A sprinkle today
Details, page 6
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Monday
August 24,1987
Vol.98.No.2
Published since 1889 by the students of the University of Kansas
(USPS 650-640)
Scott Carmanter/KANSAN
Dale Frazier of Weatherby, Mo., and Nick Slater of Hutchinson warm up. The two took part in the banjo competition yesterday.
Pickers, grinners vie for state title
By NOEL GERDES
Staff writer
Fingers flew, bows danced and feet tapped at the Kansas State Fiddling and Picking Championships in Lawrence's South Park yesterday afternoon.
About 50 musicians competed in the seventh annual contest in the divisions of banjo, guitar, mountain dulcimer, mandolin, miscellaneous string instruments, ensemble folk singing, fiddle and youth.
Monday Morning
"In this kind of music the first thing they teach you is not to quit your dav job," Mason said.
Steve Mason, a producer of the contest, said that each division winner received $50 and an engraved silver trophy, but that most musicians entered for the prestige of being state champion.
About 1,000 people turned out to see the competition, bringing lawn chairs, blankets and picnic lunches. John Leavitt, Leavenworth resident, said he and his wife started off watching a string band, moved over to the banjo competition and planned to stay for the fiddle competition.
"I was a little disappointed because there were only four banjo players," Leavitt said. "But all of them were good."
Mason said that the contest began in 1976 as the Douglas County Fiddling and Picking Contest with 20 contests in four events. Only Dou
glas County residents were eligible at that time. The event was part of the chautaqua celebration for the U.S. Bicentennial.
In 1981, it became the state contest and is now the biggest contest of its kind.
Arden Booth, owner of Lawrence radio stations KLWN-AM and KLZR-FM, and a contest emcee, said a chautauqua was a group of traveling entertainers that would try to educate and entertain Midwest towns. The groups featured a famous orator and usually included musicians, ventrilouquists and other entertainers. The name chautauqa came from Chautauqua, N.Y., where the tradition began during frontier times.
"In those days a chauette would visit a little town and would usually run Tuesday through Sunday and move to another town on Monday," Booth said. "I grew up in a town of 300 people and we had one there."
Gloria Throne, a producer of the contest, said, "In a way, we're continuing the chauatua musical tradition with the fiddling and picking championships."
Mason said it was his personal tradition to enter the fiddle competition, which was the biggest and most difficult of them. About 15 fiddlers entered the contest.
"One thing I've noticed over the years is that I've gotten a lot better on the fiddle," Mason said, "but the
See FIDDLE, p. 6, col. 4
A group of children listens to a bluegrass band while gulping frozen yogurt and other treats. They were among more than 1,000 people who listened to the music yesterday.
Sororities have record response for first fall rush
By MICHAEL HORAK
Staff writer
While Panhellenic officials were heralding the success of their first fall sorority rush on Sunday, many sorority officers spent the day asking themselves how they would deal with some of the largest pledge classes in KU's history.
On Saturday, approximately 800 women pledged the 14 sororities, said Karen Ohnemus, Panhellenic adviser.
More than 1,200 women began the week-long rush process Aug. 16. Ohmnesia said BY the end of rush, the staff had gathered out or were not invited to pledge.
This is the first year sorority rush was held in the fall in more than 30
years. In the past, the rush was held in January before the start of the spring season.
Quota levels were set on the fourth day of rush. The number of women participating in rush on that day, divided by the number of sororites, determines what quota will be. Although some sororities' national offices require their chapters to make quota, adherence at KU is voluntary.
Five KU sororities pledged the full
See RUSH p. 6, col.1
Add/drop deadline moved to Sept. 4
By AMBER STENGER
Staff writer
KU students will have only two weeks instead of four to decide whether they want to add classes this semester. The add/drop process began Saturday and will run only until Sept. 4, with even earlier add deadlines for some schools and departments.
"We think this will be an advantage for students because they will know their schedule and have it fitted up earlier," said James Carothers, associate dean of liberal arts and professor of history, who have to deal with late adds who want to catch up on a month's worth of class."
Brower Burchill, associate vice chancellor for academic affairs, said the change was made to stabilize classes as soon as possible. All of the schools wanted the change, Burchill said.
Students who want to add classes should look in the Timetable for the times they may go to the enrollment center in Strong Hall. Appointments are scheduled according to the last two digits of student identification numbers.
Gary Thompson, director of student records, said students could not increase their chances of getting into courses by waiting until the last day, when no appointments are needed, to add.
"Everyone is guessing that our enrollment is going to be up. So the situation is going to be tight in classes this fall. There will be students who want a class and will
"We anticipate that the lines will be long the last day of adding," he said. "The people who will be in those lines are people who procrastinated and didn't take advantage of their appointment times.
continue to try and there's probably no chance at all that they are going to get in."
Students do not need an appointment to drop a class. They do not have to wait in line. Students only dropping classes can go to the front of the line at any time.
Thompson said the enrollment center tried to encourage students to drop classes as soon as they decided to drop them because this provided classroom space for students who wanted to add the classes.
Sixteen-week classes that are dropped during the first five weeks of school will not show up on transcripts. In the second and third five week periods, each school has its own policy for dropping courses. Students should refer to page 15 in the Timetable to see how each school handles drops.
For instance, if a student drops a liberal arts course during the second five-week period, a "W" grade will be recorded.
A student must file a petition to drop a liberal arts course during the third five-week period, and several other schools also require petitions to drop. Thompson said students should attend a course of the school that offers the course.
