My fair day
sunny day
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Details page 6
Wednesday September 30,1987 Vol.98,No.28
Published since 1889 by the students of the University of Kansas
(USPS 650-640)
Former governor becomes KU consultant
Former Kansas Gov. John Carlin has been hired as a consultant for the University of Kansas, Frances Horowitz, vice chancellor for research and graduate studies, said yesterday.
Staff writer
Carlin, who served as governor from 1979 to 1987, is a Topeka resident and on the faculty at Wichita State University as a professor of urban affairs and public administration.
By MARK TILFORD
University one day a month. But his schedule will vary, and he might be here more often.
He will work as an economic development consultant in the Center for International Programs and as a government consultant for the Institute of Public Policy and Business Research, Horowitz said.
He joined the KU staff in August and is scheduled to come to the
Steven Maynard-Moody
The former governor is a very articulate and talented man. And he's had some insights to these problems that you would hate to see go to waste.'
"T
Carlin will be paid $500 a month, and the University will reimburse Wichita State for Carlin's consulting fees. The money will come from state funds
Carlin said yesterday that he planned to speak to a law class in
Institute of Public Policy and Business Research
October and said addressing other classes was a possibility.
lops, then certainly yes," he said.
"It was discussed. And if it deve-
Carlin went to China and Japan several times during his eight years
in office, and he said he helped develop a program through which two KU students were currently studying in China.
Part of Carlin's work will be on a government reform project with Steven Maynard-Moody of the public policy institute.
"Last fall, as one of the last things Carlin did as governor, he commissioned a study looking at the reform of local government," Maynard-Moody said. "This project is sort of growing out of that study."
Maynard-Moody said the project would deal with changing local gov
ernments in the state, including both growing and declining governments
"We're beginning to get more interaction with the rural areas because that's where the real trazedy is." Mavnord-Moodd said.
Carlin also will work with George Woodyard, associate vice chancellor for academic affairs in the international affairs center.
"The former governor is a very articulate and talented man," Maynard-Moody said. "And he's bad at everything." He wasn't sure you would hate to see go to waste.
Honors classes short of teachers
By JENNIFER ROWLAND
The strain of KU's continued record enrollment has jeopardized the number of honors courses. But despite the overflow, University departments continue to offer honors courses.
Sharon Brehm, director of the College Honors Program, said yesterday that University departments and faculty remained committed to offering the smaller 15- to 20-student classes despite the enrollment crunch.
"It is absolutely true that there is more pressure on departments to cover the basic required courses. So they do not have a chance." she said.
as bad as the crunch has gotten.
Brom said, "people have stayed in
- Sharon Brehm
We are intimately tied to the fates and fortunes of the University, and if we can increase the faculty at this University, the honors program will benefit.
- Sharon Brehm
Director of the College Honors
Do An Sunim, Lawrence resident and ordained Buddhist monk, uses chants to help him meditate and achieve enlightenment.
Program
Entering freshmen who are National Merit Semi-Finalists, Summerfield or Watkins-Berger Scholars or who have ACT composite scores of at least 30 or SAT scores of at least 1,340 are automatically eligible for the honors program. Students also need to complete a 3.25 Honors students must maintain a 3.25 GPA and enroll in honors courses to stay in the program.
"We are intimately tailed to the fates and fortunes of the University, and if we can increase the faculty at this university our program will benefit," Brehm said.
She said that some larger departments had to reduce the number of honors classes they offered each year. She added that a lack of faculty to teach the courses
Kansas Zen Center residents seek path to enlightenment
Brehm said that the approximately 800 honors students that enrolled this fall reflected about a 30 percent increase from last fall.
"I think it is really a national trend now to be concerned about education.
By BRIAN BARESCH
Staff writer
The center is home to 13 people, including four KU students, who practice Zen Buddhism. Zen, a blend of mystical Buddhism and Chinese Theoist philosophies, is a way of living for thousands of people nationwide.
"All the problems in the world are in yourself," said Dennis Durmeir, director of the center. By clearing distractions out of the mind, one can better understand and live life, while also to achieve enlightenment, he said.
Before the eastern sky was light Tuesday morning, residents of the Kansas Zen Center at 1115 Ohio St. put on gray robes and settled into the house's front room for the day's 5:30 a.m. meditation.
Anyone may attend the exercises,
at 5:30 every morning or at 7 p.m.
Sunday and Wednesday. A discussion
on Zen Buddhism and a question and
answer session follow the Sunday
exercises.
Lawrence practitioners say that Zen is a way of coming to grips with one's problems, which are usually in the way one looks at the world.
Morning exercises start with 108 prostrations, or bowing deeply and standing up. "They wake you up." Do Buddh monk, said with a grit.
Next, the adherents sit and meditate quietly for half an hour, then chant for 45 minutes from a book of Korean chants. The morning's exercises end as Durmeir reads aloud a letter from the Lawrence center's founder and spiritual master, Seung Sahn.
Enlightenment, Durmeier said, is having a perfectly clear mind, which allows the enlightened one to live
See HONORS, p. 6, col.1
The letters are read because Seung travels extensively and is not always available to answer questions, Durmeier said. Each letter addresses a
As many as 10 people usually attend the morning session, including quite a few who don't live there, and some who take sessions draw about four to six people.
with less anxiety and distraction
question put to the master about Zen meditaton or life.
