TUESDAY, OCTOBER 24,1995
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
NEWS 864-4810
ADVERTISING 864-4358
SECTION A VOL.102,NO.47
(USPS 650-640)
SPORTS
The master manager
Kansas junior Matt Palcher finds joy in an other wise tiring and thankless job. Page 1B
CAMPUS
Hang violence out to dry
The Lawrence Clothesline Project sponsored by the Feminist Collective Force, is a reminder of America's battered women. Page 3A
NATION
Selena's killer found guilty
The Tejano singer's fan club president could face life in prison. Page 5A
Canadian markets stumble
WORLD
Fear of Quebec's coming vote for separation sent financial markets reeling yesterday. Page 5A
WEATHER SUNNY
High 57° Low 32°
Weather: Page 2A
INDEX
Opinion ... 4A
Nation/World ... 5A
Features ... 6A
Sports ... 1B
Scoreboard ... 2B
Horoscopes ... 4B
KU's financial aid rules will relax
The University Daily Kansan is the student newspaper of the University of Kansas. The first copy is free. Additional copies of the Kansan are 25 cents.
By Novelda Sommers Kansan staff writer
Starting this January, financial aid recipients and the staff who administer financial aid may have to endure less red tape.
The University of Kansas is among 106 colleges and universities selected by the U.S. Department of Education to bypass some major financial aid rules.
Diane Del Buono, director of financial aid, led Big Eight universities and four Texas universities in applying for the program.
Del Buono said one of the regulations on its way out made first-semester freshmen wait 30 days after school started to pick up their Stafford loan checks.
"I think this would help our first time freshmen a lot because they have to buy books and
supplies," Del Buono said.
The 30-day delay was intended to keep freshmen from collecting money, then discovering they were not cut out for college. But Del Buono said fewer than 10 percent of KU freshmen drop out in the first 30 days.
"A lot of the regulations are burdensome and were not designed for different kinds of schools with different kinds of students," she said. "Even if you looked at other four-year doctoral schools, you would find different behaviors among students."
Del Buono said that in the future,seniors graduating in the fall and summer school students might not have to receive their financial aid in two payments. Regulations call for two payments of financial aid, which usually coincide with the beginnings of the fall and spring semesters.
The University of Kansas is one of 106 colleges and universities selected by the U.S. Department of Education to try cutting through financial aid red tape.
"That's an example of how a law can have a funny effect." Del Buono said.
The way borrowers' informational meetings are conducted also could be revamped. Del Buono said the sessions could be replaced with literature and hand-outs, or organized in a different way.
"Then we would get fewer students calling and asking, 'Why do I have to do this?'" she said.
Earl Dowling, director of financial aid at Iowa State University, said Iowa State probably would experiment with the same changes. Although the Big Eight universities and the four Texas universities applied together and have the same options, they do not have to make the same changes.
"This is a very positive thing," he said. "Some of those regulations were just dumb. They did not pertain to our students."
This year's streamlining began in 1992 with the Higher Education Act, which was before the major push toward government downsizing began.
Dowling said this was the first time regulations had ever been lifted from federal financial aid.
According to the Act, the program should be concluded by the year 2000.
Bob McWilliams, a late-night DJ at KANU radio, introduces his nightly jazz show, Jazz Overnight. The show runs from midnight to 5 a.m. McWilliams' other shows include Trail Mix on Sunday afternoon.
Bob McWilliams, KANU disc jockey, is working through clinical depression to find his own...
LIGHT at the end of the TUNNEL
Story by Tara Trenary Photo by Brian Flink
he turquoise house in the otherwise conservative Holiday Hills neighborhood in Lawrence is already beaming with life.
Music lovers are arriving at the front door from as far as Kansas City, and as close as next door to see Greg Greenway, an up-and-coming singer and songwriter, sing and play his guitar in Bob McWilliams' basement.
Upstairs, three women and a man chat while finishing what is left of a notch dinner.
About 7:30 p.m., McWilliams announces that it is time to move downstairs, but he begs off an interview set for after the show.
"I'm too sleep-deprived to talk later." McWilliams says, sluggishly dragging himself toward the basement. "I've been so busy getting this concert together. I haven't had time to sleep."
Bob McWilliams, public radio disc jockey,
house concert promoter and American history
teacher, lives in a world of highs and lows. He looks more like a Deadhead than the Harvard-
educated lawyer he is - or was.
"He's very passionate about everything he loves - teaching, baseball, basketball, music and politics - and he makes choices to do what he loves, not what will make money," said Connie Friesen, McWilliams' older sister.
McWilliams and his family will also feed and house Greenway, as they do with all the artists who come to town to perform at their house.
At the concert, McWilliams and Greenway seem more like brothers than new acquaintances, trading comments about the Red Sox and Rush Limbaugh throughout the show.
He walked away from a legal career in 1983, after four years in practice, and into an eclectic life as Lawrence's Music Man.
