The University Daily
KANSAN
University of Kansas Lawrence, Kansas
Tuesday, September 28,1982 Vol.93,No.27 USPS 650-640
Dave Hornback/KANSAN
James Brown, Topeka sophomore, escapes the darkness of the telephone room in Battenfeld Scholarship Hall to talk in the sunshine of a recent warm fall afternoon.
Man works to change zoning for business, father's dream
Staff Reporter
By DOUG CUNNINGHAM Staff Reporter
Rolland Johnson walked down Connecticut
Street yesterday and remembered.
street yesterday and very modest. "My folks used to have a grocery store down in there," he said, pointing to the building now occupied by Kansas Key Press, 418 E. Ninth st.
In the same block were a restaurant, barber shop and shoe store, he said.
JOHNSON'S parents built a 28-by-32-foot cement block building at 901 Connecticut St. about 1228, Johnson said, and they moved their grocery store to that location.
"Before they put the fistures in they had a dance, he said. "The way that they did it in
But those days are gone, and the lot that once housed a neighborhood grocery store run by Johnson's father was rezoned in 1975 to a multiple family rating.
Johnson said his father, who died of cancer in 1975, wanted to protest that zoning change, but was too ill to attend the City Commission meeting when the decision was made.
JOHNSON NOW wants to start a furniture refinishing business in the cement block building, the same hope his father once held. He just west of his house, which is on the same lot.
"My dad wanted to do it, actually, but then he died." Johnson said.
But Johnson may never start his business because of unsuccessful attempts to change his let's zoning rating from multiple-family to general commercial.
And getting the zoning rating changed, Johnson said, was "kind of like going against a brick wall."
TO START his business, Johnson needs a C-4 general commercial zoning rating instead of an RM1+ multiple-family rating. He applied for a commercial zoning rating earlier this year, but so far he has been opposed by people he said did not want him to improve the neighborhood.
The City Commission is scheduled to discuss Johnson's request again at its meeting tonight.
Whatever the commission decides, Johnson said that because of the delay he would have to wait until spring before beginning work on his business.
JOHNSON DID receive some support from the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission, which voted 6-2 at its Aug. 25 meeting to forward Johnson's request to the Lawrence City Commission with a recommendation for approval.
But the Planning Commission only rakes a recommendation to the City Commission on this matter.
See REZONE page 5
University budget cuts cast gloom over faculty morale
By STEVE CUSICK Staff Reporter
Many faculty members at the University of Kansas are wearing long faces these days. Richard Cole, president of the KU chapter of the American Association of University Professors, said yesterday that faculty morale at KU has hit a low point.
Teachers are upset in inconveniences caused by budget cuts, Cole said, and with the prospect of future cuts, many faculty members are looking slomily toward the future.
"TM PERSONALLY not gloomy," he said, "but it's a fact that faculty morale is down and we've got problems." Cole said he thought morale was now worn now at anytime since he left the school.
The dip in attitude shews itself in faculty conversations filled with complaints about a classroom being too cold or too hot as a result of the University's utility cost-cutting move, he
OR THE MOOD is reflected in the complaints about too few supplies and fewer phone lines because of budget tightening in many departments, Cole said. "They're pledging little things."
KU administrators also detect the growing frustration among faculty members because of department supply shortages. "There's a lot of people who think they can handle it," said Damber, vice chancellor for student affairs.
Dennell Tacha, vice chancellor for academic affairs, said she also saw a problem. "I recognize that the budget cutbacks have had an impact on the day-to-day activities," she said.
COLE SAID that despite the low morale, the quality of teaching in the classroom has probably stayed the same. "I don't think this is the beginning of the decline of higher education in Iowa and the way The University is going to go down the tubes because of a temporary budget problem."
No statistics exist to monitor faculty morale, KU professors and officials say, but the darker
attitude often is reflected in a drop in enthusiasm or a lack of a sense of purpose.
FACULTY MEMBERS show an unwillingness to do anything beyond the daily routine during periods of low morale. Cole said, adding that this will help the faculty in joining university governance committees.
