UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Thursday, October 26. 1995
5A
Perks escort ushers to Lied Center events
By Phillip Brownlee Kansan staff writer
Matt Flickner / KANSAN
They come from different walks of life, and they do it for different reasons. But each year, about 170 volunteers serve as ushers at the Lied Center.
The volunteers, who include KU students and employees and working professionals and retirees from Lawrence, donate their labor in exchange for free admittance to events, a chance to meet new people and to help the arts.
Robile Swindell, Lawrence resident, directs concert-goers to their seats at the Lied Center. Willie Nelson performed at the Lied Center on Sunday night.
Valerie Jamesick, associate professor of Russian and East European studies, said she volunteered because she wanted to support the Lied Center.
Besides, ushering enabled her to meet famous people, she said.
Sonia Ratzlaff, Buhler junior, is
more practical — she users because it gets her into the shows for free.
"It's a good way to see the programs you want to see without having to pay for the tickets," she said.
Jackie Davis, Lied Center director, said the Lied Center used volunteer ushers because it got more people involved in the arts.
"Money was never an issue," she said. "We wanted to develop a sense of involvement from students and the community."
Davis said that she was pleased with the family atmosphere the volunteers brought to the Lied Center.
"They treat guests like they're inviting them into their home," she said. "I couldn't ask for anything better than that."
Shannon Rudlinger, Lied Center events coordinator, said performers also had commented on the ushers' professionalism and friendliness.
Between 20 and 50 ushers are needed at each Lied Center performance, depending on the size of the audience. Duelingler said.
More volunteers for this year are still needed, Ruedelinger said. Interested persons should contact the Lied Center and then must complete a short orientation program.
computer program.
Cindy Lian, Selangor, Malaysia,
graduate student, helps coordinate the usher program. Lian said that for her, meeting new people was the best part of the job.
"All of the sudden I have at least 170 more people that I've met within the first few months of the school year," she said.
By Brenden Sager
Kansan staff writer
KU lab studies glaciers
Professors and students at RU's remote sensing lab are trying to find out whether the atmosphere is heating up in northern Greenland, and NASA is footing the bill.
"That's where the money is," said Chris Allen, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science.
Allen is part of a group in the remote sensing lab working on a radar system that measures the thickness of arctic glaciers, which is an indicator of global climate. He said thin glaciers indicated a warmer climate and thick glaciers indicated a cooler one. The project is financed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Last summer, Allen, Sivaprasad Goginieri, director of the remote sensing lab, and Brad Wohletz, Topeka graduate student, traveled to Greenland to fly over the glaciers.
Goginemi said the lab developed a low-frequency radar system that measured the depths of the glaciers. The mission was to investigate both how the radar worked and how it didn't.
After Gogineni, Allen and Wolhtes returned to the remote sensing lab, they began to improve the system, Allen said.
He said other organizations had been working for about 40 years on such a system, but none were as successful as KU's.
"There's not a lot of data on ice sheet thickness," he said.
The results of the study don't show whether global climate is warming or cooling because there is no information from previous similar missions, he said.
Allen said the remote sensing lab hoped to receive more NASA funding in about five years to return to Greenland to start a database that measures global change with the ice sheets.
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