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Friday, October 13, 1995
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
GRADES:
Trickery boosts averages,some greek leaders say
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Lenexa senior, examined her sorority's membership rooster. She discovered that 15 students who hadn't been active sorority members for several years had been inadvertently included on the list, and their GPAs were being factored into the house average.
Jeff Pitts, Phi Gamma Delta president, isn't surprised.
"You could keep guys on for five or six years," he said.
But Nelson admitted that because of limited staffing, it would be hard for him to catch errors. And closing loopholes and catching cheaters is difficult because of confidentiality of records, legitimate fluctuations in membership and sloppy record keeping.
However, Bill Nelson, greek program coordinator and assistant director of the organizations and activities center, said he didn't think that cheating occurred. It's something that everybody says everybody else does, he said.
For example, throughout the semester the status of members and pledges change, making it hard to cross check membership totals. National membership totals may also be hard to compare, because they are often calculated differently or at different points in time than the totals used for GPAs.
KU can take solace, however, in the fact that it isn't the only University struggling to police greek grades.
Consequently, proving cheating by examining only prior year totals is nearly impossible.
In 1990, Wichita State University had to disqualify the fraternity that won its GPA contest. After awarding the trophy, the university discovered that the fraternity had intentionally left nine of its members off its membership rooster.
Washburn University officials also have had problems, including catching one of its fraternities counting a students who wasn't a member.
But until solutions are found, cheating will still be an attractive option. And as a result, fraternities and sororites who don't currently cheat may be tempted to start, just as Alpha Gamma Delta was.
Last spring, frustrated Alpha Gamma Delta members discussed whether they should cheat in order to compete on a level playing field with other sororities.
"We thought 'If everyone else is doing it, maybe we should,' said Jen Jordan, president. "But then we figured they would probably start checking right after we started cheating."
Supreme Court justices to come to KU
Clarence Thomas and Byron White will judge competition this spring
By Hannah Naughton
Kansan staff writer
Second-year law students at the University of Kansas will have a chance to argue their case in front of a U.S. Supreme Court justice next semester.
"I worked for both of these people before. I invited them to come," he said.
Clarence Thomas will visit the University of Kansas School of Law April 9 and 10 to judge the final round of the annual moot-court competition. His visit will follow the April 1 visit of retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Byron White. The law school is hoping to hold question-and-answer sessions with the two justices.
Steve McAllister, associate law professor, said he didn't have to pull any strings to bring White and Thomas to the Univer-
sitv.
He sent a letter to both of them, inviting them to Kansas, McAllister said.
McAllister knew that White would be visiting the Kansas City metropolitan area in the spring, and so he invited White to come to KU near that time.
"He called on the phone and said, 'Hey Steeve, what about that letter? What do you want to do?" McAllister said.
McAllister was a law clerk for White from July 1898 to July 1991. He said that working for White almost had been like working for a grandfather. White had been a justice for almost 30 years when
Clarence Thomas
McAllister came to him, so White knew the nuances of working with the Supreme Court.
"In some ways, he was more formal than Thomas," McAllister said.
McAllister said he had asked Thomas to come last year. Because McAllister was a visiting professor at that time, Thomas wanted to wait to see if McAllister would stay at the University. He was offered a tenure track last year, and this year he arranged a visit by Thomas.
Byron White
McAllister said he worked for Thomas from the time he was confirmed by the Senate at the end of Oct. 1991 until the end of Dec. 1991.
"Thomas was pretty relaxed and easy
going," McAllister said. "He was brand new to the court."
Because of his two years of experience under White, McAllister was able to help Thomas assimilate to Supreme Court life, he said.
McAllister said the visits could do a number of things for the University.
"Hopefully, it will inspire some people to see these are real people who have gone on to do amazing things," he said. "It can also humanize the Supreme Court. Especially with Justice Thomas. He's a very friendly and personable guy."
Margann Bennett is a third-year law student from Emporia and president of the Student Bar Association. She said they were planning to sponsor some seminars to get students up-to-date on the cases for which the justices had written opinions.
"I think everyone is really excited." Bennett said. "It's really a coup to have a Supreme Court justice. It's an even bigger coup to have two."
Matt Flicker / KANSAN
Eric Leonard, Flossmoor, Ill., senior, and Emmie Hsu, Topeka
Junior, rehearse a scene in "The Sea."
Senate has constituents' number
Averill said "The Sea" was about two characters, "A" and "B," struggling to get out of a space in which they are trapped. Through the conversations of the characters, the play explores the nature of a relationship between two people contemplating having sex.
"The Sea," by Will Averill, Lawrence senior, and Price's play "The Devil's Game." were written for a play writing class taught last spring by Paul Lim, professor of English. Both will be submitted for competition.
Two KU student plays set the stage for competition
The performances will be judged Saturday for competition in the regional American College Theater Festival, which takes place in St. Louis next January.
"It's about a struggle to maintain a friendship in the midst of that kind of intimate relationship."
By Novelda Sommers Kansan staff writer
EAT is presenting a double bill of original one-act plays written by KU students. Performances are at 8 p.m. Oct. 12 through Oct. 14 and at 2:30 p.m. on the 14th only at the Lawrence Arts Center, 200 W. Ninth St. Admission is $5.
Funny, considering English Alternative Theatre is presenting a play written by the Wichita junior at the Lawrence Arts Center.
Bo Price claims he doesn't know the first thing about writing plays.
