On the mild side
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Details page 6
Thursday September 17,1987 Vol.98,No.19
Published since 1889 by the students of the University of Kansas
(USPS 650-640)
Med workers are more wary of infections
Staff writer
By AMBER STENGER
Staff writer
More health care employees at the University of Kansas Medical Center are making an effort to protect themselves from contracting infectious diseases, especially AIDS, employees say.
The Med Center has not changed its infection control policy because of AIDS, said Marcia G. Aillandin, infection control coordinator. It's just that more employees are complying with its recommendations.
“Our philosophy really hasn't changed in regards to precautions,” Gilliland said. “We've always taught that all blood and body fluids can be potentially infectious. What has happened is that people because of AIDS are likely to have a new anybody who used to be hardy lackadassaulted when they got a little blood on their hands, is using gloves more now.”
The AIDS virus can not be contracted through casual contact. The virus is transmitted through blood and body
The national Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta recommend that health care employees wear gloves whenever they may be in contact with a patient's blood or body fluids. When health care employees are in a situation where blood could splatter, such as treating a serious injury, they also are urged to wear protective gowns, masks and goggles. Blood, body fluids, mucous membranes and unattached skin are potentially infec-
Lisa Jones/KANSAN
Jim Mathes, left, of Baldwin City, and Bill Medlen, Lawrence resident, apply Bird/X to the ledge above the Natural History Museum's main entrance. The chemical, which creates a sticky surface, is designed to prevent pigeons from landing on building ledges.
Students favor tougher policy for admissions
KUtries
By NOEL GERDES
A student advisory committee today will recommend to the Board of Regents that Kansas high school students be required to complete certain courses to be guaranteed admission at the six state universities.
The recommendation would require freshmen, in addition to graduating, to have taken four years of English and three years each of science, social studies and math from an accredited Kansas high school.
Staff writer
The student advisory committee consists of the student body, presidents of the Regents schools.
The Regents schools now have an open admissions policy, which means any Kansas resident who graduates from an accredited state high school is admitted automatically to any state university.
The Regents will meet at 9 a.m. today in Topeka to discuss tightening admissions requirements. Their own proposed requirements include a high school curriculum similar to the students' recommendation, but with two years of foreign language. The Regents proposal also includes an ACT score of 23 or better, and ranking in the top third of a class.
The advisory committee considered the Regents proposal before making its own. Jason Krakow, KU student body president, opposed part of the Regents proposal.
"I think to say a student has to have a 23 on the AC1 to be successful is ridiculous," he said.
students' recommendation, to be university in fall 1991, freshmen
AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY
Share Your Good Health
GIVE BLOOD!
American Red Cross
PEOPLE WHO SHOULDN'T CLIP COUPONS: PEOPLE WHO NEVER SPEND MONEY
20 KANSAN MAGAZINE September 16, 1987
If KU were to make admissions requirements more stringent than those of other state schools, some people question whether the benefits of increased prestige would outweigh the harm of re-enforcing an image of KU as "Snob Hill."
"Students really want schools with good reputations," said Marc Borish, director of admissions at the University of Oklahoma in Norman. "When you raise admission requirements, you raise your prestige."
Several university admissions experts and high school counselors are unsure what effect such an "elitist image" might have.
Borish said education quality was important, but that many high school students focused on a
Experts say added prestige may keep 'Snob Hill' image
Almost all admissions directors at KU's peer institutions say that raising admissions standards increases a university's prestige, which makes it easier to recruit the state's top high school students.
school's perceived quality.
Stanley Koplik, executive director of the Kansas Board of Regents, agrees that prestige perception plays a role in college selection.
Koplik said his niece was an example of this. His niece was a graduate of an East Coast high school, and she averaged average and high SAT score.
"When I saw her, I asked about the schools she was thinking about attending," he said. "She rattled off a number of private and public schools, and KU wasn't on the list. I asked her why it wasn't, and she said, 'I can't go there, it's not selective.'"
But there are many who feel elitism would hurt KU.
One Chicago area high school counselor predicted that more of his school's top students would attend KU if requirements were higher because of a positive perception of elitist status.
Chancellor Gene A. Budig has said that an elitist perception caused by selective admissions
requirements, especially enrollment caps, would be bad for KU. He said it would create a first and second class of students.
By setting KU and its students up as the best in the state, KU could alienate both alumni and legislators, administrators worry.
"Kansans would not support such a system of perceived inequality with their tax dollars," he said.
High school counselors in small Kansas communities have said that elitism might scare their students away from KU.
Mary Ann Hill, a counselor from Clearwater High School in Clearwater, said that most of the school's seniors had already chosen to go to K-State, in part because of KU's Snob Hill perception.
