THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2011
PAGE 3
FROM TISSUES ON PAGE 1
toilet paper at a cost of $2.06 every year.
"I think at the very least it could be two-ply," said Garofalo.
Green pointed to a few reasons for sticking to the current one-ply paper.
"Alternative two-ply products would likely cost more, require new dispensers and may not supply enough paper to last between restroom cleanings in the larger KU classroom buildings," said Green.
However, other universities use a variety of paper types to get the job done. Kansas State buys a combination of single and double ply material, resulting in $2,440 rolls at a cost of $71,464.80, which translates into 3.55 rolls at a cost of $3 per student.
"Seven years ago, we had better paper, but paper products were the first thing to be cut," said Kris Fulkerson, procurement officer at
Nevertheless, Pittsburg State has recently adopted a new kind of paper. For the past two years, Pitt State students have relieved themselves with the assistance of coreless paper rolls that are made from environmentally friendly recycled fiber.
Kansas State.
"We went to it because of the environmental issue," said Tonya Pentola, store room supervisor for Pittsburgh State. "We have had no complaints and it's comfortable to use. We are satisfied with the change."
The new type runs at a higher price. Each year, Pittsburg State handles 12,600 rolls at a cost of $22,6943, which unravels to 1.8 rolls per student and a cost of $3.24 per student. Pitt State also had to retrofit its building with new dispensers to handle the new material.
After comparing the quality of toilet paper samples from both University of Kansas
and Pittburg State, Garofalo said he preferred Pitt State's new toilet paper.
As far as bathroom etiquette is concerned, Garofalo had a few pieces of advice.
"I think the answer is clear. The toilet paper from Pitt State is more durable and I would pay a dollar extra to have this type of toilet paper," he said. "I use a lot of toilet paper when I'm in there."
Conor Taft, junior from Naperville, Ill., said he too would pay an extra dollar in student fees for improved paper.
"It's important to fold the toilet paper for conservation efforts and it's more efficient for yourself. That's just good manners," he said. "Also, remember to courtesy flush."
"For as many trips to the bathroom I take throughout the day, it would be a worthy investment," Taft said.
Edited by Adam Strunk
CAMPUS
Senate preps for Big 12 meet
JESSIE BLAKEBOROUGH
jblakeborough@kansan.com
Student senate is in the final stages of preparation for the Big 12 Student Government Leadership Conference which will take place Nov.17-20.
The theme of this year's conference is "Synergy: A Path Towards Empowerment." Student Senate Development Director and primary conference coordinator, Kris Velasco, created the theme and has been planning the conference since he was elected to his position in April.
"This opportunity represents the perfect forum for real idea sharing to come about," Velasco said. "Numerous ideas Student Senate gets for projects comes about from this conference."
The annual event is intended to be a place for student government leaders to collaborate on ideas, concerns and solutions about governance. Velasco said that previous student senates had taken advantage of the conference to learn about ideas for new projects that can be implemented at the University.
“This opportunity represents the perfect forum for real idea sharing to come about,” Velasco said. “For example, we've recently implemented the JayLEAD program, which is a Student Senate intern program, after hearing about it from K-State last year.”
Other ideas generated by past Big 12 leadership conferences also include The BIG Event, a community service organization, based on a similar program at Texas A&M. Velasco said that learning how to run the executive staff more efficiently is another benefit of the conference. Every school currently in the Big 12 will be attending the conference, including Missouri and Texas A&M. Velasco said that Texas Christian University was also invited to attend and will be sending four delegates.
The most recent addition to the Big 12 conference, West Virginia University, will not be in attendance at this year's conference.
"Given the time constraint between their admission and the date of the conference, there wasn't enough time to plan for them coming." Velasco said.
Originally, Nebraska was supposed to host this year's conference, but when Nebraska left the conference, former student body president, Michael Wade Smith, volunteered Kansas as an alternative host. Velasco said that hosting the conference is an opportunity for the University to show off all the things that make Kansas great.
"In relation to the other Big 12 schools, KU's Student Senate has the strongest voice within the university administration," Velasco said. "All university boards and committees must be made up of 20 percent students; that's huge, no other school in the Big 12 has that."
Outreach Director Brandon Woodard is looking forward to networking and sharing ideas at the conference. Woodard, along with the rest of the executive staff, will be in attendance. Because Kansas is the host, five senators were selected through a competitive application process and will attend the meeting as well.
Velasco said that he is both nervous and excited about the outcome of the conference.
age of the University of Kansas and Student Senate that comes across to all of the Big 12 schools is a positive image," Velasco said. "If the vision I created for this conference isn't what the other schools like, it will be a poor reflection of KU, and a poor reflection of me; that standard makes me very stressed."
"Since I am the one planning it,
it is my job to ensure that the im-
Velasco has the support of the executive staff, including Woodard.
"He has every detail planned out, including a wake up call for the rooms of all the other schools coming to the conference," Woodard said.
Other items on the agenda include a guest appearance by Kevin Yoder (R-Kan.), who will be discussing his role as Kansas student body president when he attended the University and his work in helping create the Ambler Student Recreation Fitness Center as state representative.
Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little, Provost Jeffery Vitter and other various members of the administration will be speaking at the conference as well.
