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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Wednesday November 18,1987 Vol.98,No.63
Published since 1889 by the students of the University of Kansas
(USPS 650-640)
Regents selective admissions effort fails
From staff and wire reports
TOPEKA, Kan. — An effort to introduce a bill limiting admissions to Board of Regents schools failed yesterday afternoon at a legislative committee meeting after a debate that could foreshadow arguments in the forthcoming session.
State Sen. Alicia Salisbury, R-Topeka, whose motion before the Legislative Educational Planning Committee to draft a selective admission bill failed on a 5-5 vote, said a slightly altered version might be considered again today.
State Rep. Denise Apt, R-Iola, presented a proposal to the committee that would require students to complete a preparatory curriculum to be eligible for admission to a Regents institution. The Regents would establish the curriculum under the proposal.
Current law says that anyone who graduates from a Kansas high school is eligible for admission to any of the seven Regents schools. The Regents are considering a selective admissions policy of their own and are expected to have a bill introduced in the coming session.
Stanley Koplik, executive director of the Regents, proposed a policy earlier this fall that would introduce selective admissions at KU.
Under the proposal, in order to be admitted, students would be required to complete a recommended high school curriculum with a 2.0 grade point average or higher, or rank in the top third of their graduating class or score at least 23 on the ACT composite.
Koplik said yesterday he was not discouraged by the committee's vote.
"The 5-5 vote was indicative of a
fact we knew before we started discussing this issue that there are conversations on both sides," he said.
The Regents will hear responses to Koplik's selective admissions proposal from the Regents schools at tomorrow's meeting in Topeka. Koplik said the Regents would vote on the proposals in December.
Judith Ramaley, KU executive vice chancellor, said yesterday that KU had not yet taken an official position on Kopik's proposal. She said she did not know whether KU would ever take a position on that proposal.
The legislative proposal would guarantee admission only to those who have completed a high school college preparatory curriculum, although other students also could be admitted even if they did not take the required high school courses.
The proposal would give colleges a "window" equal to 10 percent of the total entering freshman for exceptions to the selective admissions policy. Older students and those who enter school after serving in the military also would be exempt.
Opposition to the legislative proposal centered on the foreign language requirement that would be included in the college preparatory courses and the idea of excluding Kansas students from state colleges.
State Sen. Jim Allen, R-Ottawa, said he thought the policy penalized Kansas high school students. He said some students who did not do well in high school did well in college. "They change a lot in their teens," he said
Apt aided a selective admissions policy would help those freshmen who had not received proper training to handle the workload in college.
Those students currently are being "set up for failure," she said.
Others opposed the foreign language requirement, which could be met either in high school or in college.
Apt said she supported the foreign language requirement, but added, "the requirement could bring the proposal up in the 'gslistance, she said"
Kopik's selective admissions proposal originally included a foreign language requirement in the recommended high school curriculum. However, Kopik later changed his proposal to give high school students the option of taking computer science, art or music classes in place of foreign language.
Left: Rescue workers assist a victim of a car-train collision. The accident occurred about 9 p.m. at a train crossing near Indiana and Second streets. Above: Lawrence firefighters prepare to remove the wreckage from the tracks.
Two men injured when auto, train collide near park
By KIRK ADAMS and JULIE McMAHON Staff writers
How the accident occurred
One man was in serious condition and another in stable condition last night after their car collided with a southbound Santa Fe train at the entrance of Burcham Park at Second and Indiana streets.
Garcia said that the victims had been pinned in the car for 15 to 25 minutes before rescue workers could free them. The train coupler had broken through the passenger window of the car and extended more than halfway into the front seat.
The driver, an unidentified man that police believe to be a 19-year-old from the Kansas City area, was taken by Douglas County Ambulance Service from Lawrence to the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, Kan. A hospital spokesman said he was in serious condition last night with a closed head injury.
The Lawrence Fire Department used the Jaws of Life to help free the victims.
Police received the accident call at 8:55 p.m., said Sgt. Miguel Garcia.
The passenger was identified by relatives as Jack Wise, 19, 1908 E. 19th St., called Cpl. Robert Fox, a Lawrence police spokesman. Wis was listed in stable condition last week after the hospital Memorial Hospital, a hospital spokesman said. He suffered lacerations and abrasions.
H. D. Muldoon, a Santa Fe brakeman from Kansas City, Kan., was standing on a ledge on the back of the train at the time of the accident. He said that the train was backing toward its depot, and was traveling about 10 miles an hour. The depot is about one mile southeast of the accident site. The train sounded its whistle 300 yards before the crossing, and had flares burning on the back car, Muldooon said.
Muldoon said he saw the car, a yellow Toyota Celica, drive west out of the park and to the tracks where he thought it came to a stop. But as the train reached the intersection, the car pulled onto the tracks, he said, and collided with the train.
Source: Kansan reports
Dave Eames and Bill Skeet KANSAN
Muldoon said that he signaled the engineer with a radio to stop. The car was pushed about 100 yards, police said.
"It's something you always dread." he said.
The railroad crossing is marked with a sign, but does not have a crossbar or lights.
The train and the car reached the crossing about the same time, Muldoon added. He said he didn't know the driver's car stalled on the tracks.
The two-engine train with 10 railroad cars was backing from an industrial area north of Lawrence to the Santa Fe station, 413 East 7th St. Bill Slim, a Santa Fe employee, said that every evening, Santa Fe trains go to industrial plants in north Lawrence where they exchange railroad cars.
