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Kansan
Weather
Today: Partly cloudy with a high of 51 and a low of 31.
Tomorrow: Partly cloudy with a high of 56 and a low of 33.
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS Wednesday, November 29, 2000
Sports: The Kansas women's basketball team defeated Illinois 73-60 last night at Allen Fieldhouse.
SEE PAGE 1B
Inside: The Lawrence City Commission will consider a hotly contested housing ordinance.
SEE PAGE 3A
(USPS 650-640) • VOL. 111 NO. 62 For comments; contact Nathan Willis or Chris Borniger at 864-4810 or e-mail editor@kansan.com
WWW.KANSAN.COM
In 1991, the University of Kansas elected and impeached its first,and only Black student body president,capping an era of racial tension on campus. In 2000,Black enrollment hasn't increased.A decade after the storm,some Black students say it's difficult not to get lost in a sea of white faces,showing that KU race relations are not
Simply black and white
By Kirsten Phelps
writer@kanson.com
Kansas staff writer
Athletics drew Darren Fulcher to the University of Kansas the same way he said it attracted many of his fellow Black students.
But Fulcher, who arrived on Mount Oread in 1989 as a walk-on football player, was not your average student.
Darren Fulcher in 2000.
Photo by Aaron
Lindberg/KANSAN
he put football aside after less than one season, but made history when he was elected the first and only Black KU student body president.
He made history in
another way after what he describes as a "terrible mistake" — hitting his former girlfriend.
He became the only student body president impeached and removed from office.
Ten years later, Fulcher, now a Kansas City, Mo., trial lawyer, regrets that his rise and fall overshadowed KU's last serious civil rights activism when Black Men of Today, a group he helped found, demonstrated
The road to achieving the impossible
When Fulcher came to KU in 1989, he was one of 612 Black students. KU's 2.4 percent Black enrollment combined with recent racial tension suggested conditions were not ripe for a Black student to make history.
More information
Read the Karsaera 1991 coverage of the issues surrounding Daren Rucker's presidency.
www.karsaera.com
against racism and KU's failure to recruit and retain Black students.
Today, Marlon Marshall, a Black male, is student body vice president, but current Black students and the president of a more low-profile Black Men of Today say little else has changed on a campus where they still remain conspicuous as Blacks in a sea of White faces.
cars before his election, the Ku
kux Khlaj came to KU, a-Black
female student . . . racially
attacked, while
delivering . . . a
pizza to the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity house and Black Men of Today staged protests demanding better minority recruitment and retention.
Black Men of Today member James Bataum Jr., now a Washington, D.C., lawyer, sqid he hadn't experienced overt racism at the university, but being one of
e w Blacks had him feel isolated.
Black person at KU
You would see the buses letting off people and it was White boy
Darren Fulcher in 1991
Photo courtesy of Julie
Jacobson
ple, everywhere," he said. "If there was a Black person, you could spot them from a distance." He said if you were Black, but not an athlete, you didn't matter.
SOME on page 5A
"We saw it as a sort of 21st century form of slavery." Baeum said. "You were seen as a good athlete, a good running back, a good
Freshman reportedly raped in Oliver Hall
By Rob Pazell
By Rob Pazell
writer@kansan.com
Kansas staff writer
A KU freshman woman was raped early Nov. 21 in her Oliver Hall room, bringing the number of rapes on campus this year to three, the KU Public Safety Office said yesterday.
Sgt. Troy Mailen said the female resident was sleeping in her seventh-floor room and woke with a male acquaintance lying next to her in bed. She confronte him, and he left the room, Mailen said.
Mailen would not say whether the door was locked or unlocked, but the police report indicated that there was no forced entry by the assailant. Mailen said that alcohol was a major
Mailen said that alcohol was a major contributing factor in the acquaintance rape.
"It is important to know that smart decisions are hampered by the use of alcohol." he said.
The crime still is being investigated, Mailen said, and no others details were available yesterday.
This marks the second rape on campus this semester and the third for the year 2000 - up from one each in 1998 and 1999. The first rape this semester occurred near the Campanile in August.
The Nov. 21 rape also marks the third sex crime reported on campus this semester and the second in the residence halls. The other sex crime that occurred in a residence hall was a sexual battery that took place Aug. 31 as a freshman woman was sleeping in the sixth-floor lobby.
