A record 9,706 people became U.S. citizens yesterday in Miami's Orange Bowl in what was billed as the country's largest naturalization ceremony. Among them was
Citizen skein
23-year-old Amparo Carrera, the daughter of Cuban emigres; "I don't know why I waited so long. I have always thought I was an American." See story, page 2.
Mostly sunny
High, mid-80s. Low. 60s.
Details on page 3.
The University Daily
KANSAN
Vol. 95, No. 17 (USPS 650-640)
Tuesday, September 18, 1984
City to review Naismith development plan
BV CHRIS BARBER
Staff Reporter
An area of green space in south Lawrence may fall to the blades of builders, and neighbors fear that the proposed developments may worsen flooding problems.
The Lawrence City Commission tonight will consider the final plat of the Naismith West Subdivision. a 24-45-acre parcel along Naismith Creek, south of 24th Street between Oustahl Road and Naismith Drive.
The plat, which shows easements and rights of way in map form, contains 350-380 units on 16 lots.
But homeowners in the area say that any further development will only increase flooding on their property, which they say has been a continuing problem.
"You can have all the ordinances you want, but the simple fact is that water runs downhill, and it does so faster off of concrete than grass." said Marshall Crowther, 1230 W. 29th Court, who will speak for the Indian Hills Neighborhood Association at tonight's meeting. The association is a group of area homeowners.
CROWTHER SAID THAT any significant rainfall caused flooding on his property.
"We often have a swift current 30 feet up into our vard." he said.
Crowther said residents in the area had three main fears that he intended to present to the commission tonight.
one concern is that the cars of the residents of 350 more living units would jam the streets with extra traffic, he said.
the streets we will use.
A solution that has been proposed by the planning staff and commission for handling increased traffic flow is to extend Naismith Drive from 23rd Street to 24th Street, said Dean Palos, city county planner.
residents also object to developing the wooded area because it is one of few remaining natural areas in the Lawrence city limits, said Joyce Wolf, president of the Jayhawk Audobon Society.
"This development is typical of the whole picture," she said. "Lawrence is gradually losing its green spaces. Development and maintaining green space do not have to be mutually exclusive. Of course, ideally we would like to see as much of the area remain as it is now."
WOLF SAID THE area was home for many species of birds and other small animals, including beaver.
However, the biggest concern of area residents is that replacing trees and grass
including on a land
"We would like to see as much of the area
maintained as possible." Wolt said. "Each time a habitat is destroyed, it's permanent."
with roads, buildings and parking lots will send more water downstream into their homes and yards during heavy rains.
"It doesn't make sense to build in an area where water moves so fast." Wolf said.
BUT ED COLLISTER, the attorney representing the developers, Western Home Builders Inc and Four Seasons Inc, said he had considered possible flooding problems.
"We have had studies done that say that the development won't negatively affect flooding," Collister said.
Record is set as balloonist crosses coast
See NAISMITH, p. 6, col. 1
By United Press International
BORDEAUX, France — American aviator Joe Kittering, cruising smoothly in his Balloon of Peace, reached the French coast yesterday to complete the first solo Atlantic balloon crossing in half the time it took three men to make the same trip six years ago.
Kittinger kept floating and didn't plan to land his 10-story balloon until early this morning.
The 56-year-old former Air Force test pilot and Vietnam POW crossed the French coast at 3:30 p.m. CDT, according to trackers in Massachusetts. He skirted the Spanish border for several hours but had no plans to after dark at 1 a.m. CDT today, after sunrise in France.
"He's floating along the northern border of Spain between France and Spain, but it doesn't appear that he's going to cross into Spain," said Jim Mitchell, directing the project from the Bedford, Mass., tracking post.
"It WON'T BE daylight until approximately 2 a.m. EDT" and we assume that sometime thereafter he'll find a safe spot and put the balloon down there and land," he said.
Mitchell said late yesterday that Kittinger was considering landing the balloon in the Mediterranean near Marseilles.