Chasity Hernandez, Wise's sister, said that her brother told her in the emergency room that he was in memory how the accident happened.
"He has a lot of blood on his
head," she said.
Another Lawrence car and train accident occurred in March. Four KU students were killed when a car and a train collided just north of Lawrence. The accident was on a mile north of Interstate 70, and 78 yards west of U.S. Highway 24-59 on county road 1900N.
The car was cut in two after being hit broadside by a northbound Union Pacific train. The train was traveling about 65 miles an hour.
GTA wages at KU not competitive,faculty says
By JENNIFER ROWLAND
Some of the best graduate students never come to the University of Kansas because of KU's inability to offer them nationally competitive teaching assistant stipends, administrators and faculty say.
"We don't mind losing a promising graduate student to Princeton, but we don't like to lose a promising student to the University of Arkansas, which we've done," said Robert Lineberry, dean of liberal arts and sciences.
Staff writer
Graduate teaching assistants at KU receive an average of $6,217 for their half-time, nine-month appointment.
ments. A half-time appointment requires GTAs to work 20 hours a week for two semesters.
- Tomorrow: Administrators are worried about low salaries, but most don't think salaries will improve soon.
tutor's note: This is the second in a three-part series on graduate teaching assistants at the University of Kansas.
Today: Low salaries make it hard for KU to attract the best graduate students.
Stipends vary from department to department. In the College of Liberal
Arts and Sciences, most stipends ranged last year from the $4,768 offered in the department of East Asian Languages and Cultures to the $7,230 offered in the mathematics department.
Overall, KU's average GTA stipend is on the rise. In 1984, the stipends were at 76 percent of the average at peer institutions. Now, KU is at 89 percent of the peer average.
But each individual department competes with other schools across the nation for the best GTAs in that specific area, faculty say. And some KU departments can't offer as much money as the schools they're competing with.
The competition
For example, Anthony Genova, chairman of philosophy, said his department was paying $6,350 to GTAs for a nine-month, half-time appointment this year, about the average for GTA stipends at KU. But the department loses its top applicants to schools with higher stipends, he said.
"It's the fact that better schools have higher stipends. They have more support for their graduate students," he said. "The very best ones we don't get because they're getting larger grants from other places.
them $8,000 or $8,500."
"We'd have a shot if we offered
His department competes with other research universities that offer doctoral degrees, he said, such as the University of Texas-Austin, Rice University in Houston, some schools in the Big Ten and schools in the Big West such as the University of Nebraska and the University of Colorado.
The Big Eight doesn't provide much competition for the history department, said Norman Saul, chairman of history. His department competes with schools such as the University of Illinois.
Low stipends have lost graduate
See GTA, p. 7, col.1
Staff writer
Turnout strong in first day of union balloting
Voting continues today until 6 p.m.
Turnout yesterday at the three faculty union election polling sites was well more than 50 percent, officials from the Kansas Public Employee Relations Board said.
By NOEL GERDES Staff writer
"It slowed down at about 5 p.m., but there was a pretty steady stream of people all day long," Paul K. Dickhoff Jr., state election supervisor, said.
Tim Triggs, a state labor conti-
tor, said that of the 359 people
assigned to vote in Haworth Hall,
more than 50 percent voted yesterday.
It slowed down at about 5 p.m.,but there was a pretty steady stream of people all day long.'
6 T
- Paul K. Dickhoff Jr.
state election supervisor
Dickhoff said about 450 people were assigned to vote in Strong Hall, and about 50 to 60 percent of them voted.
Robert Hood, a state labor conciliator, said 206 people were assigned to vote in Lindley Hall, and about 60 percent of them had voted.
Dickhoff said turnout for a union election usually was about 90 percent of the eligible voters, and he expected the same for KU.
About 1,000 faculty and staff members are eligible to vote in the election. The three choices on the ballot are to form a union represented by the KU chapter of the American Association of University Professors, to form a union represented by the KU chapter of the National Education Association or not to form a union.
Dickhoff said polling had gone smoothly yesterday. However, there were about 40 challenge ballots cast at the three polling sites. Challenge ballots are cast by faculty and staff members who want to vote but are not on the list of eligible voters at a polling site. Dickhoff said he would decide today after the polls closed whether the challenge ballots were valid.
Faculty, staff to vote today on union issue
Election results will be announced today in Brewster Auditorium of Strong Hall as soon as state officials tally the ballots, Dickhoff said. Ballot counting will begin after the polls close at 6 p.m. If none of the three options on the ballot receives a majority of the votes cast, a run-off election between the top two vote-getters will be scheduled to take place within 30 days.
Observers from the KU administration, KU-AAUP and KU-NEA were present at each of the polling to make sure the polling was fair.
About 1,000 KU faculty and staff members are eligible to vote in today's faculty union election.
Polls will be open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. today in 102 Haworth Hall, 208 Strong and 110 Lillead.
Faculty and staff who are assigned to offices in Summerfield, Haworth, Malott and Murphy halls, Robinson Gymnasium, Watkins Memorial Hospital and West Campus buildings should vote in 3012 Haworth.
Faculty and staff who are assigned to offices in Fraser, Twente, Blake, Lippincott, Smith, Wesco, Sceeo, Fliant-Flock, Strong, Spooner and Snow halls, Watson Library, Spencer Research Library and the museums should vote in 208 Strong.
Faculty and staff who are assigned to offices in Lindley, Learned, Bailey and Marvin halls and the Art and Design building should vote in 118 Lindley.