Lateasha Barnes, Wichita freshman, and seventh-floor resident of Oliver Hall, said that hearing about the rape made her feel uncomfortable.
"I didn't even know," Barnes said. "They didn't discuss it or anything."
Another seventh-floor resident who asked to remain anonymous said that she had heard about it but didn't think she needed to know unless the victim wanted to talk about it.
"I have a right to know that it happened to somebody on my floor," she said. "But I don't think I need to know the details."
Edited by J. R. Mendoza
GTAs request higher pay better benefits in contract
By Lauren Brandenburg
writer@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
Graduate teaching assistants at the University of Kansas have presented proposals to the University for better health care, better salaries and better benefits.
They now are waiting for counterproposals from the University, but the process may continue well into next semester, said Ophra Leyser, president of the Graduate Teaching Assistants Coalition.
"Some things we're asking for are new. Some are expansions on benefits that we got in the last contract," Leyser said. "The main gist of why we're working on the contract is that we want to improve teaching conditions at the University of Kansas. It affects both teachers and the undergraduates we're teaching.
Leyser said she could not discuss the specifics of the proposals, but said GTAC was looking into many policy issues in the negotiations.
GTA CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS
What happened: The Graduate Teaching Assistants Coalition submitted proposals to a team of University administrators for better salaries, better health care and better benefits.
What does it mean? Graduate teaching assistants are asking for better benefits in the unionized contract, which are renewed every three years. The current contract expires at the end of this year.
What's next: A team of University administrators will review GTAC's proposals and may submit counterproposals. The process could last well into next semester.
Lynn Bretz, interim director of University Relations, said she could not comment on the negotiations
See NEGOTIATIONS on page 2A
Our goal is to make the teaching atmosphere the best it can be and to improve teaching conditions."
More Moore
Third District U.S. Rep, Dennis Moore visits with Barbara Hannan, Beaver Crossing, Neb., junior, and Joseph Wiker, Olathe senior, in the Kansas Union. Moore spoke to students in Robert Rowland's introduction to Rhetoric class yesterday morning and ate lunch with students at the Glass Onion. Photo by Thad Allender/KANSAN
Students to receive grades via University e-mail addresses
By Jennifer Valadez
Kansan staff writer
Most students at the University of Kansas will receive their fall grades via e-mail instead of U.S. mail at the end of the semester.
Kathleen McCluskey-Fawcett, associate provost, posted an e-mail on several of the University listersvs saying that e-mailing grades would "improve the speed of delivery and will be more cost effective" than regular mail.
Bob Turvey, associate registrar, said that the cost of postage to send out
grades was about $25,000, and that by e-mailing them, that cost would decrease by two-thirds.
However, in order to receive their e-mailled grades, students must have e-mail addresses registered with the University. In her e-mail, McCluskey-Fawcett urged faculty to encourage students to register by Friday.
If a student does not have an account registered with KU, he or she still will receive grades by U.S. mail.
Students do not need a KU e-mail address to receive their grades electronically. They can register e-mail addresses with other servers, such as
KU E-MAIL ACCOUNTS
To register an e-mail account with the University:
Go to www.ukans.edu/computing/services.
- Go to www.ukans.edu.company/services.
- Students do not need to have a KU e-mail account, and can register e-mail address with other access.
- To receive fall grades by e-mail, students should register by Friday.
Yahoo! and Hotmail,
Students had mixed opinions about the idea as a matter of convenience. "I like the idea," said Jason Hiser, Springfield, Mo., sophomore. "It will
Turvey said both e-mail and U.S. mail posed security problems.
be convenient because I'll be able to check my grades from wherever I'm at and won't have to wait for the mail."
"There are hackers that can tap into e-mail, so it might not be the best idea," she said.
Maya Tillman, Hutchinson junior, said hackers posed a potential problem.
"We have security issues in postal mail mail because of bad addresses, so there are security concerns of all types," he said. "The KU account has more secu
riity because the server is internal and we have control over it."
Turvey said students would not be inconvenienced by not having a University e-mail address.
"If they want to sign up, they can do it immediately, but we will mail the grades via paper," he said. "They will still get nothing less than before."
Turvey encouraged students to register an e-mail account with the University because of e-mail's increasing popularity.
4.
"Instructors use this to contact their students," he said. "We're seeing a lot of growth in that area."
— Edited by John Audcleholm