In the play, while the veteran gangster speaks, the rookie rattles off the names of gangster movies in which the lines could have originated.
If the phone rings and it's a student senator, don't be alarmed.
And if Averill's play is sex, Price's play is violence. Written in the tradition of Quentin Tarantino and David Mamet, Price's play is a glimpse into the violent lives of two gangsters.
The gangsters, one a rookie, the other a veteran, have been relegated the duty of punishment. They must punish a third man in the back room of a warehouse for an unnamed infraction. The play is rife with guns and obscene language.
Price talked his parents out of bringing his grandmother to see the play.
Kansan staff writer
"Students always feel like they're not sure how to get in touch with their senators, so we have to make an effort to get in touch with them," she said.
Outreach is the answer, Cocks said.
What they're looking for are students' opinions.
The senator doesn't want your vote or your money, and you don't have to buy anything.
Bv Sarah Wlese
"It shows the endless loop of movies looking like reality," Price said. "Sort of like the expression 'art imitates life.'"
Hough acted in a play that Lim wrote as a KU student in 1975. The play won first place at the American College Theater national competition in April 1976.
Phone polling is Student Senate's latest effort to increase senators' communication with the students they represent.
Paul Hough, director of production at American Heartland Theatre in Kansas City, is directing the two EAT productions.
Last night Senate's communication board drafted the first poll, which consists of five broad-based questions.
Maintaining regular contact with constituents always has been one of Senate's biggest challenges, said Kim Cocks, student body president. A lot of senators don't make the effort or simply don't know a good way to go about it.
Hough said directing the plays of Lim's students is a little bit like passing the baton.
And for Lim, the experience would come full-circle if he could send one or both of the plays to the national competition next April.
Starting today, senators will call
First poll
What do you think is the most
Student Senate's communications board will create a new phone poll every other week. Here are the questions in the first poll:
How do you think the problem could be solved?
Averill said.
Student Senate and why?
How do you think we can
Senate has a list of students categorized by the senators who represent them. So the law senators will call constituents in the law school, and the off-campus senators will contact students who live off campus.
What are your perceptions of
How do you think we can increase Student Senate's interactions with students?
Do you know how to get involved in Student Senate? Have you ever considered it?
10 constituents each week during their office hours and survey them on topics ranging from problems on campus to the campus master plan.
"If they believe we can do it, they will talk to us and trust that we will get things done." Mayer said.
Ken Martin, communication board chairman, said some senators asked friends for their opinions on issues but often stopped there.
Jamie Johnson, Nunemaker senator, said he thought the purpose of the phone poll was two-fold.
Adam Mayer, Nunemaker senator, said that he didn't expect everyone to be receptive to the poll but that the ones who did participate would offer important insight.
"It's dangerous when student senators aren't keeping in touch with their constituents," Martin said. "We wanted to put a stop to that in this administration."
Senators also will have a chance to inform them about exactly what Senate can do — affect almost every aspect of student life and solve problems students face.
"It'll educate us about what our constituents are looking for Student Senate to do," he said. "It will also let people know that we want to make a difference as senators."
JACKSON: saving the world, Kansas-style
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Sprawling across 277 acres of Kansas prairie, the Land is part farm, part laboratory, but all Wes Jackson. It has grown from its original 28-acre site into an agricultural empire composed mostly of crops an average Kansas farmer would call weeds.
a Ph.D. in genetics at North Carolina State.
He returned to Kansas to teach, only to leave again to start an environmental studies program at California State University in Sacramento in 1971. However, he bought a piece of prairie south of Salina before he left. When he came back, the Land was born.
But unlike the conventional Kansas farmer, Jackson is looking for the miracle crop that will feed and save the world.
The goal of the Land is nothing short of rebuilding the world from the inside of the refrigerator out. It uses the native Kansas prairie ecosystem as a model for agriculture. Jackson wants people to eat the food that grows there: Eastern gamagrass, wildrye, Maryland senna, Illinois bundleflower and Maximilian sunflower.
Jackson compares his mission with the Land as a cross between Gandhi and the Wright brothers — Gandhi worried about the human condition, and the Wright brothers worried about mechanics, Jackson said.
Jackson's efforts to change agriculture reach beyond the Land. He has worked to introduce language into a 1995 farm bill that would recognize natural systems agriculture as a solution for the crumbling empire. He
also is working to get support from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
"I'm not sure the USDA will embrace the path Wes has laid out, but I think there is a recognition that we need to move to a more sustainable future," said Barbara Meister, USDA assistant to the undersecretary of research, education and economics.
Meister said the USDA might give federal grant money to Jackson and Kansas State University.
Ham, associate dean of agriculture at Kansas State University and long-time friend of the Land, said K-State and the Land had been sharing a common interest for years, though not always by similar means — both institutions conducted research to improve modern agriculture.
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Jackson sits in his prairie office, surrounded by books ranging in topics from Taosism to how to fix tractors. He criticizes the fundamentals of modern thought and anything else he can think of.
Life magazine has placed him 18th in a ranking of the 100 most important Americans of the century.
Woelfel said that he also would regard Jackson as one of the most important people of the time — and a good person to talk with on the phone.
"We had a wonderful conversation," he said. "When I called him to invite him to the Western Civilization lecture, Wes said, 'I've been thinking a lot about Descartes, this idea of certainty of knowledge. I think we need to reverse that and acknowledge our own ignorance.'"
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