THE UNIVERSITY DARY KANSAN
THURSDAY NOVEMBER 20 2008
NEWS
3A
STUDENT SENATE
Student groups discuss plans for possible aquatics center
BY HALEY JONES hjones@kansan.com
Plans for the addition of a pool to the Student Recreation Fitness Center are beginning to take shape. Adam McGonigle, Wichita junior and student body president, who campaigned for Senate elections last spring with the swimming pool as one of his platforms, is showing student groups blueprints depicting three possible designs for the aquatic center.
Last week, Student Senate began meeting with 30 groups, including the Athletics Department and the KU swimming and diving team, to find out what each group would want from an aquatic center and
how much they were willing to pay
how much they were willing to pay. "We all want the best facility' McGonigle said.
The three plans for the aquatic center, drafted by Counsilman-Hunsaker, a St. Louis-based aquatics planning and engineering firm, vary in cost and size. Last year, the proposed aquatic center was projected to cost $20 million.
McGonigle said he did not know the cost of the three different designs for the center because he said it depended on how much the Athletics Department would contribute. McGonigle and Michael Gillaspie, Ashland junior and student body vice president, met with 15 groups, totalling more than 300 students, last week. They presented
the floor plans to get feedback and gauge what students wanted.
The plans were not modeled after any other university's aquatic center, McGonigle said.
"What's best for another university may not be best for KU," he said. "The plans we've students will give us a plan of what's best for KU."
McGonigle said the third design was the most complete. It would include a 50-meter competition pool with divider walls to allow multiple users simultaneously. The center would also include a separate diving well with a springboard and a platform diving board.
The design also includes a recreational pool with a lake river, an
open-swim area for water basketball or volleyball, and a vortex pool, in which water travels in a circular motion. This aquatic center would also include a 25-person hot tub that would have an indoor and an outdoor portion. It would also have an outdoor wet-deck lounge area and multipurpose classrooms for fitness classes.
McGonigle said the other two plans were scaled-back versions of the more elaborate center depicted in the third plan. Plan two would not have an outdoor area or outdoor hot tub and the diving well would be in the main pool. Plan one is the least complete plan and the diving board would be in the deeper part of the competition pool.
Hannah McMacken, Lake Tapps. Wash., senior and member of the swimming and diving team, said the third plan would increase the swimming and diving team members' confidence and skill. McMacken said it was difficult to compete in a pool she hadn't practiced in. The pool in Robinson Center is not official competition-size and is open to students only three hours a day.
"I really see it benefitting the entire University, bringing more attention to Lawrence and to Kansas," she said. "I think it's exactly what we need."
McMacken said the pool would also be a helpful recruiting tool because the only universities in the Big 12 conference that have competition-size pools were the University of Texas, Texas A&M University and the University of Missouri. She said the Student Athlete Advisory Committee, or SAAC, which McGonigle met with last week, generally preferred plan three.
Paul Hefferon, Overland Park senior and SAAC senator, said the focus groups were helping Senate get a taste of what students wanted so the final project would meet everyone's needs.
"There will still be people who want something different," he said. "But, in general, there will be something that people will be happy to support."
Former Senate leader Daschle accepts Obama's offer for Cabinet position
POLITICS
Edited by Jennifer Torline
BY KEVIN FREKING ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle has accepted President-elect Barack Obama's offer to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, Democratic officials said Wednesday.
The appointment has not been announced, but these officials said the job is Daschle's, barring an unforeseen problem as Obama's team reviews the background of the South Dakota Democrat. One area of review will include the lobbying connections of his wife, Linda Hall Daschle, who has lobbied mostly on behalf of airline-related companies over the years. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
Daschle was a close adviser to Obama throughout the former Illinois senator's White House campaign. He recently wrote a book on his proposals to improve health care, and he is working with former Senate leaders on recommendations to improve the system.
Organizations seeking to expand health coverage were quick to praise the selection.
"Sen. Daschle has a deep commitment to securing high-quality, affordable health care for everyone in our nation," said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA. "His new leadership position confirms that the incoming Obama administration has made health care reform a top and early priority for action in 2009."
After losing re-election to the Senate in 2004, Daschle became a public policy adviser and member of the legislative and public policy group at the law and lobbying firm Alston & Bird. Daschle isn't registered as a lobbyist. He advises clients on issues including health care, financial services and taxes and trade, according to the firm Web site.
trator of the Federal Aviation Administration in the Clinton administration. She is one of Washington's top lobbyists. Her lobbying clients over the past year included American Airlines, Lockheed Martin and Boeing, Senate lobbying records show.
Health care interests, including CVS Caremark, the National Association for Home Care and Hospice, Abbott Laboratories and HealthSouth, are among the firm's lobbying clients.
His wife was acting adminis
Daschle is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think-tank run by top Obama transition adviser and former Clinton White House chief of staff John Podesta.
According to his biography for the think tank, Daschle serves on the advisory boards of Intermedia Partners and the BP America Inc. external advisory council, and on the boards of CB Richard Ellis, Mascoma Corp., Prime BioSolutions, The Freedom Forum, the Mayo Clinic, the Center for American Progress, the LBJ Foundation, and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Daschle's strong Capitol Hill ties and knowledge of how HHS works mean "it is a perfect appointment," said former Republican Congressman John Porter, who chairs the medical research advocacy group Research!America. "He'll do an outstanding job."
Besides health reform, the next HHS secretary will deal with the growing budgetary woes of some of the nation's critical health agencies.
One example: Years of funding that didn't keep up with infiltration means the National Institutes of Health has lost 14 percent of its buying power, said Dr. Harold Varmus, NIH's former director and a science adviser to Obama's campaign. That has left promising disease, research without money to move forward.
Obama also announced several transition working group leaders, including Daschle, who will oversee the health policy working group. They include former Environmental Protection Agency administrator Carol Browner on energy and environment and former Clinton White House adviser Jim Steinberg and Obama campaign senior foreign policy adviser Susan Rice on national security.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, left, and current Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., right, smile on Capitol Hill last April. Democratic officials say Daschle has accepted President-elect Barack Obama's offer to be Secretary of Health and Human Services.
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