"The message is out here in these small schools." Hill said. "Additional uneven admissions requirements would make the problem worse."
-M.H., N.G.
Unprepared students set for failure, officials say
People make a wrong assumption when they talk about open admissions, says Marc Borish, director of admissions at the University of Oklahoma in Norman.
Information from the KU office of institutional research and planning indicates that about 7 percent of freshmen who entered the University of Kansas in fall 1984 had dropped out after their first semester. After two semesters, the figure grew to
Borish and other Big Eight admissions officials say that one danger of open admissions is that students who aren't academically ready for college are set up for failure. Under open admissions in this state, any graduate of an accredited Kansas high school may enter any Regents school, whether he is academically prepared or not.
"They think that anyone who walks through that door is equally prepared for college." Borish said. "That is not true."
"The worst thing you can do to a person is give that person the perfect opportunity to fail," Borish said.
about 20 percent.
Del Shankel, former acting executive vice chancellor and professor of microbiology, said, "It's true we sort of say, 'Sink or swim,' but we give them enough help so they can swim."
For example, the Student Assistance Center offers study skills workshops and refers students with academic problems to tutors. And last year the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences offered three remedial classes — English 050, Math 000 and Math 002. This fall, however, the college stopped offering English 050 and Math 000.
Robert Lineberry, dean of liberal arts and sciences, said the college discontinued those courses because it was unwise to devote time and money to high school education at a time when resources were scarce for college education.
That decision disappointed teachers like Theresa Pickel, lecturer in English. Pickel taught English 650 last fall and this fall teaches three English classes, including English 101.
"A semester of English 101
probably will not prepare students who need English 050 for the common final." Picket said. "I will either have to say 'too bad' about these students and let them fail, or I will have to spend three hours a week with every student that needs extra attention."
Bruce Lindvall, KU director of colleges, said he recommended that students put themselves at the state school where they would be the most successful. Besides the seven Regents schools, there are 19 community colleges in Kansas, he said.
Lindvall said the average high school student's grade point average dropped 4 to 5 points on a 4.0 scale during the student's freshman year at KU. For example, a student who earned a 2.0 GPA in high school could expect to earn a GPA of 1.6 or 1.5 at KU, he said.
“Remember, you can never be overprepared.” Lindvall said. “Can you be underprepared? Yes.”
-N.G., M.H.
a school four years of English and science, social studies and math with int average of 2.0 on a 4.0 scale; or 0 GPA in nine hours of prescribedlege-level work before their first or
de in make-up courses (high school subjects in the Regents recom- hat were missed in high school. mendation also states that fresh- two years of foreign language in high ile attending the university.
make exceptions for special
eceptions could total no more than 10
or entering freshmen. Admissions
r Kansas residents 21 or older with
a, and admission requirements for
would be left to each university
agistrative director for Associated student lobbying group, said he did students' recommendation to be a policy
courses that you can choose to take sions," Tallman said. "It's still a
were two schools of thought behind is standards. The first is that the as needs to restrict admissions my students and not enough money.
ny students and not enough money. some students who enter state prepared for college, so something lp them become more prepared. He nitee made its recommendation to je more prepared.
louse devise a strategy to "stonew-ll" by defending the principle of executive privilege.
that a president body president at Kansas State concerned that the Regents are problems at KU."
nack, student body president at Forti-
ity, said he was not opposed to
or different schools.
ig Bork
"I never advised the White House ow to meet, how to deal with the laterate special prosecution rce." Bork said. He said he did act n orders from then-Attorney General Richardson to seek a compromise etween Cox and the White House ver executive privilege.
"We never achieved an accommodation." Bork testified.
Watergate aside, Bork also sought reassure Sen. Dennis Concini, B-Ariz, that he is not antagonistic to the rights of women. "As solicitor general I argued positions for the protection of women broader than se Supreme Court would accept," said
Concini, a key swing vote on the committee, also suggested Bork's sitions on poll taxes, integration of ubile accommodations and other sues over the years might cause lacks some alarm.
Bork responded, "If I were a black man but knew my record, I don't sink i'd be concerned because it's a civil rights record."
Still, Bork said he is troubled by the constitutional rationale for a supreme Court ruling ordering the segregation of public schools in the city.
"I have not thought of a rationale" the ruling, Bork said. But after a rief recess, he said he wanted to it clear he does not support school segregation in the nation's policy. In the 1954 dream of amending "the 1954 decision"
Bork received kind words during e hearing from Senate Republican hip Alan Simpson of Wyoming. "It seems to be the extremism has seen in the rhetoric of opponents of bdore Bork." Simpson said.