"A W' grade is an honorable grade meaning enrollment is terminated in that course and you were passing at that time that you dropped," Thompson said.
"Petitions are fairly difficult to get approved, so in a way, for many courses, the last day to out will be Oct. 30." Thomson said.
The enrollment center will extend its hours to accommodate all the students in two weeks. Thompson said two crews of temporary workers have been hired to keep the enrollment center open.
Late fund release limited summer class choices, faculty positions
By MICHAEL MERSCHEL
Staff writer
Tight money in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences this spring had many professors looking toward a long summer without income, as openings for teaching jobs were eliminated along with summer course offerings.
Professors who had hoped to teach to earn an extra paycheck were told to find something else to do until the start of the fall semester, as some departments planned to cut their summer teaching staffs in half or more compared to last summer's levels
But thanks to the last-minute fund release from the Kansas Legislature in May, most professors who wanted to attend a teaching position at the University.
The release of the extra money also thawed a University-wide hiring freeze that had been in effect since January.
The University had sought money from the Legislature to accommodate increased enrollment.
Keith Nitcher, director of business affairs, said that during the freeze, any position that needed to be filled had to be reviewed by either him or the executive vice chancellor. That requirement was dropped when the money was released July 1 through
the new state budget
James Carothers, associate dean of liberal arts, said the late legislative action that released the extra money enabled the college to add 21 sections of classes to the summer schedule.
The department of political science originally had been able to hire only one professor for the summer, compared with a usual summer staff of four or five.
Burdett Loomis, chairman of political science, said that the budget confusion had turned out to be a more of a disruption than a disaster.
"I don't think that in the last four or five years we've been able to hire everybody that wanted to teach in the summer," he said.
Not every professor that had wanted to be hired had been, he said, but that was nothing new.
The political science department was able to hire a full staff after the fee release, but not hire the faculty who had originally wanted to teach in the summer. Many of those professors had made other plans by the time the fund release came, he said.
Those 21 classes meant that departments in the college were able to hire most or all of the professors who had wanted summer teaching
had been hurt by the money problems, but not as much as during past budget cuts.
Although overall summer enrollment was down, Norman Saul, chairman of history, said enrollment in his department had increased from last summer. But that was because the college placed an emphasis on offering freshman-sophomore level classes that large numbers of students might need to take during the summer.
The result was that the department had to hire some extra people to teach the large classes, he said, but some regular faculty were not able to be hired, especially those who taught courses in senior or graduate level courses.
Loomis said that the department
The emphasis on large classes that many students would need to take meant that large departments, like English, were able to hire all the faculty that wanted to teach in the summer, said Peter Casagrande, professor of English and scheduling officer for the department of English.
The department of English had been faced with hiring only half of the number of English professors who taught last summer, but Casagrande said that as far as he knew, all the English professors that had wanted to teach this summer got jobs.
KU jazz group to tour Europe attend festival in Switzerland
By VALOREE ARMSTRONG
A group of KU music students is already looking forward to summer.
Sixteen KU Jazz Singers and 18 Jazz Ensemble members will spend three weeks next July at the most prestigious gathering of jazz enthusiasts in the world — the Montreux Jazz Festival in Montréal, Switzerland.
Staff writer
Ron McCurdy, director of the jazz arts program, said Friday that Montreux was synonymous with jazz and that an invitation was a great honor.
Only 25 or 30 groups from all over the world are invited, McCurdy said. He knows of no other groups from the Midwest who will appear at the festival, which in the past has boasted such big names as Al Jarreau, Bobby McPerrin, Manhattan, and The Rocky Mountain saxonist who frequently appears on the Late Night with David Letterman show.
Michael Tyler, Dallas, Texas, senior, may go to Switzerland with the group. He said he'd written a song for the occasion called "Summer Trip." He said he hoped to be heard by the jazz greats who would
be there.
McCurdy was named by the National Association of Jazz Education as one of the top 20 jazz educators in the country. The educators attended the Montreux festival this summer.
"After the executives heard the album, they were immediately sold," he said.
While McCurdy was at the festival, he played KU jazz recordings to festival officials.
Montreux officials then invited the KU students to the 1988 festival the first three weeks of July.
The tour will be a showcase for the jazz program at KU.
McCurdy recruited Tyler from the Arts Magnet High School in Texas. Tyler credits McCurdy with the jazz program's growth.
Before the festival, the group will tour Europe for three weeks doing "homestays," which are playing for communities in exchange for room and board. McCurdy hopes to finance most of the trip doing concerts this year.
McCurdy is a Florida A & M graduate. He came to KU 11 years ago and earned his master's degree and doctorate. Six years ago he went to work at KU as a
full-time faculty member.
McCurdy, who has been playing familiar melodies on the piano since he was three, said he didn't have a background in jazz before coming to KU. But when he began working in KU's music department, immediately that the band added more attention than any other.
"Most students had no concept of jazz. I really had to teach," he said.
"After five or six years of focusing," he said, "I got pretty good."
He studied and went to conventions and learned.
ing," he said, "I got pretty good. I with his nurturing, the curriculum has grown to include jazz improvisation, arranging and vocal skills." KU's jazz musicians have gained a reputation of excellence.
McCurdy credits the Student Senate, Student Union Activities, Robert Foster, band director; and Peter Thompson, dean of fine arts, for their support of iazz at KU.
McCurdy, who said he gets much satisfaction from teaching, puts in many extra hours. He said that if he were paid by the hour he'd make $100,000 a year.