Cloud pleaser
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Details page 6
Friday September 18,1987 Vol. 98, No.20
Published since 1889 by the students of the University of Kansas
(USPS 650-640)
Regents hear admissions plan
KU, K-State and WSU would have stricter standards under Koplik's proposal
By MICHAEL HORAK
Staff writer
TOPEKA - The executive director of the Board of Regents unveiled a plan yesterday that would restrict in-state admission standards at the state's three largest universities.
Stanley Koplik, the director, asked the eight-member board to follow a national trend and change the state's 72-year-old open admissions policy. The change would improve the quality of students that attend state schools.
"We believe the time is right for the discussion of selective admissions." Koplik said.
The plan includes required high school curriculum, grade point averages and test scores for Kansas residents. It would not take effect until 1991 and would include only the University of Kansas, Kansas State University and Wichita State University.
Pittsburgh State University, Emporia State University, Fort Hays State University and the Kansas Technical Institute in Salina, the four other Regents institutions, would continue open admission policies.
The majority of the Regents school presidents said they liked aspects of the plan, but said time would be needed to study what effect the
proposed policy would have
KU Chancellor Gene A. Budig told the Regents that he would ask Judith Ramaley, KU executive vice chancellor to thoroughly study land and ocean resources on KU. He said Ramaley's analysis would most likely take 45 days.
In the past, Budig has been an opponent of selective admissions. He did not comment specifically on Kooplik's plan at yesterday's meeting.
Under the proposed plan, to be admitted into KU, K-State and Wichita State, students would have to meet at least one of the following criteria:
■ Complete a Regents recommended preparatory curriculum with a grade point average of 2.0.
That curriculum includes four years of English, three years each of math, science, and two years of a foreign language.
■ Achieve at least a 23 composite score on the ACT.
Rank in the top one-third of their high school graduating class.
Non-traditional students over 2.1 would be exempt from the standards as long as they graduated from a Kansas high school.
Koplik said his plan allowed universities to make exceptions in the criteria, but it limited exemptions to 10 percent of the freshman class.
Out-of-state freshmen also would have tougher criteria to get into KU. They would have to maintain at least 80 PA in the same preparatory classes.
No remedial classes will be taught at KU, K-State and Wichita State if Koplih's plan is passed.
"Remediation is more properly the role of community colleges," Koplik said.
He predicted that by enacting selective admission policies, the state would reduce the freshman dropout rate and increase the percentage of students who graduate. Twenty-one percent of last year's freshman class at KU dropped out, he said.
KU has a degree completion rate of 46.1 percent and K-State has a 41 percent completion rate. Koplik said The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which has selective admission, has a graduation rate of 71 percent. The University of North Carolina is one of KU's peer institutions. Peer institutions share similar size, mission and scope.
"While students drop out of school for a variety of reasons, we know that raising the standards for admissions also raised the quality of the raw material entering the institution and the level of instruction," he said.
Koplik's plan allows students who begin at one school to transfer to another if they take at least 24 transferable credit hours and maintain a 2.5 GPA. He said students who couldn't get into the school of their choice could work hard at another school and have the option to transfer
After Kopik presented his plan, KU student body president Jason Krakow spoke on behalf of the Student Advisory Committee. That committee is composed of all the student body presidents at the seven Regents schools.
Krakow asked the board to consider a plan that would concentrate more on "student preparedness" for college, instead of test scores and class ranking. He said an ACT score could not measure motivation.
Stephen Wade/Special to the KANSAN
Wichita State President Warren Armstrong said Kopik's plan was starting point for discussion, but said if the state approved selective admissions, the state would have to change its financing philosophy.
Krakow presented a plan from the K Student Advisory Committee that closely resembled Koplik's proposal, but did not require high school foreign language and allowed students to be admitted to college if they took hours of post secondary summer school and received at least a 2.0 GPA.
Stanley Koplik, executive director of the Board of Regents.
"They will have to change from quantitative funding to qualitative funding." he said.
The Regents did not discuss Koplik's plan in detail. However, two Regents members said the high government language requirement concerned them.
The selective admissions issue is expected to be discussed at the Regents meeting Oct. 15 in Wichita and throughout the fall. Koplik said he hoped a consensus could be reached before the Legislature met in January.
