6A NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
CAMPUS
TUESDAY. SEPTEMBER1, 2009
Financial course reaches full enrollment two years after creation
BY JESSE RANGEL
jrangel@kansan.com
Like precious coins diligently saved in a piggy bank, enrollment in "Personal Finance" at the University continues to grow.
This fall, enrollment in the course has grown to 145 students with others still on the waiting list, up from 100 students last semester, said Bill Lewis, who teaches the class.
The course, first offered in 2007, gives students a look into topics such as loans, credit cards and personal investments.
Lewis said the class offered a unique opportunity for students pursuing a degree in business or
finance: learning how to take care of their own money.
"We always teach people how to take care of other people's money," Lewis said. "In this course we're truly trying to teach you how you can take care of yourself and your own money."
Lewis said the course had not changed to accommodate the economic downturn. Rather, he said he focused on financial fundamentals for his course.
"The fundamentals are still the same for your finances," Lewis said. "What you need to do is understand them so you'll know exactly where you are in that mix. The basics that we're teaching, the fundamentals, work in whatever the economy is."
Lewis said his class prepared students to know where their cash flows were coming from and where their expenses were going. He said students who could do that were "better able to miss out from some of the pain and anguish that people are experiencing" because of the economy.
Scott Mitchell, Wichita graduate student and one of Lewis' teaching assistants, said the course helped students prepare for a wide range of financial issues. "This kind of gives students a leg up when they graduate, about the things they are going to face financially," Mitchell said.
Ashley Clayton, Basehor freshman, said she enrolled in the course and put her money in a
savings account to try to stay financially fit.
"I don't think a lot of students know how to spend their money wisely going into college," Clayton said. "I'm saving a lot of my money. I worked a lot over the summer, and that's going toward school and books. I have a very little fund for my 'fun' money."
The course is now open to students pursuing any major, Lewis said. He said having juniors and seniors offered a benefit to the course.
Lewis said juniors and seniors who enrolled in a portion of "Finance" would also create a mock investment portfolio starting with $100,000. He said the class was important for any college student to get the most out of college.
"They appreciate it," Lewis said. "The juniors and seniors have been through a lot of these problems that we bring up in class, and we're telling the freshmen/sophomores, they can add to the class."
"You're going to school to give yourself a better standard of living, a better life," Lewis said. "And if you don't watch your own finances, or understand how to operate your own finances, you might not have a lot of benefit that you hoped to have."
- Edited by Lauren Cunningham
PERSONAL SAVINGS RATE RUNDOWN
Earlier this month the Bureau of Economic Analysis released the Personal Savings rate for June 2009. Overall, Americans saved $504.8 billion in June, or 4.6 percent of disposable income. Compare this to 6.2 percent in May 2009, 4.9 percent in June 2008, 0.6 percent in 2007, and a negative — Americans spent more than they earned — 1.5 percent in June 2006.
NATIONAL
Fire threatens L.A. observatory
ASSOCIATED PRESS
LOS ANGELES — Mount Wilson opened the heavens and then became a modern hub for communications on Earth. Now it is threatened by a force of nature that humans may be powerless to control.
The wildfire ravaging the mountains north of Los Angeles drew within a half-mile of the revered Mount Wilson Observatory Monday, threatening the birthplace of modern astronomy as well as a virtual forest of communication towers that serve the region.
Firefighters protecting Mount Wilson retreated Sunday but continued to dump flame retardant around the towers, transmitters and telescopes from the air. They said little could be done to stop the advancing flames, or predict how much damage would be done if the blaze ascends the 5,700-foot peak.
"Whether it runs up to Mount Wilson and does intensive burning or just burns slowly around Mount Wilson, that's up to the fire. We have no control over that," said Los Angeles County fire Capt. Mark Whaling.
Dozens of buildings are scattered around the complex, along with a trove of telescopes housed at the century-old observatory.
Firefighters worked for the past two days cutting fire lines around the most vulnerable structures. The goal was to minimize damage to the buildings, most of which are made mainly of steel and concrete.
Virtually all of Los Angeles' TV stations — more than 20 — broadcast from an "antenna farm" on the mountain. If the antennas, transmitters or generators are damaged by the fire, the city could lose nearly all over-the-air TV broadcasts.
Viewers on satellite or cable, which is about 85 percent of the population, would be unaffected. Stations that still broadcast signals from the area might be able to transmit from other locations.
John Holland, director of engineering at KABC-TV in Los Angeles, said it's possible the TV station could stay on the air even if the fire burns through the
complex. The station's antenna is sturdily built, and the transmitter at its foot is housed in a concrete building. The generator that kicks in if power is cut has several days' worth of fuel.
If the fire does enough damage to shut down the antenna, the station would be off the air for at least a few hours but KABC has a backup on the way that could provide a signal to at least part of the city, Holland said.
