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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Tuesday December 1, 1987 Vol. 98, No.69
Published since 1889 by the students of the University of Kansas
(USPS 650-640)
Hayden says he favors tougher admissions
Kansas Gov. Mike Havden looks at the exhibit "Kansas Wildlife: Home on the Range?" at the Museum of Natural History yesterday.
By NOEL GERDES
By NOEL GERDES and VIRGINIA McGRATH Staff writers
Kansas Gov. Mike Hayden, on campus yesterday, said he liked the concept of selective admissions at state universities but would reserve judgment on any particular proposal.
"The Board of Regents is moving in the right direction with selective admissions." Hayden said. Requiring entering freshmen to have a minimum grade point average in a high school course load is a good idea, he said.
However, Hayden said his decision on whether to sign a selective admissions bill would depend on the type of admissions criteria involved.
The Regents are expected to reject or endorse select admissions at their Dec. 17 meeting.
The Regents will consider limiting admissions for entering freshmen by using criteria such as a high school curriculum, a minimum ACT score or minimum class rank
An interim state legislative committee on education rejected a separate selective admissions proposal two weeks ago that would have required in-state freshmen to complete a college preparatory curriculum in high school.
Hayden also was cautious in supporting the Regents three-year budget request, named Margin of Excellence.
Margin of Excellence asks for $47 million in new state support.
Under the state's current open admissions law, Regents schools must admit any graduate of an accredited Kansas high school.
"From a need standpoint, it is a realistic request," Hayden said. But he said it was a different question whether the state would have the money available.
Margin of Excellence will be competing for state money with other programs, such as a water plan, Hayden said.
Kathy Peterson, Hayden's press secretary, said the water plan would address the quality and quantity of state water and involve everything from cleaning up contaminated water supplies to water storage.
Hayden said, "If Kansas is going to have an adequate water supply
in the future for human consumption, industry, drought, recreation, and natural resources, we've got to have a solid plan in place, and of course, that plan is not cheap."
This is the first time a governor's budget request will include a large expenditure for a water plan, which he had before the Legislature this spring.
Hayden commented on selective admissions and Margin of Excellence after he spoke to about 50
people in Dyche Hall yesterday at the dedication of a new exhibit at the Natural History Museum.
The exhibit, named "Kansas Wildlife: Who's at Home on the Range" features displays or restoration of wildlife and natural ecosystems.
Hayden commended the museum on its natural resources exhibit, which will beon the fifth floor until June.
"I think it's important to look at the great miracle that has happened in wildlife restoration," Hayden said.
He said the newly reorganized and renamed department of wildlife and parks had been instrumental in rejuvenating Kansas wildlife.
life in Kansas suffered because of agriculture and hunting but is now making a comeback
The exhibit illustrates how wild-
Eight days of finals to continue, but many think that's too long
Staff writer
By MICHAEL HORAK
Staff writer
Some professors think the University of Kansas isn't following the miniskirt philosophy when administering final exams.
KU finals fail to make the grade on the second count, some teachers think.
According to that philosophy, finals should be long enough to cover the subject, but short enough to make it interesting.
"Finals at KU are too long and stretched out over too many days," James Drury, professor of political science, said recently.
"I think three-hour tests are endurance contests," he said. "I know students who emotionally, psychologically and physically can't write for three straight hours."
National studies and comparisons with Big Eight and Regents schools give some credence to Drury's complaint about the length of KU's finals.
When finals begin a week from today, KU will be the first Big Eight or Regents school to start its final tests. Most other schools in the Midwest won't begin their finals until Dec. 14.
KU gives three-hour tests over eight days, including additional
Saturday morning tests for foreign language classes.
Four Big Eight and four Regents schools have five days of finals. At those universities, the tests are two hours long. The other schools, with the exception of the University of Colorado, have six days of finals. Colorado has finals for seven days.
A national survey conducted last fall by the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admission Officers indicated that only 4 percent of the 1,465 colleges and universities responding to the survey had final periods as long or longer than KU. Most of the colleges completed their finals in five days.
