discretion, the hypothetical patient had either contracted the disease from a blood transfusion or homosexual contact.
The students were then to write letters to the hypothetical patient.
Akhtarkhavi found that the students generally were more sympathetic to the hypothetical patient who contracted AIDS through blood transfusions rather than sexual activity.
"It says something about the way we treat homosexuals," she said. "We need to learn to look at homosexuals in a different way if we're going to get anything done."
Ombo said that the type of stereotyping inflicted by society on homosexuals and that AIDS was the beginning point of his research.
"I was interested in looking at the stereotyping," he said, "I was looking at people's fears and beliefs. We were calling AIDS the 'gay plague.'"
Omoto said that the AIDS research had been in progress for about two years and that he hoped to have it concluded in one more year.
AURH, Panhellenic help Red Cross pass life on
By Holly Lawton
By Henry Lawte Kansan staff writer
That is the motto of the American Red Cross, which teamed up with Panhellenic and the Association of Female Volunteers for separate blood drives this week.
"Blood is life pass it on."
Yesterday, Ellsworth Hall looked like a small hospital as students gave their blood and their time to Red Cross. Today, Panhellenic kicks off a three-day drive in the Kansas Union Ballroom.
"The there is an enormous need for blood all the time." said Karen Brown, blood services consultant for the Red Cross. "The University of Kansas is very important to us in reaching our weekly goal of 1,800 units."
Maureen Beary, Overland Park sophomore and blood drive volunteer, said AURH hoped to collect 125 units. This goal is slightly more than last year's total of 117 units.
"You can see what a tremendous percentage of our weekly goal KU gives us," Brown said.
Liz O'Leary, vice president for campus affairs of Panhellenic, said its goal was 769 units over the three-day period. This total, combined with the 125 units from the residence halls, would contribute 875 units, more than a third of the Red Cross' weekly goal.
The 1,800 units of blood are separated at a lab in Wichita into four components: red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets and plasma, Brown said. The separate components are then sent to 130 hospitals in
Donors give blood at Ellsworth Hall during the Panhellenic and Association of University Residence Halls joint blood drive
the states of Kansas and Oklahoma. Brown said blood was sent to other areas only in emergencies. The Wichita region, which is conducting the KU drive, send 164 units of blood
two weeks ago to Charleston, S.C., which suffered the worst of Hurricane Hugo. The Red Cross center there was demolished.
'That means we now have 164 less
units for our own region," Brown said. "So we are working extra hard with these blood drives to make up for it."
ducted annually at KU. In addition to the two conducted in the fall, the Red Cross will sponsor another blood drive in the spring at the Kansas Union.
There are three blood drives con-
New pool doesn't get big splash Mayor says 1 swimming hole will be enough
By Dave Wakeofield Kansan staff writer
thew commissioners yesterday threw cold water on a suggestion to include an indoor pool in the plans for Lawrence's second high school.
Commissioners and the Lawrence School Board discussed the school, including a proposal to one mile west of Wakaraus Drive along 15th Street, at a joint meeting.
Mary Lou Wright, president of the board, asked commissioners to consider sharing costs for recreational facilities such as a pool and tennis courts. Similar facilities at Lawrence High School, 1901 Louisiana St., are open to the public during evening hours and weekends during the winter. The tennis courts also are open for public play during the summer.
But Mayor Bob Schumm said he saw the pool as a luxury.
With so many requests for projects already submitted, pool construction would have little chance of receiving financing, he said.
"We have two big requests coming in now: the art center expansion and the senior center." Schumm said. "Unless the existing pool is being a second pool would be a luxury. We cannot afford to duplicate services."
"How many of us here had an indoor swimming pool when we went to school?"
School superintendent Dan Neuenswander said, "When new multi-purpose rooms were added at some schools, the city decided to use them in a snap."
"We would help share operating costs." he said.
But Wright said every student must pass a swimming test or take one semester of swimming in order to graduate. She said the existing pool would not be sufficient if Warrence's high school population doubled.
Fred DeVictor, Lawrence parks and recreation director, said the city would want to use any facilities that were built.
But Neuenswander said city commissioners needed to agree how the city would use any new facilities before they would be planned.
West Campus houses variety of research communities
By Travis Butler
Kenan staff writer
Kansan staff writer
This article is the last in an occasional series.
The name on the front of one West Campus building is still "Foley Geohydrology Center," but the building, now called Foley Hall, is home to the Kansas Biological Survey.
This article is the last in an occasional series. The mission of three West Campus labs on research, which share the same spirit of research, Each has its own place in the life of the University.
The Biological Survey performs a function very similar to the Kansas Geological Survey, said Paul Lecchi, assistant director of the survey. While the Geological Survey's mission is to catalogue the state's geological resources, the Biological Survey's mission is to survey and inventory the state's biological resources — the plants and animals of Kansas.
"The Geological Survey is a little older than we are, but not much." Liechti said. "We received our state mandate in 1959, but we were formally organized at the University in 1911."
Most of the survey's work deals with water-related topics, he said. It has performed several studies on water quality, such as the effects of agricultural herbicides on the microscopic plant life in Tuttle Creek reservoir.
Liechii said, "We've been kind of nomads on campus. This is the first building we've had to ourselves."
The Biological Survey moved into its new home at Foley Hall on March 1, Lelihi said.
Rex Buchann, assistant director for public affairs for the Geological Survey, said that he was surprised when the geohydrology section of the Geological Survey moved.
Bridwell Lab is the home of the McGregor Hebarium, a member of the systematic museum collections. It houses a collection of more than 400,000 plant specimens from Kansas and the Great Plains area, said Ralph Brooks, acting director.
"What we're trying to do is have a representative of the kinds of plants in the rainforest."
People at the Herbarium have worked with the Kansas Board of Agriculture on several projects, Brooks said. They also have worked with doctors on cases of human or animal poisoning, trying to identify the plants responsible.
"We have by far and away the largest collection in the Great Plains," he said.
A third research building, the Merck, Sharp, and Dohme Research Labs, does not have any formal or legal association with the University. But there are links of memory
forged by the labs' founder, the late Takeru Higuchi, University Distinguished Professor of Pharmacy and Chemistry.
The labs grew out of some University work done by Higuchi, said Robert Bearse, associate vice chancellor of research, graduate studies and public service. Higuchi started a company that was called Alza, which later became the InterEx Research Corporation. InterEx was bought by Merck and Company in 1980.
The current head of the labs is Arnold Repta, a friend of Higuchi's and former member of the department of pharmaceutical chemistry at the University.
"We're in drug-delivery research." Repta said. "We do ideas and techniques for improved delivery of Merck drugs — to give them more effectively, and to reduce side effects."
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