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WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2009
WWW.KANSAN.COM
VOLUME 121 ISSUE 15
PROJECT
CReSIS to join NASA on polar excursion
BY ZACH WHITE white@kansan.com
Ben Panzer just got back from an expedition in Greenland last May. The doctoral student in electrical engineering studied snow depths there in a propeller plane with a radar system he helped design. For his next trip he's heading south — to Antarctica.
Panzer is making an Oct. 15 trip with three other students and six faculty members. The excursion is part of NASA's Operation ICE Bridge to use a radar-mounted DC-8 jet to study polar ice sheets and the effects of climate change on those sheets.
NASA's current means of studying the Antarctic ice sheets is through the Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite, ICESat, which is coming down later this year. Its replacement, the ICESat II, won't launch until 2014. Although it can't watch from space in the interim, NASA will be watching from the jet. That jet will be full of scientists from organizations across the nation, including Panzer from the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice sheets, CRESIS, at the University.
CReSIS began its involvement with Operation ICE Bridge in January. It flew to California to look at the plane and then applied for a position in the project. Work began on the instruments in May with approval from NASA, which gave it $1.9 million for the project.
BARE BONES BUDGET
Participants in the project said preparing in May for a mission in October was a challenge. CRESIS had to work with a team in the aerospace engineering department. Together they worked to design and build fairings to balance functionality and design. Fairings are the containers that hold the instruments to the plane, which reduces drag. If the fairings were too secure the instruments would lose accuracy. But, if it were designed to increase instrument sensitivity, the instruments could be ripped from the plane by the harsh conditions of an Antarctic spring.
SEE PROJECT ON PAGE 5A
A large polar bear is exhibited at the Natural History Museum as part of the panorama display. The Natural History Museum, like many other museums across the country, is working hard to keep its doors open despite the poor economy.
Museums cope with economy
Lack of funding causes hours to be cut and exhibits to be changed
BY MEGAN HEACOCK mheacock@kansan.com
The third floor of the KU Natural History Museum is literally crawling with insects.
Cockroaches the size of a human thumb look onward, antennas flicking back and forth. Next door, a beetle about the size of a thimble crawls with clunky grace across the wood in its display case, toward
its reflection in the glass.
Welcome to Bug Town, where so-called "pests" of the world are on display and recognized for their overwhelming abundance and diversity. Jen Humphrey, communications officer for the Natural History Museum, explains the beetle's tendency to feign death when it feels threatened, an instinct which allows it to live up to seven years. This also gives the beetle its name, the blue death-feigning beetle. It's one of 4 million insect specimens in the museum. This is less than half of the 9 million specimens owned by the museum overall.
It's a creepy and captivating scene to behold, the walls stirring with movement behind the glass. The room is dark except for lamps in the display cases, tucked within the bright green walls. The activity inside the cases juxtaposes the stillness on
the outside, where phantom echoes bounce through the museum's empty halls displaying the bones of animals long since dead.
It's another quiet day at the museum, which is a reminder of adjustments it's been forced to make. Like most institutions with an allocated budget, both the Natural History Museum and the Spencer Museum of Art face financial setbacks because of the economic recession, and the cuts have caused noticeable results. For instance, the Natural History Museum had to cancel its spring break exhibition, which would have been "Super Hero Science." The exhibition planned to look at the science behind super vision, super hearing, and super materials, such as Spider-Man's silk. Budget cuts have also decreased funding for student staff positions. As a result, there were not enough
personnel to prepare or run the event, which would have taken months to plan.
Currently, as part of the Biodiversity Institute, the museum has an operating budget of $350,000. Humphrey said events such as the spring break exhibition, which only lasts for one week, could typically cost $15,000 to $20,000 with advertising, salaries and materials.
The Spencer Museum of Art also faced changes this year that reflected the tighter budget. Saralyn Reece Hardy, director of the museum, said the museum had suffered layoffs and no longer accepted traveling exhibits because they were more costly. As a result, however, the museum started using its own collection for new exhibits. Hardy said dealing with budget cuts was
SEE MUSEUMS ON PAGE 5A
Subcommittee may change rights for students in dorms
STUDENT SENATE
BY JESSE BROWN jbrown@kansan.com
Students will now have the option to voice their concerns about whether University employees can enter dorm rooms if a dangerous situation is expected inside. In the wake of two alcohol-related student deaths last semester, the University changed several of its alcohol policies. Now administrators are asking Student Senate to consider changing its policies for the student body as well.
jbrown@kansan.com
On Sept. 2 Student Senate voted in favor of forming a subcommittee to discuss possible changes to
See the Kansan's editorial on this subject on page 7A.
"We have a serious problem with alcohol consumption at the University of Kansas," Marlesa Roney, vice provost for student success, said at the Senate meeting. "It's nothing new."
the Student Code of Rights and Responsibilities in order to prevent future alcohol-related tragedies.
Roney challenged Senate to make the University a safer place by reviewing the code and making changes where necessary. The
Emily Williams, Overland Park graduate student and subcommittee chairwoman, was appointed to review the current policies, work with administration and make recommendations to prevent future alcohol-related deaths.
code outlines the rights of students while at the University. Only Student Senate can change the code, although Senate is open to all students.
"We are going to have a lot of education going on because I think it's important, first of all, for students to look at this policy and to take it seriously." Williams said. "They have to know what the
current policy is, and so I want to make sure everybody is educated on what is going on and what changes are being proposed."
Possible changes could include giving University housing officials more power to enter a student's dorm room without a search warrant.
Tom Cox, Shawnee graduate student and chairman of the student rights committee, said it was not uncommon for other schools to enter dorm rooms without a search warrant.
"At some universities, especially
SEE SENATE ON PAGE 5A
SUBCOMMITTEE RESPONSIBILITIES
1) Work with administration from the Office of Student Success, University Housing and the KU Public Safety Office to review alcohol abuse at the University.
Below are the three duties for the subcommittee formed by the Student Rights Committee of Student Senate.
specifically parts that refer to student housing and look for sections that may need to be revised in relation to the current culture of alcohol abuse at the University.
3) Make recommendations to the student rights committee by the last meeting of the fall semester on ways to combat alcohol abuse at the University.
2) Review the Student Code of Rights and Responsibilities,
index
Classifieds...3B Opinion...7A Crossword...6A Sports...1B Horoscopes...6A Sudoku...6A
All contents, unless stated otherwise, © 2009 The University Daily Kansan
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