Kittinger left Maine Friday night. He crossed the Atlantic in 68 hours — less than half the time it took the Double Eagle II to make the same trip in August 1978. That balloon, plotted by three businessmen from Albuquerque, N.M., was the first Atlantic balloon crossing in history.
No one had ever successfully made the trip since, or alone, Mitchell said.
The longest balloon flight on record is a trans Pacific crossing by Ben Abruzzo, Ron Clark and Larry Newman of Albuquerque, N.M. and Rocky Aoki, of Key Biscayne, Fla. They took off from Nagashima, Japan, on Nov 10, 1981, and landed North of San Francisco Nov 12, having floated 6,000 miles
THE DOUBLE EAGLE H trip, by a crew of three led by the late Maxie Anderson, took 137 hours and landed in Misery, France, about 60 miles northwest of Paris Mitchell said the trip was the best of his career, picking a wind pattern that could float him along at a higher speed.
There have been five previous solo balloon attempts to cross the Atlantic, but all failed.
The Bailoon of Peace also is slight
smaller than the Double Eagle II, he said.
Controllers in Brest, in France's northwestern province of Brittany, said Kittinger had made only indirect contact with them. The device was not used to increase the battery on his transmitter was weak.
Robert Waddill/KANSAN
Pam Malmowski, Kansas City, Kan., senior, concentrates Jawahra practiced yesterday afternoon on the field west of on reading her music as she plays trombone. The Marching Oliver Hall.
Money to determine fate of nuclear reactor
Rv JOHN HANNA
Staff Reporter
More than 20 years ago, the University of Kansas dedicated a reactor that would help it build a nuclear engineering program.
But nuclear engineering is no longer offered, and the reactor, on 15th Street across from Green Hall, is used infrequently. Some officials would 't mind if it were shut down.
The Student Senate University Affairs Committee tonight will debate a proposed resolution asking the Kansas Legislature and the Board of Regents to include in the University's fiscal year 1986 budget the necessary to shut down the nuclear reactor.
"I'd like to see it be decommissioned whether it is being used or not," Highberger said yesterday. "If it's used more, it's more dangerous."
Dennis "Boog" Highberger, student body vice president, is the author of the non binding resolution.
THE NUCLEAR REACTOR Center began operation in 1961, and the University used it for research for a master's degree program
in nuclear engineering. But the University dropped the program 16 years ago because of a back of interest.
Radiation biophysics classes use the reactor to irradiate molecules, said Rosson, who also is the Nuclear Reactor Center's acting supervisor. The University also gives tours of the building
Harold Rosson, chairman of the department of chemical and petroleum engineering, estimated that the reactor was used less than four hours a week.
BOB BEARSE, ASSOCIATE vice chancellor for research and graduate studies, said a temporary University committee about two years ago recommended to the administration that the reactor be shut down. Bearse served on that committee.
"We rarely run over 10 kilowatts," he said.
"One kilowatt is the power that you would pump into a toaster."
"There's nobody tightening to keep this thing open," he said. "If it didn't cost anything, sure we'd like to see it shut down."
He said the reactor was a small one
But money is a problem. Bearse and
Reygen said.
the reactor with the permission of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by either tearing down the entire building or by filling in the reactor unit.
Bearse said the University could shut down
In both cases, the fuel in the reactor — less than three kilograms of high-grade uranium 235 — would have to be removed. The reactor is encased in a 20-foot blue concrete structure and is protected by about 610,000 pounds of concrete and about 6,500 gallons of water.
water
LAST SPRING, THE NRC tried to encourage the University and other universities with reactors to switch to a lower-grade fuel. Rosson said he wouldn't mind if the government took the high-grade fuel back without giving the University the low-grade fuel.
would cost ROSSON SAID DISMANTLING the entire building would cost between $600,000 and $1 million. In both cases, the University would pay for the shutdown with money allocated by the Kansas Legislature.
Shutting down the reactor could take two or three weeks, Rosson said.
Bearse said the University could till up the reactor unit with gravel and seal it off. That would cost between $50,000 and $100,000.
