FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1995
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NEWS 864-4810
ADVERTISING 864-4358
SECTION A VOL.102 NO.40
(USPS 650-640)
TODAY KANSAN
SPORTS
The underdog no more
The Kansas football team is adjusting to its new national prominence. Page 1B
CAMPUS
Manning the phones
Students senators will be calling their constituents to solicit their views. Page 6A
NATION
Good luck getting in
Many fans ordered Olympics tickets and received none. Now they have to file for a refund or consider their money a donation. Page 7A
WORLD
Don't blame the IRA
A Protestant gunman returning to Northern Ireland during the ceasefire was killed by his own kind. Page 7A
WEATHER CHANCE OF RAIN
High 69° Low 55°
Weather: Page 2A
INDEX
Opinion . . . . . 4A
Nation/World . . . 7A
Features . . . . . 8A
Sports . . . . . 1B
Scoreboard . . . 2B
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.
Living off the Land
Wes Jackson wants to reinvent agriculture by looking to the past
By Brenden Sager
Kapsen staff writer
Kansan staff writer
The Kansas philosopher-farmer sits in his prairie office and stares out the window at his fields, contemplating what he will say about Western civilization to KU students and faculty.
It doesn't take him very long to decide.
"Western civilization is currently involved in wholesale self-destruction," says Wes Jackson, founder of the Land Institute in Salina.
Jackson wants to bury Western civilization and grow something better in its place.
Through his Land Institute referred to as The Land by Jackson's advocates Jackson is reinventing science, education and society by reinventing agriculture.
The fourth-generation Kansan was born and reared on a farm, but he wants the once-infinite prairie to return and replace the amber waves of grain.
"I think it's fair to say that this is an idea whose time has come," said James Woelfel, director of KU's Western Civilization program. Woelfel invited Jackson to speak as part of a commemorative lecture series.
"Our theme for the 50th anniversary of the Western Civilization program is 'Challenges to the 21st century,'" Woelfel said. "Wes Jackson represents a challenge."
Tom Leininger/KANSAN
Jackson would prefer not to talk about himself, though. He carefully guards the details of his private life, and his answers to personal questions are curt. His mind always is on his next mission — whether it's greeting visitors at The Land or pounding on senators' doors to ask for money.
In 1936, Jackson was born on a farm outside Topeka, the youngest of six children on the first irrigated farm in the area — a cooperative effort with the Topeka Chamber of Commerce.
He earned a bachelor's in biology at Kansas Wesleyan University in Salina and then came to KU for a master's in botany. He finally left Kansas to earn
See JACKSON. Page 6A.
Wes Jackson spoke to a nearly full Kansas Ballroom yesterday evening. Jackson, a Kansas native and KU graduate, is the founder of the Land Institute in Salina.
Simplify, simplify, simplify
Jackson urges audience to stop groping for 'Oz'
By Josh Yancey
Kansan staff writer
Nothing concentrates the mind like waiting to be hanged.
Wes Jackson made that point clear to an audience that filled the Kansas Union Ballroom last night, the point that the world needs to think quickly in the face of ecological disaster.
Jackson, founder and president of The Land Institute, a nonprofit Kansas organization that seeks ecological and cultural solutions to environmental and agricultural abuse, spoke as part of the Western Civilization program's 50thanniversary selection of speakers.
"Someone once asked Gandhi what he thought of Western civilization," he said. "Gandhi said he thought it would be a good idea."
His audience, some of its members hugging themselves in the air-conditioned ballroom, was fascinated.
So went Wes Jackson, the world-
renowned environmentalist. He alluded to European scientists, economists and philosophers in his attempt to show the need for a reversion to an ecologically friendly society. He spoke of a Paleolithic disposition that borrowed from the future and attained truth by torturing nature. He condemned the vices of greed, the seven deadly sins, that he saw as necessary for the modern economic system to operate.
"Kansas in the movie is black and white," he said. "Oz is color, Oz is a fantasy. It represents the upward mobility — the lie that destroys the bond between people, land and community. What we have built here is not Kansas. This upward mobility, this desire to always get somewhere, has never gotten us anywhere."
"Toto, the greatest Kansan of them all, pulls back the curtain and shows us the true Oz," he said. "The world of fantasy and illusion."
"The Wizard of Oz," however, was his favorite analogy.
Jackson didn't dwell on catastrophic projections of global warming or mass starvation. His solution seemed as easy
as a reversion to the pioneer lifestyle, one of a reliance, an ignorance, a nontechnological simplicity that could produce an Earth capable of feeding every one of its inhabitants.
His audience at times was unsure whether it should laugh or solemnly nod. It often did both.
"We Europeans came to America as poor people," he said. "The land was empty, and it was rich. Now, we've become rich people in a poor land that's filling up. But all our institutions are still based on this concept of poor-empty-rich. They're still struggling for Oz."
"This is what we do," he said. "We begin by settling the little towns that have been deserted. We do this without the old attitudes. Instead, we become native to this place again. It is a home-coming.
"Nature offers us perfection: It features material recycling. And it runs on sunlight. We have yet to build any system more efficient than the one we have destroyed.
"We must acknowledge that we have a nature of ecological limits," he said. "We must overcome the nature of ourselves. Otherwise, we will burn out, hollow shells, victims of Oz."
