MONDAY, DEC. 3, 2001
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN = 3A
GTAC negotiations with University spark interest at Kansas colleges
The Associated Press
Graduate teaching assistants are wondering how negotiations under way at the University of Kansas will affect other public universities in the state.
KU's Graduate Teaching Assistants Coalition, the only union representing GTAs in Kansas, has been negotiating a new three-year contract with the University since September 2000.
The union is seeking better pay, better health benefits and tuition waivers for more graduate students.
Some students at other universities would like to form unions of their own.
"On a personal level, I'm all for organizing," said Sara Fisher, vice president of Kansas State University's Graduate Student Council. "I think there would be more consistency from department to department. If you look at a typical stipend across the campus, there's significant variation."
The University of Kansas has estimated that the Graduate
Teaching Assistants Coalition's pay requirements would cost $3 million. Part of the first contract, ratified in 1997, was that the University would ask the Kansas Health Care Commission to subsidize GTA health benefits. Eventually, the commission extended the subsidies which cover about half of health insurance premiums — to graduate teachers at other state universities.
"The interesting thing about collective bargaining in higher education is it does have a ripple effect," said Tim Downs, dean of graduate studies and lifelong learning at Emporia State University.
A similar effect could occur for this contract, especially if the University of Kansas again requests better health benefits from the Health Care Commission.
"The state very frequently, when we're able to get gains in negotiations, many times they will implement that across the board," said Scott Stone, general counsel for the Kansas Association of Public Employees, with which the Graduate
Teaching Assistants Coalition is affiliated.
"Is there a chance if GTAs at KU make gains, that they'll be implemented at other state universities? I'd say there's a good chance because of the politics of it." Stone said.
"It makes a difference when we voice our opinion as a union instead of voicing it as an individual," said Chetankumar Gubbi, a GTA in electrical engineering at Wichita State.
Stipends for Kansas' teaching assistants averaged $9,840 last year, about $300 more than Kansas State's and almost $3,000 more than Wichita State University's. Coalition members say the University of Kansas needs to pay more to be competitive with some out-of-state universities.
Some graduate students at other Regents universities would like to form unions of their own.
But some students at Wichita State and Kansas State are not sure support for a union exists.
"I don't know if it would work."
said Charles Jayne, a graduate assistant in chemistry and student senator at Wichita State. "I don't know how the union would be structured. By the sounds of it, based on what KU graduate students are making now, it would be a good idea, if they are making slightly more now."
signed a unionizing effort failed at Kansas State in the 1990s, but Graduate Student Council President Elverta Vassol said the idea has remained.
"I know that there is a small discussion about who would be interested in that type of unionization," she said. "We're not planning on unionizing at this point. It's just a general dialogue among members of the council."
Fisher said she thought the Manhattan campus generally was more conservative than the University of Kansas, which would hurt a potential union drive. A different approach, though, might work.
"Sometimes KU's held up as the example," she said. "I don't think what goes on at KU would go on at K-State."
Kansas high schools may revamp curriculum
The Associated Press
Kansas education officials are considering a plan that would require high school seniors to demonstrate that they have learned a certain curriculum before they can graduate.
Details of the plan have not been finalized but a task force is expected to provide the Kansas State Board of Education with a rough outline in March.
It would take at least two years to implement the plan, which probably would begin with a freshman class.
"This will have great impact on every student in Kansas," said Alexa Pochowski, assistant commissioner in the education department.
concerns that there is too much variation in what constitutes graduation-quality coursework in Kansas high schools. Pochowski said.
"There are incredible differences in terms of curriculum underneath the courses. We're not expecting the same thing of all students," she said.
No single measure will be employed to determine graduation eligibility. Instead, the goal will be to allow students to prove abilities in one of several ways, possibly including a comprehensive exam, a senior project culminating in a thesis paper, or a portfolio covering several years' work in a broad subject area.
Other ideas for proving "performance/proficiency levels" will probably emerge as the state's
Graduation Requirements Task Force begins forming the initiative.
The task force, the state board, state education department and local school district officials will work together on the initiative.
Currently, students have to complete 21 credits to graduate. The task force has previously rejected raising the course credit minimum.
Education leaders in the Lawrence district generally applaud the attempts to raise the graduation bar, but said the key to this initiative's success would be in the program's details.
Scott Morgan, Lawrence school board vice president, said making students prove they had attained a suitable education was sound. But he said he must consider the new time commitment required of teachers and students or the extra costs for school districts.
"There's ways of making this more hoops to jump through without any gain," Morgan said.
Pochowski said she recognized the skepticism in the education community about this initiative. She said a key issue would be whether time, money and staff would be available to help students meet the higher standards.
"We have kids who will need more time." Pochowski said. "We're looking at possible year-round school or an extended school day."
The goal is to mirror a system set up in Minnesota public schools. Change won't happen overnight, she said.
Hostages' family asks U.S. to urge release of couple in Phillipines
The Associated Press
ROSE HILL — Martin and Gracia Burnham's three children gathered around the television set to catch a glimpse of their parents, who have been held hostage by Philippine Muslim extremists for six months.
Local television station KAKETV had brought the family a copy of a videotaped interview taken by a station in the Philippines.
"It was very difficult"—but also reassuring that they were still alive
... We also realized they can't hold on much longer," Paul Burnham, Martin's father, said Saturday.
The one-minute tape, recorded on Nov. 25, was the first opportunity for the Burnham's children — Jeffrey, 14; Melinda, 12; and Zachary, 10 — or the rest of the world to see live footage of their parents since their abduction.
The Wichita couple were taken hostage May 27 while celebrating their 18th wedding anniversary at a tourist resort.
lart Islands.
Wearing a white Muslim-style head covering, Gracia Burnham looked frightened and her eyes were swollen. Martin Burnham had a beard. Both had lost weight.
On the tape, heavily-armed Abu Sayyaf guerrillas surround the handcuffed couple who were interviewed by freelance journalist Arlyn de la Cruz. De la Cruz said the interview for Filipino cable television channel Net 25 happened somewhere in the Basilian Islands.
"Looks like mom is taking it harder than dad," Jeffrey Burnham told his grandparents.
The children hardly recognized their father, Paul Burnham said.
"They had never seen their father in a beard — it was quite a shock," Paul Burnham said. "The kind of laughed too."
It was that videotape that convinced the family — who for months had kept the couple's children away from reporters — that they had to do more to make people aware of their suffering.
The family's first appearance on
"It was very difficult
It was very different —but also reassuring that they were still alive... We also realized they can't hold on much longer,"
Paul Burnham Hostage's father
national television came Friday as CBS anchor Bryant Gumbel interviewed Oreta Burnham, her granddaughter and her daughter-in-law's sister from the studio of "The Early Show." Oreta Burnham is Martin's mother.
Other appearances are also planned with CNN and other networks.
WORKS.
"We feel like the media exposure helps to realize their real need to get their parents back — and maybe the government will work a little harder to get them released," Paul Burnham said.
After they watched their parents on the video, the children wrote them a letter.
In the past few months, the family has been able to get letters, pictures of the children and even a little food to the hostages by sending them to the New Tribes Mission facility in the Philippines. The mission apparently has contacts that can get things to the rebels, Paul Burnham said.
"They don't reveal it, and we don't ask." he said.
The elder Burnhams said the U.S. government had depended too much on the Philippine military, and they want the United States to take a more active role even if that meant military involvement.
Paul Burnham said if he had a chance to talk to the people who were holding his son he would tell them: "Have mercy on our kids and let them go. They have suffered enough already. Have mercy on them before they starve to death."
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