Campus/Area
University Daily Kansan / Monday, October 22. 1990
3
Richard Quinn/KANSAN
Biting satire
Comedian George Carlin pokes fun at pets, politics, Dan Quayle and 2 Live Crew during a sold-out show at Hoch Auditorium. Carlin brought his bawdy brand of humor to KU Saturday night.
Volunteers aid mentally ill
George Parks said he finally had learned what friends were for.
By Courtney Eblen
Kansan staff writer
Parks, 41, developed a persistent mental illness in 1986. Like many ill people, Parks said he began shying away from the public and eventually moved to another city, where was mentally retarded and ostracized him.
Then in February, Parks met Matt Hilderbrand, a KU student who had volunteered to help Parks reassimilate with society. The difference has been tremendous, both said.
"I found out that I've got somebody who really cares," Parks said. "Before I met Matt, I had a lot of problems, and I couldn't work them out."
But Hilderbrand is not a therapist, nor is he studying to be one. He is a Udall sophomore working toward a double major in history and political science.
Hilderbrand said he befriended Parks because they both liked to bowl and play basketball.
"He just wants to go out and have a good time." Hilderhand said.
That is the whole point of the Comperse Program, said organizer Kelly Merrick. The program operates out of the Bert Nash
"Compere means equal." Merrick said, "it not real condemnation relationship. It's not real condemnation."
Community Mental Health Center, 714 Vermont St.
Since Merrick began the Compere Program last year, more than 30 clients have been matched with volunteers ranging from college students to senior citizens, Merrick said. There are more than 120 Compere programs in the United States and Canada. Since Compere programs in the second largest in the state, Wichita's Compere Program is the largest.
Parks and Hilderbrand meet about once a week. They play basketball or miniature golf, or they go to the Pizza Kit at 934 Massachusetts St., where Parks used to work as a dishwasher. Sometimes, they just feel like talking, Parks said.
Merrick, who is working toward her master's degree in social work at KU, said volunteers helped clients' recovery tremen- ture by getting them to assimilate with society.
"People with persistent mental illnesses often isolate themselves because of the stigma attached to their disease," Merrick said.
"A lot of the people we have matched up were very socially isolated," she said. "The stigma is a phobic thing. It needs to be removed." She says that mental illness, but they are not retarded.
Hilderbrand had known of the stigma but no had idea how it had really been until Parks began elaborating about the people who street or the people who had laughed at him.
"If you want to be a volunteer, you have to swallow hard." Hilderbrand said.
But Hilderbrand said that Parks had gained confidence since he met him. No matter where they go, someone always knows Parks.
"We'll be downtown, and someone will walk up and say, 'Hi, George!' "Hilderbrand said. "He has more hair than I do, and he's over twice my age. That's bad news."
Merrick said that Competer friendships helped clients find more friends in the community. Volunteers need to be at least 18 years old, have a car and be willing to work as a volunteer at least once a week for a year, more volunteers still are needed, especially男
Speaker says avoid isolation
"This is a good program to get your feet wet in volunteering." Hilderbrand said.
By Carol Krekeler
Kansan staff writer
The United States cannot be a world power if U.S. leaders continue to set economic policies that isolate other world powers, in the case of Iran or the U.S. Department Commerce, said Friday.
Klokse, the main speaker at the Economic Outlook Conference, spoke to about 250 people in the Kansas Union Ballroom. The audience included students and members of sessions about Kansas's economic outlook.
I think one of the most tremendous changes and challenges that we face as a nation is the fact that we can no longer afford to look inward." Kloske said. "Policies of both domestic, political and economic isolationism are virtually obsolete."
jolted because many East European countries recently had developed free-market economies.
The U.S. concept of being the world power, which emerged after World War II, will have to change because of the economic structural reforms in other nations, he said.
Kloske said the world economy had been
The Soviet Union has one of the bleakest economic outings in the world, he said.
"The Soviet Union is rapidly changing the face of Central Europe with the collapse of its political and economic power. Kloske said. "It has been a total failure as an economic leader."
Kloske said that the newest emerging economic power was the united Germany.
"They have tremendous technological capabilities, a superbly trained work force and they are terribly disciplined." Kloske said. "It is an economic giant that is about to reoccupy its historical role in terms of closing Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union."
Knole said education in the sciences, especially engineering, was how European and Asian countries would surpass the United States economically.
"Education at the state level needs rethinking," he said. "Do we really have enough engineers and enough trained people still to provide education in that area?"
Officials, students disagree on minority enrollment
By Holly M. Neuman
Kansan staff writer
But student leaders of minority groups said the figures led to clear conclusions.
