Last Kansan
Today's Kansan is the last of the fall semester. The Kansan's special holiday supplement will be distributed Wednesday. Publication resumes Jan. 16.
Woman alone
Although ethnic female protagonists are rare in literature, Eunice Stallworth says she hopes to change that with her one-woman show, "Images." see page 3.
The University Daily
Sunny
High, 50s. Low, 30s.
Details on page 3.
KANSAN
Joe Wilkins III/KANSAN
Vol. 95, No. 73 (USPS 650-640)
Monday, December 10, 1984
James Barnes, director of the University Band Brass Auditorium. The band played before the evening performance of the 60th annual Vespers last night. See page 8. Ensemble, leads the band from the balcony of Hoch
By United Press International
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Iranian security men disguised as cleaners stormed a hijacked Kuwaiti jettler in a blaze of gunfire in Teheran yesterday, freed nine hostages and captured the four air pirates who had threatened to blow up the plane with everyone on board, Iranian officials said.
Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency said the nearly six days of terror at Teheran airport ended with the Arabic speaking hijackers and the hostages leaving the plane with their hands raised 20 minutes after the raid began.
HRNA said two Kuwaitis "who the hijackers claimed to have murdered" were among the nine hostages released. The gunmen killed two U.S. government officials in the first three days of the blajacking, which began Tuesday.
began a research.
"For me, the Iranian forces were like angels who had descended from the sky," said treed Ambassador-at-large Khalifa Hussein Muslim, one of three Kuwaiti officials on the hijackers' death list
BUSINESSMAN JOIN COSTA. 50 one of two Americans reported treed, described the rescue operation as "excellent," the agency
reported in a dispatch monitored in Beirut The British pilot also was released.
"The operation went by so fast and unexpectedly that I didn't notice it," Costa told IRNA from a hospital bed.
The agency said Costa, whose hometown was not given, was being treated for bruised eyes in the Iran Air medical center at Teceran Mhrebrad International Airport.
bag for their lives.
In Washington, a State Department spokesman expressed concern for the welfare of the Americans and said, "We look forward to their speedy return to U.S. custody."
It did not say how he was injured, but some of the hostages said the hijackers had beaten some of the passengers and forced them to beg for their lives.
KUWAIT, AFTER MIDDLE SIXTH WEEK with the Teheran government over the handling of the crisis, thanked the franians and other nations for their help in ending the bijacking.
in Pakistan. The Foreign Ministry in Teheran said the rescue began after a top Iranian official announced Iran's plans in an airport meeting with the charges d'affaires of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and the ambassadors of Syria, Pakistan and Switzerland.
See HIJACK, p. 5, col. 1
Shutdown of reactor, academic program possible University officials discuss fate of center Radiation program may be axed
By JOHN HANNA
Staff Reporter
The talk now is different.
On a Saturday more than 22 years ago, University of Kansas officials dedicated a Nuclear Reactor Center that the Chancellor then W. Clarke Wescoe, called a symbol of Kansas "march to the future."
A University Council committee on Wednesday will consider discontinuing the radiation biophysics program, the only academic program on campus that uses the reactor regularly. The reactor now operates for an average of only a few hours a week
The team that "the reactor won't last another 100 years," sometimes between now and the year 200 we have to get rid of it," Bob Bearse, associate vice chancellor for research and graduate studies, said last week. "It's simply a matter of time for decommissioning."
AND IN A separate move, University officials are looking for ways to return the reactor's fuel. 2.5 kilograms of enriched Uranium 235, to the U.S. government, as early as next year. Bearse said.
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission this summer renewed the University's license for the reactor, and administrators said no concrete plans for its removal existed.
conference panel But, administrators also said the University intended to shut down the reactor eventually.
"It's just that we haven't got a date or a dollar figure on that intention so far." Allen
Wiechert, director of facilities planning, said last week.
One problem for the University is money. Bearse said that he did not know exactly how much a total decommissioning of the reactor would cost, but that it would be somewhere between $500,000 and $1 million. Total decommissioning involves removing the reactor, tearing apart the building and moving the rubble to a dump site.
BEAMSE SAID UNIVERSITY officials could have the reactor unit filled in, which would be less expensive, but he and others do not know how much such a process would cost. The money would be allocated by the Kansas Legislature.
Harold Rosson, chairman of the department of chemical and petroleum engineering, said the reactor's operation cost the University between $15,000 and $20,000 a year Rosson also is the Nuclear Reactor Center's acting supervisor.
Bearse said, "It's sort of like you're going to buy a yacht. If you have to ask, you can't afford it.
Benjamin Friesen, professor of radiation biophysics and biochemistry, said the reactor's possible shutdown also could be seen in terms of what is called alara.
"We have no idea what ball game we're in. The ball game we think we're in, we can't afford."
ALARA MEANS "AS low as reasonably achievable" Under federal regulations, the University is required to keep the levels and releases of radiation in its reactor as low as
reasonably achievable, given technology,
economics and possible benefits
Friesen, who also is director of radiation safety services and is the University's radiation safety officer, said he interpreted the federal regulations to mean that, if benefits in operating a reactor did not exist, the reactor should be shut down.
the test or sobre use of the
If the radiation biophysies program were
discontinued, Friesen said, no such benefit
would be present.
MATHOUGH BEARSE SAD the possible discontinuity would not directly cause the shutdown of the reactor, he said it would be a factor in a decision to do so.