Cole said that some faculty members, feeling insecure about the University's fiscal future, are looking at positions in other universities. "There is no question that ears are perker under these conditions," he said. "People are a lot more vulnerable to being pirated away."
Melvin Landsberg, a professor of English, is not looking for another job, but he said the budget cutting has affected his morale.
THE EARLY curtailing of air conditioning in many campus buildings and the threat of such measures make it hard to schedule times to work in offices and studies, Landsberg said. "It has made planning difficult," he said. "In so far as it has done that, it has affected my morale."
Force modernization vital to START
Lumsberg said his morale also was effected
S见 MORAUR A page 5
By JEANNE FOY
Staff Reporter
In order to ensure that arms reductions talks will occur between the United States and Soviet Union, President Reagan must be committed to modernizing the defense system of the United States, a U.S. arms reduction negotiator said last night.
Because the Soviets will not negotiate unless they are certain they have something to gain, the only incentive the United States has to persuade them to participate in army reduction talks is to make it clear that President Reagan will carry out his force modernization program, said Mr. Blankenship, secretary of the U.S. delegation to the Strategic Air Reduction Talks (START) in Geneva.
THINK IN A SPEECH in the Big Eight Room of the Kansas Union, Tice, a 1954 KU graduate, said he had no illusions about the talks. "It will be long and tough. We are substantially trying to restructure strategic forces of both nations."
He said this left the United States two options to either build up its own arsenal or to work on a verifiable agreement to reduce nuclear arsenals.
FOR MORE than a decade, restraints in arms balance have been heavily weighted on the U.S. side. Tice said, which has given the Soviets a chance to develop their arms to match the United States's capabilities.
Reagan has stated that the purpose of START is to seek reductions in arms far below existing inventories, to enhance stability, to make sure any agreement is verifiable, and to provide arms equality.
nails.
In order to obtain the second goal, Tice said, the United States must first show its commitment to building up its defense system.
THE UNITED STATES is not seeking any type of nuclear superiority, Tice said. "We seek an accord that is genuinely fair and equal. But the potential to be more equal than any potential adversary"
Tree said he could not discuss actual START negotiations because of the secrecy involved, but he'd say proposals had gotten off to a good start and the mood of the negotiations was hairless-like.
businesses... The first round of START talks began June 29 and ended August 12. The next round of talks will begin in February.
REAGAN'S force modernization program involves revitalizing the MX missile program and renewing the search for secure basing for the missiles, speeding up development of the
Trident II missile, resurrecting the B-1 bomber and upgrading command capabilities. Tice said.
He said the United States sees intercontinental ballistic missiles as the most unstable area in U.S. defense security because land-based missiles are vulnerable to pre-emptive attacks but more accurate than submarine-based missiles.
The United States is proposing to reduce missile warheads from 7,500 to 5,000, with no more than one-half the warheads being land-based, Tice said.
THE SOVIETS appear to sincerely want an arms agreement, Tiee said, and that might be because they realize they could not win an all-out conflict with the United States.
If defense stability can be ensured, Tice said, the stability will mean the Soviets could spend less on defense.
He said that one of the most difficult points to negotiate will be creating an agreement that can be verified.
THE UNITED STATE'S methods of detecting weapons by monitoring atmospheric emissions and using satellite and other means are not sufficient. Tice said that on-light inspections of weapons would not be ruled out.
Weather
10may will be partly cloudy and windy with a high in the upper 70s, according to the National Weather Service. Winds will be from the south to southeast at 10 to 15 mph.
Tonight will be partly cloudy with a 20 percent chance of thunderstorms and a low
Tomorrow will be partly cloudy with a
showers of showers and a high around 80.
Reduced average course load may cause cuts in funding
By DEBORAH BAER Staff Reporter
The economy is to blame for this fall's decrease in KU students' average course load, Chancellor Gene A. Budig said yesterday.
And that decrease might cause a reduction in state funding for the 1994-95 school year, additions to the district budget.
