CAMPUS/AREA
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Monday, November 23, 1992
3
Computer workshops offer help
By Kristi Fogler
nansan staff writer
To some students, the words "computer programming" may induce fear or anxiety. But using programs like MS-DOS, a DBASE III+, SPCS/PC+ or QuarkXpress can be easier with the help of academic users services.
Academic user services is part of Computing Services and offers a wide variety of workshops and programs to help acquaint students with computer programs. Workshops are offered at a variety of levels and concentrate on word processing, spreadsheets, databases, using a mainframe computer and more.
The office, located in the Computer Center, offers about 40 three-hour workshops each semester for both IBM-compatible computers and Macintosh computers. The cost of each workshop starts at $40 for students, staff or faculty and $75 for non-university participants. Some sessions are more expensive because they are six hours long.
Laura Green, microcomputer consultant for academic users services, said the cost of the workshops might decrease from $40 a workshop to $20 a workshop. Although the rate decrease has not yet been approved, Green said it was an attempt to get more students to participate in the workshops.
Richard Devinki / KANSAN
Even though a wide variety of workshops are offered on several dates, Green said few students participated in the workshops. She estimated that students made up about 5 percent of the approximately 600 people who attend the workshops each semester.
"I don't know why students aren't taking them," she said. "Whether it's that they're three hours long and during the day or because they cost $40, I don't know."
Green said the workshops were good preparation for freshman.
Of students who have no computer training, Green said. "Maybe they think they'll figure it out on the fly."
"They're the people that don't have experience on computers because they haven't actually had to use them," she said.
Jeff Porter, student consultant programmer, said the workshops were most helpful when taken in preparation for an upcoming project.
"You can take them when you're not working on a project," he said. "Then, when you are working on a project, you can spend less time working on the program and more time on the project."
In addition to the workshops, the office also offers one-to-one tutoring and telephone help lines.
For about $16 to $22 per hour, students can receive individual training on anything from word processing to working a mainframe computer.
From 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., students who have specific questions about a program can call the computer consulting help line to get answers. Porter estimated that about 40 calls a day came into the office.
If a student still has a problem with a program, there is a consulting window in the computer lab where students can get their questions answered in person from 10 a.m. to noon and 1 to 4 p.m.
Special helpers
Trent Nesmith, Lawrence graduate student, shows Becky Wicker how to throw a ball during the Regional Special Olympics at Robinson Center. Wicker, who participated Friday afternoon, is a part of the Capper Foundation of Tooeka. About 300 KU students volunteered time to help with the weekend activities.
Indians to form advisory council
Cultural insight is one of many goals
By Mark Martin
Kansan staff writer
A council of American Indians in Lawrence will form next spring to address issues that affect American Indians in the community.
According to plans drawn up by Dennis Banks, a member of the American Indian Movement who visited Lawrence last week, the council would establish an Indian employment office in Lawrence, rate Lawrence area businesses as favorable or unfavorable to American Indians and appoint two American Indians to advise the Lawrence school board.
Johnnie Young, a secretary for the office of minority affairs and an American Indian, said planning for the committee was in the earliest stages.
"It's something that Lawrence does need," she said. "But not just for Native Americans. We could use one for African Americans, and Asian Americans too. Unless the city commission can understand a culture, it's hard for them to make decisions."
Young said she would approach the city commission about the council.
City manager Mike Wildgen said the council was a good idea, but some of the details were too vague.
"I'd have to know more about it," he said. "It would be a good place to go if city commissioners needed advice or information, but we do have task forces and we do talk to Native Americans in the community if there is an issue pertaining to them."
American-Indian commissions in Minneapolis act in similar ways to the proposed council in Lawrence.
Clyde Bellacourt, a member of the American Indian Movement head-quartered in Minneapolis, said that there were American-Indian health,
housing and school-board commissions in Minneapolis. Bellacourt said the commissions had been in existence for 24 years.
"There was nothing happening here for Indians until these boards were set up," he said. "Now they give power to the Indian community. The boards develop programs, like housing for Indians, and they also advise the main boards in Minneapolis like the school boards."
