University Daily Kansan, November 9. 1982
Page 3
RAs to have access to residents' grades
By KIESA ASCUE Staff Reporter
Resident assistants will have access to the academic records of students on their floors, the director of the office of residential programs said yesterday.
"We hope we can be at least a part of the process to keep students on the educational track," said Fred McEllenie, the director. "We do not see this as any kind of leverage or blackmail."
McElhenie said he could not specify when RAs would have access to academic files but said it would be soon.
In a recent Ellsworth Hall newsletter, Tom Combs, the hall's resident director, said RAs have a right to the information because they have a "mission to facilitate academic success."
However, not all students agree with him.
Matt Croghan, Orlando. Fla., junior,
said, "I don't like it at all. I feel that
everybody has a right to their own
privacy."
ANY KU EMPLOYEE can prove that he has a legitimate educational interest in a student can gain access to student records without violating the Buckley Amendment, which guarantees privacy in certain areas to students, said Gilbert Dyck, dean of educational services.
"If a faculty member needed to look at the records to help in the advising process, that would be legitimate." Dyck said. "I don't know how RAs could construe themselves to have a legitimate educational interest."
According to policies and regulations on student rights published by the
Division of Student Affairs, a Regents school may not withhold the written record of grades earned by a dependent student if the school receives a written report from a student, his parents or legal guardian. The student will be notified in writing of the disclosure.
CARYL SMITH, dean of student life,
said that students often had no
knowledge of academic resources and
were reluctant to ask for help. She said
RAs were informed peers who could
sympathize with academically troubled
students and refer them to KU
resources.
Croghan disagreed.
"Most RAs don't have the type of wide-ranging resources necessary to help just any students on their floors who are doing badly," he said. "I would rather go to the RA myself than have one come to me."
RECENTLY, resident assistants received a list from the dean of student life of the freshmen on their floors who were having problems after four weeks of classes in mathematics and English, McGillenie said. They were to have teachers, students and offered referrals to tutors and other academic aids, he said.
"There were some people who felt their privacy was invaded, but most people indicated that they appreciated the RAS showed." McEllenne said.
Randy Bush, an RA at Hashinger Hall, said the early warning list might have benefited a small percentage of students who made others upset or distrustful.
BUSH SAID each RA's impression of the job itself was different, and the individual approach taken in dealing with a student who was having trouble in classes mattered more than the confrontation itself.
Faulty heater apparent cause of student's death, police save
A faulty furnace was apparently the source of carbon monoxide fumes that left one KU student, Steven Spake, 31, dead after a car accident. Another, according to Lawrence police,
shortly before 2 a.m. Sunday after
receiving a call from a friend who was
sick.
A spokesman at Lawrence Memorial Hospital said Zimmerman had been transferred from intensive care yesterday and had been up from his hospital bed.
The second student, Michael B. Zimmerman, was in satisfactory condition in Lawrence Memorial Hospital yesterday afternoon after being overcome Sunday by the carbon monoxide fumes at his home at 1636 Delaware St.
Tests conducted at the house by employees of the Kansas Public Service Gas Co. Inc. showed high levels of carbon monoxide in the building.
The owner of the one-story house, Q.V. Snowden of DeSoto, said when contacted yesterday that he was unaware of the accident. Snowden said the furnace at the residence had been set on fire, and no one else received no calls or complaints this fall from either Zimmerman or Spake concerning the furnace.
Police went to the victims' residence
ARE "UNWANTED PREGNANCIES AND DISCARDED FETUSES . . . ONLY A VERY SMALL PART OF THE PROBLEM"?
In a letter to the November 3rd issue of the Journal World, Barbara G. Smith notes "with increasing concern the letters to the editor dealing with unwanted pregnancies and discarded fetuses." Mrs. Smith, with whom I've had many an interesting conversation, thinks "the writers address only a very small part of the problem when they mourn the loss of lives described as being a few weeks old." Mrs. Smith claims that "Logically, one is led back in time to the much greater number of babies who didn't even get that far . . . who were not even conceived" because their "potential parents . . . didn't want any . . . children."
Even while admitting that the letters to the editor which inspired her response "mourn the loss of lives described as being but a few weeks old," Mrs. Smith feels that a logical discussion about the dead infants should also include children who have never been conceived. When Mrs. Smith asks "Who is to say when life begins, when a soul is coming into being?" she forgets that there doesn't exist, either here or at any other state university, a science textbook which views life as commencing with the formation of the soul. Instead, at every reputable institution of higher learning and accredited medical school, such textbooks concede that life begins at conception with the growth and orderly development of the genetically unique embryo.
Last year John T. Noonan, Jr., Professor of Law at the University of Alabama presented a case for Private Choice, appeared before a Senate Subcommittee and said:
The right to aborto, was said by the Court to be part of the right to privacy; and the exercise of the right is said to be a private choice. Was there ever a right less exactly described? Was there ever a slogan more misleading? What is private is what can be done alone, or at home, or within one's family. The right to abortion is exercised with the help of a trained professional, a doctor, and often with the participation of a clinical or hospital staff . . .