"All sentient beings have originally clear minds and a compassionate nature," Durmeiren said. "What we think of as ourselves, our minds, bodies and so forth, covers up that fact."
The exercises are a way of returning to the original state. "It's real simple," Durmeirie said. "You just sit there and watch your mind, and gradually over time your mind becomes clear."
The class met in several places around Lawrence from 1978 until 1983, when some of the members met in a house together to practice Zen.
The Kansas Zen Center grew out of an informal meditation class taught by Stanley Lombardo, chairman of the Lombardo Judi Rothin, professor of math.
Several of the members had stud- led with Zen masters, Roitman said, and eventually Sahn agreed to visit them for exercise. One student of his students to help with exercises.
Sahn, who has helped establish about 25 Zen centers in the United States and Europe since 1972, has prescribed the sequence of exercises the center uses. In Korea, traditional Zen uses only quiet siting to clear mind. Durnier said that Sahn believed that Westerners thought too much.
This means that just sitting is not as effective here, so Sahn added the prostatises and chanting as a way of focusing on the mind instead of distractions, which Durmeir referred to as buzzing in the head.
Sitting quietly is an important part of Zen Buddhist meditation for Xuey Chi, Yang, Kao-hsuing, Taiwan, graduate, student.
The center has about four meditation retreats each year, in which adherents perform exercises 14 hours a day for up to a week at a time. During the retreat, they think about koans, or Zen puzzles.
Koans are questions without answers that can be worked out rationally. They can be solved only an enlightened mind, Durmeer said.
Durmeire gave an example: A Zen master was approached one day after breakfast by a young discipline who wanted to be taught. "Have you had breakfast?" asked the master. The monk said yes. The master asked, "What have you learned? The young monk was enlightened. What had he attained?"
The answer has to do with realizing that enlightenment is an important part of everyday life: the monk had gained clean breakfast bowls.
During the River City Reunion a few weeks ago, poets Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman and writer Edie Walker went to meet in order to mediate and meet people
Rotman especially enjoyed Ginsberg's visit. "He's the best advertisement for Buddhism that I know, because he's a nice person."
Lawmaker supports admissions plan
House Education Committee chairman wants to raise quality of students
Bv MICHAEL HORAK
The chairman of the state House Education Committee said yesterday that she would support the selective board to be added to the Board of Residents recently.
State Rep. Denise Apt, R-Iola, said in a telephone interview that she saw the proposal as a way to raise the student quality at Regents schools.
Staff writer
"The open admissions philosophy, I think, is wonderful, but I don't think it is fair," she said. "I think it is criminal that we send some of our kids to college unprepared and give them the perfect opportunity to fail."
She said requiring high school students to take certain English, math, science, social studies and foreign language classes, would help
Apt is one of the first legislators to publicly support the selective admissions plan unveiled Sept. 17 by Stanley Kohlip, the Regents executive director. The plan would reserve admission in the University of Kansas and the Weicha State University and Weicha State University, school graduates who meet minimum curriculum, class rank or test score requirements.
prepare them for college courses.
House colleagues said yesterday that they were not surprised about Apt's support of selective admissions. The department has introduced two bills that would have made a minimum high school curriculum a prerequisite for admis-
The Regents will be considering the proposal this fall.
"I'm not surprised she supports this," said State Rep. Jessie Branson, D-Lawrence and member of the House Education Committee. "She has been concerned for some time about the money the state is spending on ill-prepared students and students who don't make it through school."
"Representative Apt has looked at education matters for most of her life. She's a very significant player with regard to the Legislature," he said. "I'm not surprised by her support, but I'm pleased."
Koplik said he was pleased to hear of Apt's support.
Apt said she didn't want to see admission requirements for state schools too restrictive. She said she liked the idea of letting each school
make exceptions for some students who do not meet all the requirements.
Legislation that Apt introduced during the last two years on minimum high school curriculum were just ideas for discussion, she said. They had little chance of passing. Now they are the Legislature is different, she said.
"I think there is more awareness of the situation, more concern . . . I think it is possible that something has happened." "But I've always been an optimist."
Any change in the state's open admissions policy would require the Legislature change current state law.
Apt said the committee would work with the Regents on any plan they might want.
By KIRK ADAMS and
Downtown model may appear on TV
VALOREE ARMSTRONG
Staff writers
A model of downtown Lawrence created by KU architecture students may be used in a video about development options.
The television program will show the public that development can be tastefully accomplished in
The Downtown Improvement Committee, an advisory committee of the City Commission, yesterday discussed using the model in a Sunflower Cablevision's Channel 6, tentatively scheduled for Nov. 23.
the downtown area, said Max Lucas, committee member and dean of architecture.
"The idea is to stimulate some excitement," he said.
The program will also include a segment for residents to call with questions and comments.
Earlier this month, about 65 KU architecture students constructed the model of the downtown area to study and give Lawrence residents a better view of how proposed developments might affect the city.
The model wasn't built specifi-
See MODEL, p. 6, col. 1