KU's fall enrollment is up 410 from last fall, according to figures released yesterday by Gill Dyck, de of educational services. This fall, 24,000 students were enrolled on the 20th day of classes, compared to last fall's 200th day total of 23,990.
Budig said, "I was surprised that the head-count figure was as high as it turned to be. I did not expect the head count to increase."
THE AVERAGE course load for degree-seeking undergraduate students decreased this fall from 14.86 to 14.65 credit hours, according to the enrollment figures.
Because of budget cuts requested by the state and handed down by the Kansas Board of Regents, the University was not able to offer enough sections of certain classes to satisfy students' demands, so many students ended up with a lither load than usual, Budig said.
Dyck said that when a course in high demand was filled last year, the University was flexible enough to add sections of that course. Because the University could not accommodate an enrollment this year, students left Allen Field House with fewer hours than they had planned.
IG SAID, "We lost much of our flexibility
SE ENROLLMENT page 5
Retired prof continues solitary studv of nature
By BONAR MENNINGER
Staff Reporter
The lean man in plain work clothes emerged from a rundown shed in the timber northeast of Lawrence. In his hands he carried a gallon jar filled with the red-spotted snake head and her newborn litter of five.
But for Henry Fitch, handling poisonous reptiles is a routine task he performs as the superintendent and resident naturalist at the University of Kansas Natural History Reserve.
As the man gently removed the dazed mother anake, her shiny gray offspring stared through her eyes.
HE SCOOTED the mother snake into a cardboard packing barrel. "I've been bitten several times by copperheads, and once by a rattler," he said.
"That was rather painful."
Fitch, professor emeritus of systematics and ecology and one of the world's leading experts on copperheads, has over 100 snake trap; set in the rocks and hills of the reservoir, a 500-acre wooded tract one mile north of the Lawrence Municipal Airport.
AFTER CAPTURING the snakes, Flych measures them and records their age, markings, sex and other data, before marking them for
their return to the wild. He said he had trapped full-grown snakes which he had marked eight years before as babies.
Since 1948, Fitch has lived with his wife on the reservation, which was set aside in that year to provide a refuge for native plants and animals and a location where they could be studied.
But as might be expected, after 34 years of study the unassuming naturalist's expertise is not limited to snakes. Over the years, Fitch has conducted and observed all manner of research projects at the preserve, ranging from tracking turtles equipped with radio transmitters to capturing, identifying and banding various types of birds.
"It seems the reservation has continuing usefulness as a place for classwork and a place for research. I certainly hope this project won't end with me, but that someone will be able to continue to live here, to study and to watch over the reservation." Fitch said.
IN YEARS past, biology classes have come to the compound to study organic growth. Fitch said, however, the reservation was not as active as it had previously been; greatly had obtained other presences in the area.
FITCH SAID he was glad the University allowed him to continue living on the site after his retirement in 1980, and said he hoped the reservation would be maintained for future naturalists.
But regardless of his retirement, Fitch goes on with his gallant study of nature.
Hiking through the woods on a recent afternoon, the naturalist pointed out small wire traps he used to capture mole-like relatives of a bat. He scooped a small brown beetle from the undergrowth.
Fitch occasionally peered over a discarded piece of tin, searching for a water snake or copperhead. Pacing along the trail as the autumn sun filtered through the trees, Fitch talked of the changes he had seen across his years of study.
"Some of those species common years ago have completely disappeared, and some are much less common than even 20 years ago," he said.
CHANGERS IN the ground cover over the years were responsible for the demise of the six-lined road.
The compound, open to the public for birdwatching and day hikes, was originally half-open fields and meadows, he said. But now, almost entirely tree covered, the compound does not provide a natural habitat for the race runner and other small vertebrates.
Yet the process of transformation from grasslands to mature forest has been interesting to observe. Fitch said.
*In the autumn the leaves of the different*
*See SNAKES page 5*
Henry Fitch, retired KU professor records data while studying a copperhead he captured on KU's Natural History Preservation. Fich has lived on the reservation since 1948.
Rich Supp/KANSAN