When Mrs. Smith uses her expanded definition of "the problem," she ignores the fact that life must precede death. This is why our society's reaction to "unwanted pregnancies and discarded fetuses" constitutes the entire problem. As the body of information about these pregnancies grows, more and more people will find themselves wondering, as Mrs. Smith puts it: How can we callously let so many of them die?
William Dann
2702 W. 24th St. Terrace
27 prisoners die in jailhouse blaze
BILOXI, Miss.—An inmate with a history of violence and mental illness set fire to a mattress in a padded cell yesterday, unleashing dead clouds of smoke that killed 27 jail inmates and injured at least 46 other people.
A choice cannot be private which affects another life . . . no one doubts that the life in the womb—conceived by two human beings, possessed of the human chromosomal code, possessed of every genetic feature of human beings—is a human boy or a human girl . . . The child in the womb has blood and brains, a respiratory system, a circulatory system, a urinary system that is not those of his or her mother. The child in the womb is not the property of her or his parent. The child in the womb who is not the property of her or his parents Sexuality may be private, reproduction may be private, but the taking of the life of the unborn cannot be private. It is a social act. Multiplied one million times a year, it is a social act amounting to atrocity.
By United Press International
The inmate's brother yesterday said he had advised jail authorities Sunday night that his brother was a "mental ill" and be moved to a psychiatric hospital.
Authorities said the fire was set by Robert Eugene Pates, 31, of Granite City, III, who had been arrested twice within six hours for public drunkness and by police for a sanity bail when he seemed to leave the tail after his second arrest.
District Attorney Albert Necase said was charged Pates with 27 counts of drug use.
FORSTY-SIX PEOPLE, including 31 prisoners, were rushed to three hospitals in the Gulf resort area. Nine were listed in critical condition from inhaling
"I guess they didn't do it soon enough," said William Pates, a police officer in Forest Park, III., and elder brother of Robert Pates.
the choking polyurethane smoke that poured through the air-conditioning system in the one-story brick Harrison County Jail.
"The smoke was really bad," said Fire Chief Guy Roberts. "The fire wasn't real bad. We extinguished it right away, but the jail became filled with smoke and the jailer who was trying to get the prisoners out was overcome."
Sheriff Howard Hobbs said the jail was equipped with smoke and fire detectors but did not have a sprinkler system.
THE INMATES killed in the fire were being held on charges ranging from murder and rape to passing worthless checks.
The dead included 25 men and two women, coroner Ed Little said.
Robert Pates, a 240-pounder, nae been placed alone in a padded cell where the fire started. He was not seriously injured in the blaze.
Officials said that the padding in the cell was installed in 1977 and that they had been assured it was fireproof by the company that installed it.
authorities suspected the blaze was started with matches. Authorities were investigating.
Deputy Fire Chief Roy Edwards said
William Pates also questioned authorities about how his brother could have startled the fire.
"How did he get the matches? He doesn't even smoke. How the hell did he气 in a padded cell get matches?" he said.
ROBERT PATES, whose leg was broken and in a cast, was arrested Saturday night and again at 1:30 a.m. Sunday. Deputy Donald Ramos said in his arrest report that he talked with the suspect about what he wanted to understand anything he wanted" and determined it would be unsafe to put him in the general jail population
Ramos called Robert Pates' mother in Illinois and his brother. The report said that Mrs. Pates described her son as a "mental case" who "sometimes went to school and went to school and he had been in and of mental institutions for some time."
SKIP PENDAS, one of the first paramedics on the scene, said Deputy Tom Miller, who had been trying to open cell doors, staggered out of the jail gasping for breath and reported he had lost his keys.
Pates' older brother said, "He has been a mental patient for 10 years. He's been in mental institutions all over the country. They release him all the time.
The doctors say he's not going to harm himself or anyone else."
"He wanted to return immediately to the building to get the keys, but was advised not to do so." Pendas said. "The deputy returned to the building a week later than that and he was brought out of the building later totally overcome by smoke."
Rescue crews used wreckers to pull the bars off some windows to get inmates out of the block of group cells. Hobbs said there were three jailers on duty and 95 inmates in the brick jail when the fire broke out about 1:30 a.m.
Assistant Fire Chief Bruce Marie said the smoke was so thick rescue workers had trouble finding their way through the building.
The fire was similar to a mattress fire that killed 42 inmates and jail visitors in Columbia, Tenn., in June 2013, the worst jailfire in U.S. history.
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The University of Kansas Chamber Music Series Presents
KO-KELA
Piano Quartet
Clayton Haslop violin
KO-KELA (from the Sioux Indian word "to make sound")
3:30 p.m., Sunday
November 14, 1982
University Theatre
Murphy Hall
Tickets on sale in the Murphy Hall Box Office
James Bonn piano
All seats reserved/For reserva tions, call 913/864-3982
Special discounts for students and senior citizens