"It's just so great to drive halfway across the country and feel so at home," Greenway says.
Greenway, who is from Boston, has driven all the way to Lawrence to open a McWilliams- organized concert.
--feeling unhappy at ✓ having trouble sleeping
Check yourself
General signs of depression:
Signs that may go unnoticed in every- day life;
✓ becoming unusually irritable
✓ getting little or no pleasure out of ,,e
✓ losing interest in life, family, job, hobbies and sex
✓ going through a down-hearted period that gets worse and won't go away
✓ experiencing frequent or unexplainable crying spells
✓ having an attitude of indifference
making up at early hours and not feeling well
✓ having trouble concentrating or remembering
experiencing physical pain you can't pinch down
loss of appetite or compulsion to overeat
if these symptoms persist for two weeks or more,
it is advised to seek help from a doctor.
Source: Watkins Health Center Flier Jodie Chester / KANSAN
McWilliams began holding house concerts after a friend called him from Washington, D.C. He said he had an artist friend passing through Lawrence. Would McWilliams host a concert for him? McWilliams agreed.
He put up fliers around town and promoted the artist on his radio show. Eighteen people attended McWilliams' first house concert.
McWilliams said he wanted to provide an alcohol- and smoke-free environment for people who did not want to fight the crowds at bars. He also wanted the shows to end early enough for people who had to work the next day.
"We do it as a favor to the artist and the community," he said. "It also forces us to clean our house."
But tidy is one thing that McWilliams is not.
"Where did I put this?" "Have you seen this?"
and "Can you bring me this?" are prominent sentences in McWilliams everyday life, according to his wife Trish.
Bob is anything but organized, Trish said, and many a night he has called her from the KANU radio station to find something he has forgotten.
She searches through bags and boxes, finds the lost compact disc or record, and then drives to the station in Broadcasting Hall in the wee hours of the morning - all for the love of her husband and his dream.
---
McWilliams' father, Clovis McWilliams, had quite a different dream for his son.
"It was assumed in my family that I was to be a lawyer," Bob McWilliams said.
His father, an insurance salesman, wanted him to be the first professional in the family.
He remembers knowing that he would be a lawyer as early as the sixth grade, when his father made him watch episodes of "Perry Mason."
In 1977, Bob McWilliams began studying law at Harvard with a minor in Fenway Park, jazz clubs and intramural basketball.
"He realized that he wouldn't be law review, but also that he wouldn't sink," said Trish McWilliams. "He didn't really care that he wasn't right at the top."
Trish said her husband did well at Harvard, receiving mostly A's and B's.
After graduating from law school in 1980, he became a law clerk in Wichita and then started working for an Olathe law firm.
Despite his father's dream, Bob McWilliams could not stay in law. He felt like he was simply a performer.
"I really hated it," Bob McWilliams, now 40, said. "I hated be a hired gun."
Bob McWilliams had worked part time at KANU while he was still a lawyer. When he moved to Lawrence, he became a part-time American
After walking out of a cushy job with the law firm, he and his family moved back to Lawrence where he had begun his academic career a decade earlier.
See MCWILLIAMS. Page 3A.
Official language bills raise questions
By Craig Lang Kansan staff writer
House Republicans began hearings last week on creating legislation that will make English the official language of the United States.
Several representatives have introduced bills ranging from reforms in bilingual education to improve children's development in English to printing many government documents and forms, such as ballots, only in English.
While some supporters of the legislation claim that the reforms will affect only certain government forms and documents, opponents argue that the proposed legislation could harm those who want to learn English but have a difficult time mastering the language.
Matt Duran, Salina junior and president of KU's Hispanic American Leadership Organization, said the effort to make English the official language was a political statement by Republicans and had no practical use.
"It's aimed at targeting new immigrants," he said. "It also suggests that they don't want to learn English."
But Susan Malone, Linwood senior and public officer for KU College Republicans, said making English the nation's official language was a way to unite Americans from different cultural backgrounds and to assimilate immigrants into the country.
"I don't think it's a partisan issue," she said.
Gloria Flores, associate director of minority affairs, said she agreed that people who came to the U.S. had an obligation to learn English, but should not be punished if they can only learn the language to a certain level.
Flores cited the example of her aunt, who immigrated to the United States from Mexico. She said that when her aunt came to the U.S., she wanted very much to learn English. However, as hard as she tried, she could not learn the language.
Duran said making reforms in bilingual education could cause some children to learn at a slower pace. He said many students may not learn things taught in English as well as they could learn things taught in their native language.
"Republicans are willing to sacrifice these children's education," he said.
But Malone said that the reforms would not hurt children because bilingual education programs would not be entirely cut. Instead, stronger efforts would be made to teach English to students whose native language is not English, she said.
These efforts to teach English to immigrants would unite people of different cultural backgrounds, she said.
"How can teaching English hurt them?" she said. "It can only bring people together."
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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