Drury said the fact that KU was so different from schools both in Kansas and across the nation made him think that KU should shorten its exam period, too.
William Haid, registrar at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, conducted the association's study. He said that there was some uniformity in the way most schools structured their finals.
"There weren't any surprises," he said. "Most schools have their tests for one week, they are two hours later, and then they have four test periods each day.
"When you are out in left field, you should know why you are out there," Drruy said.
For now, talk about shortening KU's finals period remains talk. There is no active movement to change the length of finals.
Last fall, KU's calendar committee recommended shortening the final exam period and increasing the number of tests given each day. The recommendation got nowhere, Drury said, because of a lack of faculty support.
Evelyn Swartz, chairman of the University Senate Executive Committee, said yesterday that University Senate, which approves KU's academic calendar, already had approved tentative calendars that set aside eight days of finals for the next three years.
Swartz said that even though the calendar was set far in advance, it was flexible enough to accommodate changes if the finals period were shortened.
Swartz said that any plan that might be proposed before University Senate would come under close scrutiny.
"If a recommendation came to shorten finals, then we would begin to talk about the possible implications."
By JORN E. KAALSTAD
Staff writer
Student living in bus likes mobile lifestyle
Keeping utility bills low is no problem for Hugh Bogle. He doesn't pay any.
pay any. He doesn't pay any rent, either.
He doesn't pay any rent, either. Bogle, Wellsville sophomore, has been living on campus in a blue schoolbus size Christmas.
The bus, which he bought from a Nebraska prison, is sparsely equipped, by normal living standards. It contains a small desk, an old furnace that he never uses, and a Coleman propane stove.
bogle, a civil engineering major,
said he spent about $25 to $30 a week
for food, most of it for soup or other
canned products.
Sleeping in an unheated bus can be a chilling experience now that temperatures are creeping below freezing. But, Bogle, who served three years in the U.S. Army infantry division before coming to the University of Kansas, said he didn't mind.
"I cook everything in the can because I hate cleaning up," he said. "Usually I eat soup cold; it tastes the same as warm."
"I'm happy as long as I don't have to sleep out in the rain."
At night, Bogle cuddles up in his green army sleeping bag on the floor of the bus.
"The sleeping bag keeps me warm at night, but it's sometimes hard to get out of it in the morning." he said.
His bus is now parked in the yellow-zoned parking lot east of the computer center.
Because he is near Robinson Center, Bogle takes a shower every morning at the gymnasium, which furnishes a towel and soap. The computer center, open 24 hours a day, provides him with a bathroom and water.
Bogle was reluctant to tell his story at first because he thought KU police would ask him to take his bus off campus.
Lt. Jeanne Longaker, KU police department, said she was not aware of anyone living in vehicles on campus. But it is not illegal, she said.
"There is nothing in the law prohibiting people from doing that. Lonoxie."
KU parking officials don't seem to mind either.
Donna Hultine, assistant director of parking, said Parking Services did not object to people living in vehicles on KU parking lots as long as they had a valid parking permit.
Hultine said she could recall a similar case a few years ago, when a
90 Cuban prisoners moved to Kansas
See BOGLE, p. 7, col.1
The Associated Press
LEAVENWORTH — Ninety Cuban detainees were transferred yesterday morning to the federal prison in Leavenworth from the federal detention center in Oakdale, La., that was virtually destroyed during an eight-day unrising.
A federal Bureau of Prisons official in Washington said Leavenworth and other federal institutions across the United States could receive more of the 1,000 Oakdale inmates being moved following the end of the siege Sunday, when 26 hostages were released.
John Vanyur, a Bureau of Prisons spokesman in Washington, confirmed that 90 inmates were sent to Leavenworth.
"There may be more. By midnight tonight, they will all be where they are supposed to be," said Vanyur, adding that a final figure would be released today for the various prisons around the country.
