University Daily Kansan / Wednesday. September 17. 1986
3
News Briefs
Organization plans demonstration today
Members of the Lawrence chapter of Amnesty International will have a demonstration today from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the sidewalk east of Wescoe Hall.
The demonstrators will read a list of names of "prisoners of conscience" from around the world who Amnesty International says have been unjustly treated.
Members of Amnesty International describe "prisoners of conscience" as people who have not advocated or used violence, but have been treated unfairly because of their religious or political beliefs, race, color, gender or language.
Engineer to speak
An Amoco Oil Company representative will speak today at a mechanical engineering colloquium on "Fuel Supplies — Looking Back, Looking Ahead."
Alan Leard, a research engineer for Amoco, will speak at 3:30 p.m. in 3140 Wesco Hall about the fuel supply and about job opportunities in petroleum and chemical engineering.
Leard, a Kansas State University graduate, recruits new employees for Amoco in the Midwest. He also spoke last year at the colloquium, a required course for mechanical engineers.
Students meet for the colloquium every two weeks. The speech is open to the public.
Slides to be shown
The Study Abroad Club will sponsor a presentation tomorrow by Tom Allen, professor of design, who will show slides from the KU Summer Institute in Art and Design.
The meeting will be at 7 p.m. in the Big Eight Room of the Kansas Union. Students will discuss their summer experiences in southern France.
The program is open to the public. Refreshments will be served.
For more information contact the Office of Study Abroad, 203 Lippincott Hall.
Alumnus to speak
J. D. Culea, president and chief executive officer of Northern Laboratories Inc., Manitowoc, Wis., will speak about his success in the business world at 1:30 p.m. today in 252 Robinson.
Culea graduated from the KU School of Business with a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in business administration.
Culea's presentation, "The Entrepreneur and the Leveraged Buy-out," will chronicle the success he and a group of private investors had earlier this year in buying Northern Labs from the Johnson Wax company.
Area factory to grow
Packer Plastics, Inc., 2330 Packer Road, will nearly double the size of its Lawrence manufacturing plant with a 200,000 square foot expansion project.
Tom Arrandale, Packer Plastic's director of operations, said the construction was scheduled to begin in late October and would be finished in 10 to 12 months.
Weather
Skies will be mostly cloudy today with a 30-percent chance of thunderstorms. The high will be near 80. Southerly winds will be 10 to 20 mph. Skies will be partly cloudy tonight with a 20-percent chance of thunderstorms and a low in the low 60s.
From staff and wire reports
System keeps tabs on facilities workers
By KIRK KAHLER
With the help of a computerized personnel management system, facilities operations can closely monitor some of its personnel's attendance habits.
Staff writer
Phil Endacott, associate director of housekeeping, said the system had been implemented in the housekeeping department to ensure that employees got to work on time.
The system keeps attendance records of each housekeeping employee and helps department management to analyze and penalize employees, when necessary.
"It gives us the tools to manage our people." Endacott said.
Mark Sellers, who works for housekeeping, said that although he
Sellers also said employees didn't have to worry about clerks miscalculating the time off that employees had earned.
idea.
"It sounds very efficient and organized, considering the number of employees," he said.
was unaware of the computer's full capabilities, he thought it was a good idea.
The system, which began operating in November 1984, has allowed Endacott to run his department more efficiently, he said, because the system allows him to know the exact attendance patterns and abuses of each employee.
He said the system compiled information in 18 to 20 minutes. A secretary would take up to two weeks to compile the same information, he
The computer mainly keeps track of three problem areas — tardiness, chronic absences and employees who do not show up for work and fail to inform their supervisor of the absence 29 minutes before their shift begins.
said.
From the data generated by the computer, Endacott said, he may determine what, if any, action should be taken against the employee.
Endacott said the state had a set of guidelines that the facilities operations followed when penalizing employees for attendance problems.
Employee information is collected on a yearly basis, beginning when the employee is hired.
If employees are tardy three times during a year, they receive a verbal warning. On the fourth, a formal let-
tower of reprimand is issued and placed in the employee's permanent file.
The employee is suspended one day for the fifth tardy, three days for the sixth, five days for the seventh. The eighth tardy is grounds for dismissal.
Facilities operations uses a similar progression of penalties for unexcusec absences. Endacott said.
Endacott said the computer system not only tabulates these figures for all 147 employees in housekeeping, but also automatically prints employees' records and prints any needed disciplinary action each month.
"Now we know where the abuses are and it allows us to zero in and take some action," he said.
Endacott said the computer is important because it also saves the
University money Compiling the information had become such a large job that another secretary would have been needed to assist in the task.
He estimated that the University will save $12,000 to $13,000 because another secretary will not be needed.
He also said the computer did not commit errors due to forgetfulness and interruptions such as telephone calls.
Because facilities operations is often requested to produce large volumes of information, Endacott said, the system is valuable. He also said the computer could break down the age, sex, race and other vital information of any employee in a matter of minutes.