Senate panel must check list of names
If signatures verified next step could be vote on GLSOK funds
By JOHN HANNA Staff Reporter
Signatures on a controversial petition concerning the Gay and Lesbian Services of Kansas will be verified within the next week by members of the Student Senate Elections Committee.
The petition, submitted in April by Steve Imber, Lawrence senator, calls for the Senate to allow students to decide in a campus election whether GLSOR will receive Senate votes.
Members of the committee now will check the signatures on the petition against computer enrollment lists for last semester to determine whether the petition is valid.
THE MOTION SAID. "A valid petition, if not acted upon in the semester in which it is presented, will then still be valid for the following semester."
The Elections Committee took no specific action on the petition last night at its first meeting of the semester, but it voted 10-4 in favor of an oral motion concerning students' petitions to hold elections.
Thom Davidson, chairman of the Elections Committee, said last night that the motion would have to be put into bill form and presented to the Student Senate Rights Committee for passage. The Elections Department subcommittee of the Rights Committee.
Davidson said the motion would be an amendment of current Student Senate rules. He said he would try to have the bill ready for the Right's Committee meeting tonight.
Senate rules now do not say whether the signatures on a petition circulated in the spring can force the Senate to call an election in the fall.
BEFORE THE VOTE Davidson said,
"This is going to be a hard decision because
we have no precedent to follow. What we will
be doing is setting precedent."
He said committee members would be finished checking the signatures by the end of the year.
committees or on the petition are valid.
Davidson said, the Elections Committee can decide whether it must automatically hold an election or whether it can debate the content of the petition.
Under Student Senate rules, 10 percent of a semester's enrollment must sign a petition
Davidson said that the required number for the spring semester was about 2,100. Imber said last night that he had collected more than 2,500 signatures.
Surge in language enrollment crowds classrooms
By JOHN EGAN
Staff Reporter
A dramatic rise in enrollment for the three primary foreign languages at the University of Kansas has created crowded classrooms, department chairmen said recently.
Increased enrollment in the three foreign languages with the largest number of students. Spanish, French and German are taught but not of this magnitude, the email says.
chain their sales.
"I don't think anyone anticipated it," said Robert Spires, chairman of the department of Spanish and Portuguese.
1. Michael Young, associate dean of the
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, said that because of limited resources, additional sections could not be opened.
"The extent of the demand was more than I expected," he said.
Young attributed the increased foreign language enrollment to a renewed interest in studying foreign languages among high school students.
EVENT TAKING INTO account the expected number of students who will drop their foreign language courses. Young said, this semester's foreign language enrollment still will be above last fall's.
"I think it reflects a broad, nationwide trend," Young said.
By comparing initial class rosters from
this semester with those from fall 1983, the department chairman said enrollment for freshman and sophomore courses had jumped by as much as 26 percent.
This semester's enrollment in the four beginning Spanish courses rose by 14 percent from fall 1883. Spires said. This fall, 1,287 students are enrolled in beginning Spanish courses, he said. Last fall, the number was 1,125.
THE MOST SIGNIFICANT increase, he said, was in Elementary Spanish II. In fall 1983, 226 students were enrolled in the course on the first day of classes. On the first day of classes this semester, 305 students were enrolled in that class, which represents an increase of about 35 percent from last year.
"By a conservative estimate, we turned away 75 to 100 students who couldn't enroll," he said.
This fall, Elementary Spanish I and II were closed within the first hour of enrollment. Soures said.
Even with the addition of two sections of Elementary Spanish I based on summer enrollment, bringing the total to 21, classes remain overcrowded, he said.
With classes that big, Spires said, the learning process suffers
emerging process sources.
"WE CAN STILL teach the language, and
Most classes average 29 students each, he said. Some classes have as many as 32 students. But ideally, each class should have 40. Scores said.
The class was not overcrowded, she said, but a smaller class would improve communication between the professor and students
students are still learning, but something is sacrificed," he said.
john Williams, chairman of the department of French and Italian, said enrollment in the four freshman and sophomore level French courses had increased by 26 percent this semester over fall 1983.
See LANGUAGE, p. 5, col. 1.