Dan McCauley, a spokesman at Leavenworth, said the 90 Cubans arrived about 7 a.m.
A prison official said last week that about 40 Cuban inmates were already at Leavenworth. McCauley said yesterday that the prison had "space available to handle the Cuban inmates."
Meanwhile, a "small but aggressive minority" of Cuban inmates blocked the release of 90 hostages from a federal penitentiary in Atlanta yesterday, officials said.
The same 100 Cubans, out of a population of 1,118, earlier blocked the release of 50 hostages in Atlanta, said Patrick Korten, deputy director of public affairs for the U.S. Justice Department.
The prison was quiet yesterday, reporting no inmate reaction to the Louisiana settlement. Authorities spoke with some inmates yesterday, but no formal negotiations were scheduled.
The riots by Cuban detainees in both states followed a government announcement that 2,500 Cubans, mostly criminals or mentally ill, would be returned to their homeland. The inmates have demanded that they be allowed to remain in the United States. Cuban inmates seized the Oakdale, La., prison Nov. 21; other Cuban inmates took over Atlanta penitentiary two days later.
The Atlanta inmates and federal officials have been at a stalemate since four hostages were released Sunday morning.
"We are prepared to be as patient as necessary as we await a decision by the Cuban detainees to settle the incident on a fair and equitable basis," Korten said, refusing to give additional details on the rift between the inmates.
Federal agents will not use force to regain control of the 85-year-old stone prison as long as the prison workers held hostage are safe, he said.
Inmates have made videotapes of 70 of the 90 hostages, and all appear to be safe, Korten said. He said officials had verified the safety of the remaining hostages by other means, which he would not describe.
Kansas awaits word on national Super Collider contract
Superconducting Super Collider would turn proton collision into cash
Frank Wilson, senior scientist at the Kansas Geological Survey.
Dan Ruettimann/KANSAN
Staff writer
By MARK TILFORD Staff writer
Think of it as sort of the ultimate Wheel of Fortune.
It's called the Superconducting Super Collider. A $2.8-mile circular tunnel under the ground, it would be the world's largest accelerator, a proton-proton collider.
To the physicist, it means the future of science.
See related story p. 6.
To a state such as Kansas, it could mean much, much more.
"I would say it would do a great deal to eliminate any Wizard of Oz image," said John Ralston, assistant professor of physics at the University of Kansas.
If Kansas should become the state to win the Super Collider, it would become the world's center of high-energy physics and would receive a rare economic boon.
The Super Collider, if approved by the federal government, would cost
$4 billion. During construction, it would employ 4,400 workers. In operation, 2,500 people would man the machine, and it would command an annual operating budget of $200 million.
Kansas is one of 23 states that submitted proposals for the site before the Sept. 2 deadline.
"I think it would enrich the community beyond our wildest imaginations," said Terry Smith, SSC project manager in the Kansas Department of commerce.
The physical aspects of the Super Collider are stunning.
Buried underground, the 10-foot diameter tunnel would travel underground in a 52.8-mile circle.
Protons, which are part of the nucleus of an atom, would be sent through a series of preliminary booster rings, then into the Super Collider.
There, two proton beams, thinner than a human hair, would be spun in a beam.
When the protons reached the speed of light, they would be sent into one of eight massive collision chambers, where they would slam into each other, creating titanic explo
sions and new matter to be studied by super computers.
The subnuclear matter would be studied to give new clues to the nature of matter and the origin of the universe.
The collider is called superconducting because 10,000 superconducting magnets would be strung along its tubes.
"You just have to charge them up once and set them free." Ralston said. "It's sort of like perpetual motion, in fact."
That saves energy, much of which is used to get the protons spinning initially.
The magnets, made of wire, can be frozen to absolute zero and can conduct electricity with absolutely no resistance.
The magnets also are needed to bend the beams into a circle.
Without the bend, the super collider would have to run in a straight line. To reach the speed of light in a straight tunnel would require a tunnel 600 miles long.
John Ralston, assistant professor of physics and astronomy.