Hien Cong Hguyen, of Manhattan, recites the oath to become a naturalized U.S. citizen. Hguyen, originally from Vietnam, was one of 109 people to participate in the ceremony at the state capitol yesterday.
By VALOREE ARMSTRONG
Immigrants become citizens on anniversary of Constitution
TOPEKA - They came from 34 countries in every corner of the world.
Staff writer
In a celebration yesterday marked by thousands of red, white and blue balloons and a 500-pound birthday cake, 109 immigrants from countries such as El Salvador, the Soviet Union, Poland and Mexico were welcomed as U.S. citizens by Gov. Mike Hayden.
The naturalization ceremony, performed on the south steps of the State Capitol by U.S. District Judge Richard Rogers, was part of Kansas' celebration of the 20th anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution.
Lirio Umengan Mahmoud, of Leawood, came to the United States in 1972 from the Philippines in hopes of starting a new life. Yesterday she renounced her allegiance to that nation.
Deanell Tacha, judge for the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in her address at the ceremony, said that each new citizen should strive to be a sovereign individual. She said the new citizens should make informed decisions and could do that only through education.
"I'm getting older and would like to participate in politics — voting. That's the only thing I can't do as a resident." Mahmoud said.
"But you're not sovereign if you give up your right to make decisions and make your views beard." Tacha said.
Mahmoud's two children were born in the United States, and her husband immigrated from Jordan and was naturalized six years ago.
School children waved miniature flags, and adults applauded after each of the 109 immigrants
and their former countries were identified. The crowd of citizens, new and old, said the Pledge of Allegiance.
Biden downplays plagiarism charges
"A Dramatic Reading by Alexander Hamilton," a narrative of the events leading to the signing of the Constitution, featuring the music of the time, was presented by Donald Hickey of Wayne State University and Robert A. Garry, university garb, Hickey recounted how the Constitution was ratified.
WASHINGTON — Sen. Joseph R. Biden, his presidential campaign under siege, said yesterday that he committed plagiarism in law school in 1965 but dismissed the furor over his failure to attribute the words of others in his speeches as "much ado about nothing."
At a Capitol Hill news conference, the Delaware Democrat released law school records that disclosed his plagiarism at Syracuse University as a first-year law student and said, "I intentionally move to mislead anybody."
The Associated Press
"I did something very stupid 23 years ago," Biden said. "Little did I know I would be standing before the whole world acknowledging the fact I did not know how to write a legal memorandum and the mistake is costing me as much as it is costing me."
The fountain, financed by private donations, consists of an inner pool with three fountains that symbolize the three branches of government, and an outer pool with seven smaller fountains that symbolize the seven justices of the Kansas Supreme Court.
Before the noon ceremony, the newly filled Fountain of Justice was dedicated in front of the Kansas Judicial Center.
Biden also said he committed a series of errors in not attributing quotes correctly in several campaign speeches this year. But Biden said fellow presidential hopeful Jesse Jackson called to say he also uses phrases Biden has been accused of lifting.
Saying all candidates use "certain generic quotes" from past leaders, he charged that the controversy is meaningless.
"I am being honest. . . . The American people will judge. I think it's much ado about nothing," Biden said.
He said he rejected the notion that his admission of errors in speeches suggested he cannot control himself.
"In the marketplace of ideas in the political realm, the notion that for every thought or idea you have to go to someone else is frankly ludicrous."
"I feel very capable of using my mouth in sync with my mind," he
And Biden said he would fight on for the Democratic nomination.
"I want to tell them all. I'm in this
camp. I am in this race to win.
And here I come."
Biden repeatedly said that the sources of the stories about his speeches and law school record came from his opponents, although he said he did not identify any one campaign, Republican or Democratic, as the source.
It is no coincidence, Biden said, that these allegations came to light just as he began leading the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the nomination of Judge Robert H. Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court.
But he said he didn't think it would undermine his leadership during the budget crisis.
Biden explained how he lifted five pages from a law review article for a brief he wrote in a legal methods class. He did not quote or footnote the material, an omission noted by a classmate who criticized his paper
"But that I did not intentionally move to mislead anybody. I didn't, I was mistaken, but I was not in anyway malevolent." Bidian said.
When he was confronted by the law school dean, Biden said he admitted his actions and asked for a chance to explain them to the faculty. He wrote a two-page letter on his mistake and the faculty for a chance to recoup.