"A discontinuance of radiation biophysics makes the need for getting the fuel off campus even greater," he said.
And University officials, Bearse said, last month asked the Department of Energy to provide casks for shipping the energy to out-of-state sites.
Bearse said he did not know how much removing just the fuel from campus would cost, but he said he hoped the expense would be about $10,000.
Roy Garrison, chief of transportation for the Department of Energy, on Friday confirmed that the department had received a request for the casks, which must be certified as safe for use by both the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Regulatory Comments:
The casks are made of steel and lead, and are 34.5 inches long, 32 inches wide and 71 inches tall. Garrison said
By JOHN EGAN Staff Reporter
Rebuilding the radiation biophysics program was one of the goals last year of Robert Laneberry, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
and Sciences
But this week, a University Council council will consider eliminating the program, which offers two undergraduate and two graduate degrees and trains students to enter the fields of radiation safety and medical physics.
In a Sept. 1, 1983, letter to Kenneth Wheeler, who joined the program as a professor of radiation biophysics and a senior scientist in October 1983, Lineberry wrote: "Plans for development of radiation biophysics are moving ahead baldly. As we begin to celebrate a milestone in the history of our radiation biophysics program, we will be able to announce to our alumni a significant enhancement of that program, which will I think, quickly establish it as a premier program within our nation."
A LITTLE MORE than a year after writing that letter, Lineberry wrote Deanell Tacha, vice chancellor for academic affairs, to suggest that the program be discontinued.
The program in radiation biophysics, which once existed as the department of radiation biophysics, now confronts a serious crisis in its existence. Its recent history has been an unstable one. It is now time to assess whether the College and the University desire to continue our program in
radiation biophysics. It is my judgment that we should not."
In that memo, dated Sept 13, 1984, Lineberry outlined what he saw as "five principal problems" with the program:
- The program has a long history of high faculty turnover.
- academic circles
four students are attracted to the
program
- Program faculty members are not research oriented
- The program does not belong in the College.
- The program does not harmonize with the areas of needed development in the College and the University.
Today, radiation biophysics faculty members disagree with Lineberry's estimation of the program and are working to keep the program alive.
The University Council Committee on Academic Procedures and Policies will consider discontinuing the program during a public hearing at 9 a.m. Wednesday in the Big Eight Room of the Kansas Union
Big Regents The committee will make a recommendation either for or against discontinuance and forward it to Chancellor Gene A. Budig. The Board of Regents then will act on Budig's recommendation
Lineberry could not be reached yesterday. Wheeler last week, "I think we are holding our own. Even in these adverse times, we're not doing bad. We're doing our
Balfour leaves legacy of service
See PROGRAM, p. 5, col. 4
By HOLLIE B. MARKLAND
Staff Reporter
Students have been like patients to William Balfour, University ombudsman and a former physician.
Bailour, a professor of physiology and cell biology who has advised and taught thousands of students, will retire in May after 28 years at the University of Kansas
Ballour, the 1981 winner of the Honor for an Outstanding Progressive Educator Award, said he had received more satisfaction from teaching than from his other duties at KU
"My own philosophy is that, of the three things we are supposed to do — teaching, research and service — teaching is the most important in my life."
DAVID AMBLER, VICE chancellor for student affairs, said Bafour was "the kind of man who can walk down a noisy street and bear a cricket in a crevice. He's always looking out for the individual who needs help and he's an easy pushover for those who do."
Bailour celebrated his 70th birthday last month and must retire according to University policy. He said he probably would continue to advise students, especially students in pre-health science, after he retired.
"I'm looking forward to not having to get in
fair. I don't want to." he said.
When he started at KU in 1957, Balfour taught medical students. In 1967, he became dean of students and in 1969, the dean of student affairs
"THEERWERE A number of protests, but the burning of the Union was certainly the most disastrous of those," he said. "It was a stupidity because the Union belonged to students."
But while he was an administrator, he continued to teach the 7:30 a.m. human physiology class that he teaches now.
Ballour chose teaching over practicing medicine
"The practice of medicine gave me a lot of anxiety. I was not particularly good at it."
Buffalo was vice chancellor for student affairs when the Kansas Union burned in
Balfour said that his accomplishments as vice chancellor for student affairs were his most important achievements.
"I was looked on as the only friend the students had in the administration," he said. "I had no problem talking with the students, but sometimes I was scared to death. I went to meetings in their apartments, sometimes late at night."
Members of the administration warned him against going to such meetings, he said, but he went anyway
but the well-known most of the protests in the late 1960s and early 1970s were directed against the Vietnam War. Balfour said, but they were mixed with protests for student involvement in University governance.
in University government.
"The students always used to come to the chancellor's office," he said. "Once there was a three-day sleep in there."
"THE UNDERLYING THING that kept bothering me — and that I could not get the protesters to see — was that when they were protesting national or international events like the Vietnam War, it didn't do any good to hold a meeting outside Strong Hall."
In 1977, Balfour became the University
ombudsman.
ambassador
Ambler said, "Balfour was the ideal candidate for the job. He is a respected faculty member."
faculty member.
Balfour said being a respected member of the faculty and a good listener had helped him be effective as an ambassador.
"I think there are few people who feel I'm hostile toward any segment of the University," he said. "That's one trap that the ombiasm can fall into — being looked at as a student advocate rather than an advocate for solving issues."
William Balfour, University embudman and professor of human physiology, will retire in May after 28 years at the University of Kansas.