Most of the city's FM radio stations also broadcast from Mt. Wilson. Of the five FM stations Clear Channel Communications Inc. owns in Los Angeles, four have their antennas on the mountain. There are backup transmitters that could provide full coverage of the city, spokeswoman Michelle Clarke said.
Unlike TV and radio service, cell phone service is short-range, so any disruption from the fire would be local rather than city-wide.
The telescopes at the 105-year-old Mount Wilson Observatory were the premier instruments in astronomy in the first half of the 20th Century, and the first to show earth its place in its universe.
There are far more modern telescopes, but the observatory is still being used to make discoveries.
Just a couple months ago, a Nobel Prize-winning astronomer used Mount Wilson to discover that the star Betelgeuse appears to be shrinking. In 1920, Betelgeuse was the first star to be measured — and it was done at Mount Wilson.
Mount Wilson "literally revolutionized our perception of the universe after Copernicus," said famed astronomer Wendy Freedman, director of the Carnegie Observatories, which ran Mount Wilson until 1989 when it was turned over to the Mount Wilson Institute. "It's really hard to understate the significance of Mount Wilson. These telescopes achieved something monumental."
Hubble in 1929 used Mount Wilson to confirm that the universe is expanding. That led to the Big Bang theory of the universe.
Not-so-sketchy weather
Tanner Grubbs/KANSAN
Natalie Bear, St. Louis freshman, sketches Dyche Hall for her architecture studio class Sunday morning. After several days of rain, Bear and other architecture students took advantage of the warm weather to work on their assignments.
LONDON — Forty years after the body of Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones was found floating in his swimming pool following a binge of drugs and drinking, police said Monday they are reviewing the case in light of new evidence turned over by a journalist.
Sussex police to review Stones guitarist's death
Jones' 1969 drowning was ruled an accident, though friends and fans have long insisted the 27-year-old rock star was murdered, and reports have swirled of a deathbed confession by a building contractor.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
MUSIC
"It's too early to comment at this time as to what the outcome might be," the Sussex duty inspector said, reading a statement over the telephone.
Sussex police in southeast England said they will examine the new documents and have not yet decided whether to officially re-open the case.
Brian Jones was a founding member of the Rolling Stones and reportedly came up with the band's
name, taking it from a song title on a Muddy Walters album cover.
"In the beginning, Brian Jones was the real catalyst for the Rolling Stones, the smart, handsome, multi-instrumentalist leader who loved the blues and galvanized the band," jasen Emmons, the director of curatorial affairs at Seattle's Experience Music Project, said in an e-mail.
Jones stood out even among his bandmates for his flashy clothes and prodigious appetite for drugs. But he was quickly eclipsed by swaggering lead singer Mick Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards, whose songwriting propelled the band's popularity.
He left the band a month before his July 2, 1969, death and was replaced by Mick Taylor.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Brian Jones, Rolling Stones guitarist, left, sits with Mick Jagger at a press interview in 1965 New York City duiring a U.S. tour. British police said Monday they would review the 1969 death of Jones
Two 1994 books have claimed that Jones was murdered by a London building contractor hired to
Increasingly marginalized and drawn to drugs and alcohol, Jones was convicted twice on narcotics charges, avoiding jail by promising to quit his habit.
"It was me that did Brian. I just finally snapped," Thorogood was quoted as telling Stones road manager, Tom Keylock, in Rawlings'
help renovate lones 11-acre Sussex estate. "Paint it Black: The Murder of Brian Jones" by Geoffrey Giuliano and "Who Killed Christopher Robin?" by Terry Rawlings, said the builder, Frank Thorogood, confessed on his deathbed in November 1993 to killing Jones.
Journalist, Scott Jones interviewed the woman who discovered the guitarist's body, Janet Lawson, shortly before she died last year.
book. Keylock died in July.
Scott Jones also spoke to Bob Marshall, the chief investigating officer in the case.
Marshall, who retired in 1974, said he still believed Jones' death was "a tragic accident, a simple drowning."
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CRIME
OLATHE, Kan. — Three men have been accused of defrauding thousands of senior citizens across the country through an alleged prescription drug scheme.
Prosecutors on Friday said 44-year-old Grant Wilms, 74-year-old Hermann Wilms, both of Overland Park, and 83-year-old Kenneth Opstein, of Sioux City, Iowa, were charged with 29 counts including theft, false writings and computer crimes.
NATIONAL Lost mail recovered in kitchen, garage and car
DETROIT — Federal agents say they've recovered more than 20,000 pieces of mail from a suburban Detroit postal carrier who stored them in his car, kitchen and garage instead of delivering them.
Thirty-seven-year-old James Stempnik Jr. of Clinton Township was charged Monday with delaying and stealing mail.
Stempnik did not return a message seeking comment.
Associated Press