Faculty exchange set with Korea University
By ALISON YOUNG
Staff writer
The country of South Korea is a success story that some KU faculty say they think needs to be studied. So, as early as next summer, a faculty exchange program will begin with Korea University.
This fall, KU's Center for East Asian Studies was selected as one of 30 grant recipients in a program sponsored by the U.S. Information Agency. The grant will be used to help finance the faculty exchange.
Cameron Hurst, director of the center, said the three-year exchange program would involve economic studies.
"Korea has had the most dynamically growing economy in the whole world." said Hurst.
Felix Moos, professor of anthropology and future exchange participant, said the program would improve faculty and student knowledge about a country that received little publicity.
"Korea is really one of the success stories," he said.
Moos proposes to study the structure of a Korean business. Much literature about Japanese factories is available, he said, but little is known about Korean factories.
Hurst said the grant application allowed for two people from the University to go to Korea the first year and three or four the second year. Plans for the third year have not been decided.
Exchange participants will teach and conduct research, Hurst said. He said KU professors would probably spend most of their time on research and only give a few lectures, however, because most lack fluency in the Korean language.
Hurst plans to go to South Korea next month to complete arrangements with Korea University.
Hurst said most of the Korean faculty who would come to KU would probably have been educated in the United States and would be fluent in English.
The grant, which totals more than $59,400, will be used to help with travel and maintenance expenses for those involved.
KU faculty participating in the exchange include, Hurst, Moos, Thomas Weiss, professor of economics; Woo Jung, associate professor of economics; Raymond Davis, chairman of health services administration; and Clyde Stoltenberg, assistant professor of business.
Computer theft attempted
By a Kansan reporter
Police have no suspects in connection with the attempted theft of nearly $2,000 worth of computer equipment.
Lt. Jeanne Longaker of the KU police said someone apparently ordered the equipment through the Computer Center on July 22. The order was processed and shipped to an off-campus address and the Computer Center was billed, she said.
Longaker said police had contacted the person at the address but found it was not the person whose name was on the shipment. Longker would not release the name or the address.
The equipment ordered included a
$95 multiple-volume disk drive and a
$1,095 hard diskcard.
Gene Puckett, KU's director of purchasing, said this type of incident was not unusual and had been attempted before.
Puckett said he thought the suspect might have made a phone order using an illegitimate purchase order number.
"If a person wanted the purchasing number bad enough he could probably get it," Puckett said.
He said he was unsure how well security was kept when issuing purchasing orders. He added that a person probably couldn't have found the number by using a computer.
Paul Taylor, left, and Mike Welter, right, technicians for the Douglas County Ambulance Service, secure Verna Tornedon on a stretcher. Tornedon was taken to Lawrence Memorial Hospital for injuries she received in an auto accident yesterday on 19th Street between Tennessee and Ohio Streets. Tornedon was listed in good condition early this morning.
Core curriculum proposal may be revised
Staff writer
By TONY BALANDRAN
Recommendations from a temporary committee on University-wide core curriculum will probably face revision once again before they receive final approval, said Mel Dubnick, chairman of the University Senate Executive Committee.
The three-year-ad ad hoc University Curriculum Committee, is designed to recommend core requirements that all University undergraduates would be required to follow despite their degree programs, said Ted Wilson, chairman of the committee.
mittee submitted its present recommendations last March to Del Shankel, former acting vice chancellor for academic affairs.
The recommendation submitted to Shankel said, "The University core curriculum seeks to cultivate an environment which fosters a sense of community through a common academic experience for all undergraduate students."
Wilson said, "It's important for us to ensure that all our graduates have a certain common academic experience."
After numerous revisions, the com
Del Brinkman, vice chancellor for academic affairs, plans to visit with deans of the professional schools Fri
day to discuss the recommendations and will propose a December deadline for comments, Dubnick said.
Dubnick also said he didn't expect SenEx to officially deal with the proposal until after the December deadline.
Under the current proposal, all undergraduate students would be required to pass nine hours of English and basic algebra.
In addition, an undergraduate also would be required to select an area of concentration beyond the student's major.
The undergraduate would be required to enroll in two courses in
western Civilization and one course each in the humanities, the natural sciences and mathematics, the social sciences, creative and performing arts and a non-Western culture.
The requirements would be incorporated into the present curriculum of the individual schools and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Wilson said that because he thought the document was less ambitious than earlier versions, he would be "somewhat surprised if it is not dealt with as it stands."
However, Dubnik said he expected more changes in the recommendations after faculty and deans asked for time to inspect the
recommendations.
recommendations.
In the past, the committee sought to obtain an agreement from all schools in the University, including the College of Health Sciences, Wilson said.
A large number of responses to earlier versions of the recommendations resulted in some modifications of the requirements, said Wilson.
Opponents of the proposal have raised three issues that need to be dealt with before the substance of the proposal can be debated, he said
The first issue is whether the University governing system can impose University-wide graduation requirements on all schools.