4A NEWS
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STUDENT SENATE
THE UNIVERSITY'S DAILY KANSAN
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2009
Committee talks alcohol rights and responsibilities
BY MEGAN HEACOCK mheacock@kansan.com
SUB-COMMITTEE MEETING TIMES AND PLACES
A new sub-committee of Student Senate will focus on combating alcohol abuse at the University. At the first meeting on Thursday, the sub-committee, part of Student Rights Standing Committee, discussed students' constitutional rights and potential plans for action.
The sub-committee, headed by Chairwoman Emily Williams and Vice-Chairman Chris Kaufman, will meet six times during the semester to submit a report to the Student Rights Committee.
6:30 p.m., Oct. 1, 2009, Pine Room, Kansas Union
6:30 p.m., Oct. 8, 2009, 308 McCook, Burge Union
8:15 p.m., Oct. 22, 2009, Alderson, Kansas Union
7 p.m., Nov. 5, 2009, Jayhawk Room, Kansas Union
8 p.m., Nov. 12, 2009, Big 12 Room, Kansas Union
This report will include recommendations for policy changes and the prevention of alcohol abuse on off campus.
and off campus.
"What we're here to do is try and find some creative, innovative, very positive and successful ways to work on alcohol abuse at KU." Williams said. "And also, if we need to recommend any policy adjustments, that we've taken
into account student rights."
"What we're here to do is try and find some creative, innovative, very positive and successful ways to work on alcohol abuse at KU."
The sub-committee will focus on preventing alcohol abuse within student housing; a specific area where the University has struggled to combat alcohol abuse.
implemented current alcohol policies after the alcohol-related deaths of two students last year and further said that students did have rights that are protected from certain regulation.
"We are very fortunate at KU to have the same constitutional rights as a private citizen," Williams said. "We do not lose any constitutional rights by joining the University
EMILY WILLIAMS Committee chair
Williams said the University
of Kansas as a student. However, that does give housing some problems in a lot of ways. By giving us that freedom, we have to be more responsible with what we, as students, do with that freedom."
Williams said that student accountability would be encouraged.
Kaufman said that
the sub-committee was not aiming to eliminate drinking altogether or to drastically change lifestyles of students.
"Drinking in general is not realy the issue because there is a safe
way to drink alcohol and consume it," he said. "But then there's the unsafe way, which is the problem that we're approaching."
Vice Provost of Student Success Marlesa Roney who attended the meeting, agreed with Kaufman that the goal was not to prevent students from drinking at all, but to have moderation.
"It's not about abstinence at all," she said. "It's about creating a healthy environment."
Roney is expected to speak at future meetings about the statistics of alcohol abuse at the University in previous years.
Williams said any person currently enrolled at the University was eligible for membership in the group.
She said members could earn voting rights after attending two consecutive meetings, which ensures students are involved and informed on the subject before casting their votes.
The completed report will be submitted to the Student Rights' Committee no later than Nov. 13.
Edited by Brenna M.T. Daldorph
ACCIDENT
GILLETTE, Wyo. — A Burlington Northern Santa Fe train hauling coal in Wyoming has derailed, marking the second time within 24 hours that trains belonging to the railway company went off the tracks.
ACCIDENT Burlington Northern train with coal goes off tracks
Spokesman Gus Melonas says investigators at the derailments in Wyoming and Montana have ruled out sabotage but have not determined an exact cause.
The Sunday morning derailment on a side connection near Gillette involved 21 coal cars.
Melonas says all the cars remained upright with no spillage.
Crews are working to put the cars back on the track.
On Saturday afternoon, 13 freight cars on the Montana Hi-Line deraled 57 miles east of Glasgow. Melonas says the car remained intact, but is off the track and its contents will be transferred to another car.
Associated Press
ENVIRONMENT
Monty Landler looks over discarded glass containers at the Cheyenne, Wyo, landfill on Sept. 15. Glass has been piling up at the Cheyenne landfill while the city struggles to find a market for the jars and bottles it collects for recycling.
Lacking use for recycled material glass piles up in Cheyenne, Wyo.
MEAD GRUVER
Associated Press
glass it collects - 9 tons a week
CHEYENNE, Wyo. — After working out at a gym, Amy Mahaffy dropped off a half-two glass jars in a city recycling container before heading home.
The containers however won't end up being recycled any time soon. Their destination: A mound of glass at the city landfill, an ever-growing monument to the difficulty many communities across the country face in finding a market for a commodity that's too cheap for its own good.
— for years. Instead, the city has been putting it in the landfill, using it to surround the concrete-walled wells that pump toxic fluids out of the dump.
"We are stockpiling it in a desperate search for a market," landfill foreman Monty Landers said.
Told where the glass bottles and jars that she diligently rinses out end up, Mahaffy seemed dismayed. "I don't think that's what they should be doing with it," she said. "I think they should be recycling it."
Cheyenne hasn't recycled the
The economics of glass recycling have been marginal for some time.
to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Nationwide, only about 25 percent of glass containers are recycled. That compared to 31 percent of plastic containers, 45 percent of aluminum cans and 63 percent of steel cans, according
In northern Idaho, Kootenai County gave up collecting glass last year. In Oregon, which was the first of 11 states to adopt a bottle deposit law in 1971, Deschutes County stockpiled 1,000 tons of glass at its landfill before finally finding a use for it a couple years ago — as fill beneath an area for collecting compost.
Glass also has piled up at the landfill serving Albuquerque, N.M., where officials this year announced that a manufacturer of water-absorbing horticultural stones would eventually use up their stockpiles. New York City gave up glass recycling from 2002 to 2004 because officials decided it was too costly.
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