In his letter written in 1965, Biden said his plagiarism was the result of "my mistaken notion" of what a legal brief was supposed to be.
After consideration, Biden was given an F in the course and the chance to retake it the next year. He returned it earned a B, now reflected in his record.
Task force proposes drug plan
Staff writer
By MICHAEL HORAK
TOPEKA—State universities need to double their efforts to educate students about drug and alcohol abuse, Dawid Waxman, chairman of the Governor's task force on Substance Abuse Regents Institutions said yesterday.
"Education" is our best weapon related to increased awareness of these problems." Waxman said he was meeting with the president and Begens at their monthly meeting.
The report focuses on substance abuse education, intervention, and support services offered to students in the school district testing programs for college athletes.
Gov. Mike Hayden created the four-member task force last spring to study the issue.
Regents chairman Norman Jeter; Galen Davis, special assistant to the Governor; Stanley Koplik, Regents executive director; and Ted Ayres, Regents general counsel, served with Waxman on the task force.
'Education is our best weapon related to increased awareness of these problems.'
David Waxman Task force chairman
"I was quite pleased to learn that many good things are presently taking place in the area of substances abuse education, but obviously additional ideas could be explored." Waxman said.
The report was presented to the Regents after Waxman and four task force committee members complied information about the issues over the interviews with students, faculty and administrators across the state.
Ilicit drugs are as available to the student population as they are to the general population, but alcohol still is widely used, usually used substance, the report said.
The report recommends that each university develop a pamphlet specifying where students can get help for addiction and abuse problems.
Hayden has assured the task force that he will allocate $50,000 of his budget to pay for the cost of recompensation. He will be spent on drug abuse education.
On the issue of drug testing of student athletes, the task force said every Regents school had a drug testing policy that could detect illegal substances, including marijuana and cocaine.
The task force asked athletic departments not to make any changes in their current testing programs until the constitutional problems surrounding the issue had been resolved in the courts.
KU currently budgets $25,000 a year for drug testing of athletes, the report said.
In another action at yesterday's meeting, the Regents approved policies for serving alcohol under appropriately controlled conditions at some campus events. The new policy required non-classroom areas.
At KU, those events are subject to the approval of the executive vice chancellor.
U.S., Soviets extend arms talks; summit planned for December 1
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze decided dramatically yesterday to extend their talks on a missile-reduction treaty, and a Soviet spokesman said "history is in the making."
In the first sign of progress, their spokesmen announced "full-scale" negotiations would begin by Dec. 1. The intention of ending all nuclear weapons tests.
However, in a joint statement, the two sides said the first step toward a cessation — which Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachek has termed the most urgent nuclear issue — would "effective verification measures."
This reflected President Reagan's insistence on devising foolproof safeguards against Soviet cheating before considering a test ban.
Shultz and Shevardnadze scrapped
"We're moving ahead across the full range of issues," said Charles E. Redman, the State Department spokesman.
"History is in the making," said Gennady Gerasimov, the Soviet spokesman. "We must wait a little bit."
The first indication of a shift was a telephone call to reporters from the Soviet embassy that Shevardnadze ordered to release the contacts which had been scheduled for 4:30
plans for a midday windup and separate news conferences, sent down to the State Department cafeteria for tuna fish and turkey sandwiches and pressed on with their talks over a treaty to abolish intermediate-range missiles.
The original plan had been to wint up the talks at about noon. Shultz and Shevardnadze were then to hold separate news conferences and make separate visits to Capitol Hill to talk to members of Congress.
Later, Redman and Gerasimov announced the joint decision to hold "full-scale, stage-by-stage" negotiations on nuclear testing issues.
"We decided to give you something to chew on." Gerasimiyoked.
Gorbache has called a ban on further weapons tests the most urgent nuclear issue. "There is no more urgent and important task today than that of ending all nuclear testing," he said in August 1986.
The Soviet leader suspended further Soviet tests, but failing to persuade Reagan to join in the ban, he left the United States after February a 19-month hiatus.
The Reagan administration takes the position tests must be conducted to ensure the reliability of U.S. nuclear weapons and to develop new ones. Also, the U.S. effort to develop an space-based defense against missiles involves setting off devices at the Nevada underground site.