Fraud mars greeks' GPA competition
System makes deception and miscalculation easy
By Phillip Brownlee Kansan staff writer
Greek houses cheat in their scholarship contest, and doing so is easy, charged several KU fraternity and sorority presidents.
But the contest is marred by chapters manipulating the system, the presidents said.
Each semester, fraternities and sororites compete for the highest house grade point average for that semester. Trophies and bragging rights go to the winners.
"There are quite a few houses I know that cheat," said Jen Jordan, Ottawa senior and Alpha Gamma Delta president. "It is pretty widespread."
Houses cheat by misrepresenting their memberships and including students who should not be included or excluding students who should be counted, the presidents said.
For example, former chapter members who were no longer active or who had dropped out might be left on the membership list if they had high GPAs. Conversely, members or pledges with low GPAs might be removed or temporarily depledded.
"They get a sheet with all the names on it, and they just mark through it." Jordan said.
Social-affiliates with good GPAs also can be added to the membership rosters, the presidents said. In other words, 4.0 students could be recruited to bolster a house GPA, even though they weren't official fraternity or sorority members.
"If you want to cheat, you could," said Alan Stearns, Camarillo, Calif., senior and Delta Upsilon president.
But besides the alleged cheating, the GPA totals also may be inaccurate because of inconsistent reporting methods.
"There are lots of ways to get around it," said Brian Hensely, Topeka senior and Sigma Nu president. "The system isn't foohproof."
For example, some houses include fifth-year seniors who are active members, while others don't. Criteria for active and inactive members also may vary. No written policies or standardized rules exist.
Manipulation is possible because the membership rosters aren't closely checked for accuracy, the presidents said.
The Organizations and Activities Center calculates the houses' GPAs based on the membership list. But neither it nor the Panhellenic Association or Interfraternity Council thoroughly checks names.
Alpha Gamma Delta sorority is a case in point. After being installed last spring as Alpha Gamma Delta's vice president for scholarship, Carrie Heinen,
See GRADES, Page 6A.
Greek Grades
how DO kU sororities and fraternities compare with each other and with the non-greek community? A look at grade-point averages:
WARRANTY ENCOURAGES
Beta Theta Pi 3.158 Chi Theta 3.296
Kappa Alpha Theta 3.248
Delta Chi 3.080 Alpha Delta Pi 3.186
Pi Beta Phi 3.162
Delta Upsilon 3.016 Alpha Chi Omega 3.153
Delta Delta Delta 3.144
Sigma Chi 2.941 Kappa Kappa Gamma 3.140
Gamma Phi Beta 3.035
Triangle 2.924 Alpha Gamma Delta 3.003
Delta Gamma 2.952
Kappa Sigma 2.807 Sigma Kappa 2.939
Gamma Xi Delta 2.872
Tau Kappa Epsilon 2.736 Kappa Delta 2.842
Sigma Delta Tau 2.738
Phi Kappa Psi 2.697 Alpha Omicron PI 2.675
Alpha Kappa Pi 2.594
Theta Chi 2.640 All Greek Students
All University Students
All Pediatrics Men
All University Men
All Gycology Women
All University Women
Zeta Beta Tau 2.593
Phi Kappa Theta 2.509
Sigma Alpha Euison 2.289
Sigma Alpha Epsilon 2.285
Course: Structured 1005 Fashion and Accessory Schraderhans Diankens
Anthony Schraderhans / NAMAN
By Craig Lang
When KU students look through their Spring 1969 Timetables, they might think the University is offering a whole new set of courses in entirely new buildings.
Kansan staff writer
That's not the case.
Because of a publishing error, some of the 32,500 University of Kansas Spring 1996 Timetables of Classes delivered to the University had the right cover on the outside but the wrong information on the inside.
Brenda Selman, assistant registrar, said it was brought to the attention of the Enrollment Center that some of the timetables,
which were made available to students Wednesday, had enrollment information and a listing of classes for the University of Northern Illinois.
Selman said that she did not know how many of the timetables had incorrect information because not all of the flawed timetables had been turned in to the enrollment center. However, she did not think the error was a major problem.
"There appears to be just a few incorrect timetables," she said.
Selman said that when the Enrollment Center learned of the problem, she immediately sent an e-mail message to all the offices that had received timetables. The message said that students and faculty should be made aware of the errors, and that any flawed timetables should be returned to the Enrollment Center, 150 Strong Hall.
"What we'd like for them to do is send them through campus mail or bring them to the Enrollment center," she said. "That way, we can get replacements from the publisher," Selman said.
Selman said that if someone should get the wrong timetable, they could get a new one at the SUA office in the Kansas Union or at the Information Counter at the Burge Union.
Emily Curran, university relations for American Passage Corp., the Seattle-based
publisher of the timetables, said it was a printer error and that she had not heard from the printers as to the reason of this error.
"We are still trying to track it down," she said.
Curran said some of the timetables for the University of Northern Illinois had University of Kansas information inside of them, but those timetables had not been sent out yet. The University of Kansas will be sent correct timetables as soon as all the incorrect timetables, that can be collected, have been returned to the publisher, Curran said.
"We're waiting to hear the assessment," she said.
1