Bellacourt said about 35,000 American Indians live in the Minneapolis area. He said he did not know of any other American-Indian councils in other cities.
There are 2,161 American Indians in Lawrence, according to the 1992 Kansas Statistical Abstract. Other proposals for the Lawrence commission include establishing a law enforcement-civilian review board to advise Lawrence police, and creating a human and civil rights commission in Lawrence.
Research aids cancer drug
By Muneera Naseer
Kansan staff writer
An unidentified Japanese pharmaceutical firm will attempt to develop derivatives of taxol, a cancer-fighting agent, based on research done at the University of Kansas.
William P. Duncan, chief operating officer of Oread Laboratories Incorporated, said that the firm wanted to protect its research and maintain a competitive edge in the pharmaceutical market. The contract is initially for three years with the possibility of renewal.
Oread, a pharmaceutical company based in Lawrence, made proposals to three firms for research a year ago. One was in the United States and one was in Japan.
Duncan said the Japanese firm was more interested in carrying out the research that needed to be done on taxol, a drug found in vew trees.
"The basic reason they want to do the research is that they have targeted the cancer drug area as an area that they want to be in business-wise." Duncan said.
Taxol has been shown to be effective in treating ovarian and breast cancer and to some extent, lung cancer.
Lester Mitscher, professor in medicinal chemistry and one of the KU researchers said that he would have liked to have U.S. firms do the work
on taxol.
"American firs are always forming committees or commissions and studying things endlessly," he said. "If we find the child of taxol, it will be done in Japan."
The discovery was important because taxol could now be extracted from the biorewable needles without destroying the whole tree.
Mitscher is credited with the discovery of a new source of taxol, which was announced by the University, last spring. Previously, the substance was known to be present in the bark of the yew, but Mitscher found that the needles of a yew tree in the Asian Himalayan region, were rich in taxol.
Gunda Georg, associate professor in medicinal chemistry said that taxol blocks the cancer cells so they cannot move around in the body and go through cell division.
Georg is working with graduate students to develop a side-chain of taxol which would be similar to the actual taxol molecule but less toxic.
"We are in the business of making new taxol analogues, testing them, evaluate what changes we made in the molecule and how far did that effect go," she said.
The importance to finding the second generation of taxol, is that it can be synthesized in the laboratory, creating a new and greater source of the drug.
Choirs bring gospel to KU
Kansan staff writer
By J.R. Clairborne
Herman staff writer
The fourth floor of the Kansas Union was filled with the resounding echoes of gospel music yesterday as more than 150 people attended the inspirational Gospel Voices Fall Concert.
Held in Alderson Auditorium, the concert was a feast of gospel music served by choirs and groups from the University and Lawrence communities.
Stacey Chestnut, choir vice president and Kansas City, Kan., sophomore, introduced the host choir, the Inspirational Gospel Voices.
"We're just a group of students who got together and said we wanted to participate."
The choir is not financed by the University because of its religious affiliation, she said. All of its endeavors are financed by donations from engagements.
Other chors performing were the campus group Annointed and the Lawrence Pentecostal Bible Church Choir. Special selections were also given by Rev. Leo Barbee of the Victory Bible Church and members of IGV
For the duration of the concert, shouts of praise as well as clapping and singing were heard from the audience as the choirs sang spirituals and hymns.
"People were here that don't even go the this university," he said of the audience, which ranged from young to old and African American to white.
Steven Douglas, Kansas City, Kan.
Junior, said it was good to see the
immensity of people at the concert.
The theme of the concert was "A New Thing," representing how members of Inspirational Gospel Voices even have a member choir and the changes it has made, said Jeannie Johnson, chair director and Kansas City, Kan., senior.
Paul Kotz / KANSAN
Two-car collision
Trina Zagar, Topeka junior, is attended by emergency medical personnel after being involved in an accident at 11th and Tennessee streets. Zagar's friends, Ann Marie Sanderlin (right), Lawrence sophomore, and Jamie Kasher (left), Omaha, Neb., sophomore, were not injured.