Although enrollment figures show KU ranks seventh among Big Eight and peer institutions in percentage of student participation, disagree about what that means.
Variables make comparisons of minority enrollments misleading, said Tom Hutton, associate director of university relations.
"I don't find them confusing at all." Darren Fulcher, executive board member of Black Men of Today, said about the figures. "It is pretty clear that there aren't enough numbers in SU. That is what the number shows."
Some school authorities found accurate enrollment comparisons at issue
"Is it difficult to get an accurate comparison of schools across the
Universities may use different methods to compile minority enrollment figures, making comparisons difficult.
country? , with that I would definitely agree," said Dana Bardon, coordinator of the registrar's office at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
For example, foreign students are not included in minority enrollment totals at many schools, including the University of Kansas. That means students representing minority groups are not represented in minority enrollment totals.
Phil Reid, admissions officer at the University of Oregon, one of KU's five peer institutions, said, "Even if our domestic enrollment was 100 percent minority students, our minority enrollment would still be more than that because we do no foreign students in our outlabs."
Peer schools are similar to KU in size and mission, their states being
similar demographically, economically and in the manner that their systems of higher education are organized.
At KU, 1,933 students were categorized as non-resident aliens this semester. These students are not enrolled at KU and they may represent a minority group.
Reporting differs
Minority enrollment totals also vary because some schools receive each student's ethnic background information, but other schools do not.
At KU, students have the option to declare their ethnic backgrounds. This semester, 1,390 students did not declare.
"Every semester this is part of the numbers game," said Chico Herbison, assistant director of admissions. "There are many students who may not say, and some for good reasons. Both minorities and majority students
sometimes refuse to declare."
This means some minority students may not be included in the minority enrollment totals, said Dana Perry, an institutional research and planning.
Some minority student leaders said non-reporting students had little effect on minority totals.
Fulcher said, "If the minority numbers are bad, which they are, the University can use that figure of non-reporting students to say the numbers are probably higher In response, how much higher can it be?"
Angela Cervantes, president of the Hispanic American Leadership Organization, also downplayed the importance of non-reporting students.
"If the University has the option of saying that minority figures could be higher because 200 people didn't declare, it works well for the University," she said.
say, she said. Some other institutions get ethnic information on each student.
Joanne Kucharski, assistant to the registrar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a KU peer school, said, "By the time we get all of the information we have all of the students' ethnic backgrounds.
Populations vary
Demographics also affect minority figures, Teeter said. Schools are in areas with varying minority populations.
For example, the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University have the most American universities in schools and KU's five peer institutions.
In 1988 the Bureau of Indian Affairs reported that 231,852 American Indians were born in Oklahoma. That year Kansas had 77 American Indians on
federal reservations.
but out 1990, 588 American Indians enrolled at Oklahoma and 715 at Oklahoma State. There are 156 American Indians enrolled at KU this semester.
Accurate comparisons
An enrollment numbers system called IPEDS uses common definitions and categories to make minority enrollment figures comparable. Most high schools are calculating Fall 1990 figures with the system, Teeter said.
"Of course you count on people following the directions, but there is a category for non-resident aliens, and there is a category for missing data," Teeter said. "This is probably the most reliable data, and the results should be available before too long. But the most reliable comparisons are schools with similar definitions."
Statement against proposed engineering fee given to Regents
By Yvonne Guzman
Kansan staff writer
a proposed fee that could cost engineering students up to $250 each semester is unfair, according to a statement presented to the Board of Regents by the Student Advisory Council on Thursday.
The $15-per-credit hour fee would be used by the schools of engineering at the University of Kansas, Kansas State University and Wichita State University to improve the availability of the schools' computers and
Stanley Koplik, executive director of the Regents, said Saturday that he
had not had a chance to look at the statement submitted by SAC and that he did not have a position on the issue yet.
software.
Kopik said that the three universities involved would have to show exactly how the money would be used, that other areas of the program would not be at risk and that all the resources of financing had been exhausted.
Mike Schreiner, student body president and a member of SAC, said the
fee would cloud students' decisions about what to study.
"It our opinion that the University's best interests are served when students base their decisions on their faculty and talent," Schreiner said.
But Tom Mulinazzi, KU professor of civil engineering, said that although students had some valid
concerns, the quality of the school's programs were at stake.
"If we don't get money to some of our labs, the students go out the door are going to be inferior to other students," he said. "The employers expect our students to be computer literate."
Mulinazzi said the fee probably would not deter students from studying engineering because freshmen and sophomores usually took only one or two engineering courses per semester.
The school tried to impose a similar per-credit-hour fee a few years ago, but student complaints kept the school from being adopted. Mulmuzzi said.
See FEE, p. 14
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