Edited by C.J. Matson
ACTIVISM
Camps continue throughout world
ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK - Some of the latest developments in the Occupy protests:
NEW YORK
Music and marching orders accompanied election day at the Occupy Wall Street protest at lower Manhattan's Zuccotti Park.
David Crosby and Graham Nash, of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, brought a little Woodstock to the plaza with an acoustic set for about 1,000 protesters and onlookers.
"It's wild, how things line up," said Tyler Westcott, 19; a college student from Hunt, N.Y. "What you have here is the New Left from the Vietnam era — and the new left here now."
Also Tuesday, a small group of activists announced plans to begin a march Wednesday from the park to Washington in hopes of arriving Nov. 23, the deadline for a congressional committee to decide whether to keep President Barack Obama's extension of Bush-era tax cuts. Protesters say the cuts benefit only rich Americans.
The march idea was inspired by the kind of long-distance walks led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights era. Protesters say they'll overnight by camping or at volunteered accommodations.
It was election day in the United States on Tuesday, with many local races and some higher profile races being decided in several states.
Across the nation, some protesters said it was important to be part of the process, while others questioned whether their votes mean much and saying the candidates aren't saying things they want to vote for.
RHODE ISLAND
Rhode Island's junior senator is trying to harness anger against big banks with a legislative effort to crack down on sky-high credit card interest rates he calls "grotesue."
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, who this week visited the Occupy protesters' encampment in Providence, is introducing a bill that would close a holephole under which credit card companies are effectively able to avoid state-
level caps on interest rates — and charge as much as 30 percent in some cases.
"This is something that has gone unchecked for far too long." Whitehouse said on the Senate floor Tuesday.
Whitehouse says consumer anger is a "live issue." In an interview with The Associated Press, he referenced the recent backlash over Bank of America debit card charges, a plan that was dropped last week. He also noted "Bank Transfer Day," held nationwide on Saturday, an effort to get customers of big banks to close their accounts in protest of high fees and what they call unfair lending practices.
Whitehouse is a first-term Democrat from Newport who is facing re-election in 2012.
BRITAIN
Many managers in London's financial services industry believe some of their colleagues are paid too much, while a majority say they are motivated more by salary and bonuses than enjoyment at work, a poll says.
The poll, commissioned by the St. Paul's Institute at St. Paul's Cathedral, found that 66 percent of the sample thought bond traders earned too much and 63 percent said chief executives of the top 100 British corporations were overpaid.
The poll results showed three-fourths of respondents saying the gap between rich and poor was too large in Britain, and 70 percent thought teachers were underpaid.
NEW JERSEY
Superior Court Judge Mary Jackson granted a temporary restraining order against the state of New Jersey, ordering police to return items confiscated from protesters in Trenton and rejecting some imposed rules.
The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey had sued on behalf of protesters, who claim their freedom of speech was infringed on when troopers confiscated items they considered unattended at a memorial across from the Statehouse.
The ACLU says the state made up park rules after the protests started.
NATION
BP no longer on hook for beach oil clean up
The judge ruled Monday.
NEW ORLEANS — BP will no longer be responsible to clean up oil that winds up on shores of the Gulf Coast unless officials can prove it comes from the company's well that blew out in 2010, causing the worst offshore spill in U.S. history, according to a plan approved by the Coast Guard and obtained by The Associated Press on Tuesday.
New oil that shows up on clean shores would be treated "as any kind of oil response," said Coast Guard spokeswoman Lt. Suzanne Kerver. Officials would try to determine where it came from. If a link to BP's now-plugged Macondo well was found, then the Coast Guard would ask the oil giant to clean it up.
The plan marks the near end of the cleanup phase of the oil spill, according the Nov. 2 agreement. Now, BP will turn its attention to restoring areas damaged by the spill that began on April 20, 2010, when the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, killing 11 workers. About $1 billion has been set aside for those projects, an official says.
Kerver said the shoreline plan outlines "the standard for clean."
About 90 percent of the Gulf coast has been deemed clean, according to officials. The plan spells out protocol for when an area still needs to be cleaned and when BP's responsibility for that ends. Louisiana officials wouldn't give their approval because they were concerned about what they perceived as a lack of long-term monitoring in the document.
Edward Owens, a technical adviser for BP, said the Gulf clean up was in its final stages.
"This is an important milestone in the recovery process for the Gulf Coast," said Mike Utsler, head of BP's Gulf Coast Restoration Organization. Utsler said BP has set aside $1 billion.
BP can start work on restoring areas damaged by the spill.
Associated Press
HEALTH
Many students report cell phone addiction
Andrea Exon, a freshman from Shawnee, said she checks her cell phone every time she gets a text in class and has already experienced being called out by one of her professors.
A recent poll done by HackCollege. com shows that college students use com's cell phones more than they think.
Ninety-four percent of students who took the poll said they text every day, and 60 percent of students who took the poll said they feel "addicted" to their cell phones. Eighty-eight percent of students said they text during classes.
Ryan Tenholder, a freshman from Topeka, said he doesn't have a cell phone and that a cell phone isn't essential to his life. He said he's better off in school without one.
"It was a small class," she said. "It was just really awkward."
"It allows me to focus more on the moment rather than someone who's
waiting for texts," said Tenholder.
There is no campus-wide policy prohibiting students from using cell phones in class, although professors and graduate teaching assistants have the authority to mandate individual policies in their own classrooms.
Kameron Mack
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