MONDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2002
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN = 3A
Edwards Campus adds classrooms
New facility to ease campus overcrowding
By Kyle Ramsey
kramsey@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
University officials and donors will meet today to break ground on a $17.8 million classroom building at the University of Kansas' Edwards Campus in Overland Park.
The new building comes to a campus where enrollment has grown 79 percent since it opened in 1993, said Robert Clark, vice chancellor for the Edwards Campus.
The 82,000-square-foot building will include 21 classrooms, a 240-seat auditorium and offices for 45 faculty members.
Clark said the building would be completed in 2004. Money for the building came from private donations.
The building will not only provide room to expand, but also room to breathe in what is now an over-scheduled facility, said Barbara Romzek, associate dean of liberal arts and sciences.
Romzek said it was difficult to offer anything new at the campus because classrooms were often booked solid.
"The idea with the second building is that we'll be able to
offer classes that are better designed and better for students." she said.
Officials from the college hope the new facility will allow the school to offer more social science courses at both the graduate and undergraduate levels.
Budget deficits, as well as lack of office and teaching resources, should not pose a problem in filling the new building. Romzek said. She said the Edwards Campus covered expenses with its own tuition revenues, which came from students taking courses there and not at the Lawrence campus. She said the Edwards programs did not take students away from the main KU campus.
Courses at the Edwards Campus include graduate programs geared toward work force development in the Kansas City area.
"The programming has to have a direct impact on the needs of Kansas City," Clark said.
Money for the new building was donated by the Hall Family Foundation of Kansas City, Mo., the Victor and Helen Regnier Charitable Foundation of Leawood, and revenue bonds
The building will be named after Victor and Helen Regnier.
Edited by Chris Wintering and Matt Norton
by Katie Nelson
knelson@ku.edu
Kansas staff writer
Local program aids at-risk children
Imagine this: You are 5 years old. You have parents, but the courts aren't sure if you should live with them. You have foster parents, but it's unclear whether you get to stay with them either. You have a county social worker, who has many other clients. You also have a lawyer, who doesn't have much time either.
To give a voice to the child, the Douglas County CASA program, or Court Appointed Special Advocates, pairs up volunteers with abused or neglected children in the social welfare system.
“CASAs provide consistency in the life of a child,” said Margaret Perkins-McGuinness, a Lawrence junior and CASA volunteer. “As a CASA, a lot of times
KU students are some of the volunteers in the program.
you are supporting children who live in a state of flux. They don't have consistency in housing, in social workers, or in the agencies that support them."
Although she can't talk about the specifics of the case to which she's assigned, the experience has been rewarding, Perkins-McGuinness said. She said volunteers tried to meet with the children at least once a week to provide emotional support.
CASA volunteers help judges make an educated decision about the child's future. They talk with people who are familiar with the child's history to compile monthly reports for the child's judge. The reports help determine whether it's in the child's best interest to stay with parents, guardians or other relatives, get placed in foster care, or become eligible for permanent adoption.
Willow Robin, St. Louis senior said she was willing to carry this
"CASAs provide consistency in the life of a child. As a CASA, a lot of times you are supporting children who live in a state of flux."
Margaret Perkins-McGuinness Lawrence junior and CASA volunteer
heavy, sometimes stressful burden.
One of the hardest parts of the job is staying neutral, Robin said.
"You can't pick favorites," she said of the people involved in her assigned case. "You are only here to get the facts and give information about what will be best for the child."
The program was started by a Seattle judge who was concerned about making uninformed decisions about abused and neglected
children's lives. As a result, Superior Court Judge David W. Soukup started training community volunteers in 1977.
There are now 950 CASA programs nationwide, with more than 52,000 volunteers, according to the national headquarters in Seattle. The Douglas County program is one of 24 CASA programs in Kansas and has served more than 450 children since it was established in 1991.
The National CASA association received the President's Volunteer Action Award from President Ronald Reagan on April 22, 1985. It's also the philanthropy of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority.
the Raphael Institute. "It's an important program." Perkins-McGuinness said. "It's really solidified how much of an effect social workers and the system can have in the lives of a child."
Student honored at science conference
- Edited by Christine Grubbs
BvJustin Henning
By Justin Freming
jhenning@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
Nine members from the University of Kansas' Bioscience Initiative Program attended a conference for minorities in science, and one of them won an award
The Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science held the conference in Anaheim, Calif., from September 26 to 29. Having been only the second year that anyone from the University
attended, Ashley Meagher's "Outstanding Student Presentation" award, for her presentation on retro viruses, became an even bigger delight.
"I just had a great time," the Golden, Colo., senior said. "It was a unique experience with great networking possibilities."
The main objective of the conference is to get minorities involved in science and increase the field's diversity, according to Marigold Linton, Director of American Indian Outreach.
"It was a wonderful sea of
brown faces," she said. "This is a very talented group of professionals."
Not all of the members of this program are students at the University. Bioscience Initiative is also open to Haskell University students. Sonny Duncan, Haskell senior, works with several professors in the chemistry department. His research involves the analysis of bacteria and their ability to bind with toxic and organic metals. At the conference, he presented a poster about his research, which meant he had
to stand by his poster for three hours and explain it to people as they came by and asked about it.
"It made the day go by quicker if I was explaining it," he said. "Otherwise it was really tiring."
The experience was positive for those who went, according to Claudia Bode, the program's coordinator.
"They had such a good time learning from each other," she said. "I am so proud of all of them."
Chippendales dancers fulfill fantasies for local female fans
Edited by Matt Norton
By Louise Stauffer
lstauffer@kansan.com
Kansan writer
Shay Cox enjoyed her lap dance Saturday night, but she also encountered a problem.
"I didn't know where to put the dollar," the Derby junior said.
Cox eventually figured out the proper place for the tip was a tiny pocket in the male dancer's thong underwear.
The men dancing in thongs Saturday night at Coyote's night
club, 1003 E. 23rd St., were a group of entertainers called Chippendales.
Stephanine Dodge, Topeka junior, bought $30 VIP tickets for the show, which allowed patrons to sit closer to the stage at tables.
General admission tickets cost $20, but Dodge said the VIP tickets afforded a better view and were well worth the extra expense.
"They were all gorgeous, they all had six packs," she said, referring to the dancers.
Dodge said the best thing she heard all night was a question a dancer asked the audience.
"He was like, 'Do you ladies want to get wet?'"" she said.
While some of Chippendales performed skits involving construction or medical-field themes onstage, other dancers circulated the club offering lap dances for $1.
Dodge said she enjoyed the lap dances because even though touching the men was usually a
taboo, the Chippendales encouraged it.
Trent Glass, general manager of Coyote's, said the excitement was almost too much to bear when male entertainers performed.
"There's a lot of estrogen in the air," he said.
Glass said Coyote's tried to get male entertainers to perform there because thousands of women get neglected in the male- entertainment market in Lawrence.
"Things get catered to men more often than women," he said. "We're really the only bar in town that does male entertainment."
Glass said Coyote's had hosted male entertainers in the past, but did not cross the line into all-nude dancers.
Although most of the ladies enjoyed the show,some students considered such entertainment distasteful.
Brenda Pollom, St. Louis senior, saw the Chippendales show last semester. She did not
go to Coyote's Saturday and said she would only watch the dancers again if the event was free.
"It was seriously almost offensive," she said. "It was corny and lame."
Pollom said it was amazing to see people get excited about the dancers.
"It was more funny to watch the people in the audience than the guys," she said.
- Edited by Lauren Beatty