TUESDAY, AUGUST 22, 2006
WWW.KANSAN.COM
VOL.117 ISSUE5
THE STUDENT VOICE SINCE 1904
PAGE 1A
SAFETY
New station cuts response time nearly in half
Vanessa Pearson/KANSAN
Station No. 5, 1911 Stewart Ave., serves the University of Kansas and the surrounding neighborhoods. The station, located near 19th and Iowa, provides faster response time to campus emergencies and has responded to calls at the residence halls and Jayhawk Towers since it opened in April.
BY MARK VIERTHALER
The new fire station at the edge of campus is cutting response time to on-campus emergencies.
Mark Bradford, chief of Lawrence-Douglas County Fire and Medical, said the new station had cut response time by a minute to two minutes. The average before No. 5 was three to four minutes, Greg Murray, an engineer at Station No. 5, said. The station, at 1911 Stewart Ave., already has responded to fire and medical alerts at Jayhawker Towers and each of the residence halls since it opened in April.
The station is on land leased from the Kansas University Endowment Association for $1 per year.
Phil Hummer, Breckenridge, Colo., freshman, is a resident of Oliver Hall. Hummer said the decreased response time was a relief. He said that it made him feel safer.
Bradford said Station No. 5 had one fire engine. It also has one shift manager, four firefighters for the engine, three for the ladder and two paramedics for the ambulance.
The City of Lawrence has signed a 20-year contract to remain in the current facility.
Bradford said the city originally.
intended the station to be built at 21st and Iowa streets. Upon recommendation of the Endowment Association, the site moved to its current location.
"The current site is larger," Bradford said. "Both were centralized and adjacent to the University."
The new site wasn't built specifically for campus emergencies, Bradford said, but campus is still the main area the station will cover.
Funding for the new station came from the 1996 public safety plan, which also raised money to relocate Station Nos.4 and 2.
Bradford said the location was
appealing because it provided easy access to various areas of Lawrence.
Station No. 4, at 2819 Stone Barn Terr., south of campus, will be moving to Wakarusa Drive in November. Station No 4 currently overlaps districts with the new station.
After Station No. 4 moves, Station No.5 will expand to serve campus, east of campus and south of campus.
Kansan staff writer Mark Vierthaler can be contacted at mvierthaler@kansan.com.
RECOGNITION
Professor honored for achievements
BY KIM LYNCH
Office hours didn't mean work to Bernard "Bud" Hirsch; they meant more time to help students.
The University of Kansas rewarded Hirsch, an associate professor of English and Native American Literature, with a W.T. Kemper Fellowship in a ceremony earlier this month.
Phil Wedge, an assistant professor of English, remembers when he had Hirsch as a teacher during his undergraduate years at the University.
appreciated."
Wedge said Hirsch took time out of his day to read Wedgha's poems — which were the first he had written — even though it had nothing
"He always treated me like I was equal to the graduate students," Wedge said. "He never singled me out as being different, which I really
Wedge was in Hirsch's romantic poets class, a graduate-level course, and Wedge said he was the only undergraduate in the class.
Hirsch
to do with the course he was studying.
Hirsch, who was diagnosed with brain cancer last spring, is at home and is doing "about as well as I can be," he said.
Matthew
Sevcik, a recent KU graduate and former Kansan opinion editor, said Hirsch was a great teacher, not only because of the time he spent with
SEE PROFESSOR ON PAGE 3A
》 ADMINISTRATION
GTA contract dispute relies on third-party findings for resolution
BY DANNY LUPPINO
Slowly but surely, the negotiations between the University of Kansas and the Graduate Teaching Assistants Coalition continue to progress as the two sides look to end bitterly-fought contract disagreements.
Both sides received a list of five potential fact-finders from the Public Employee Relations Board, an agency within the Kansas Department of Human Resources, last week. The two sides must now narrow the list to one fact-finder, who will act as an independent agent and arrive at a recommendation that both sides hope will lead to the end of the conflict.
"We look forward to as speedy a resolution as possible through the fact-finding process," said Lynn Bretz, director of university communications.
Katy Martin, GTAC's lead negotiator, also looks forward to a recommendation from the fact-finder, which she was confident would be in GTAC's favor.
The negotiations reached an impasse this spring and failed to make any progress when a mediator was brought in for two meetings during the summer. Among the contentious issues are GTAC's requests for a new grievance procedure, a change to the 10-semester limit for GTAs and a new salary structure with a higher minimum wage and more merit-based raises.
"We're stuck at the same minimum salary until this gets resolved, so of course we'eager to get it done with," Martin said.
SEE GTA ON PAGE 3A
index
Classifieds. ... 8A
Crossword. ... 7A
Horoscopes. ... 7A
Opinion. ... 6A
Sports. ... 10A
Sudoku. ... 7A
All contents, unless stated otherwise,
© 2008The University Daily Kansan
》 HEALTH
Alexandra Norton. Chicago soohomore, smokes outside Budiq Hall Monday afternoon. Tobacco companies can no longer call cigarettes "light."
Amanda Sellers/KANSAN
Judge rules on tobacco label laws
Tobacco companies now have more restrictions on how they label cigarette packages
BY ERIN CASTANEDA
Tobacco companies can no longer label cigarettes "light" or "low tar" because such labels are deceptive, said Judge Gladys Kessler of the U.S. District Court in District of Columbia.
But that may not prevent current smokers, including Joe Forbes, Atchison freshman, from smoking.
"I smoke Mariboro Lights for taste," he said. "I know they are just as bad."
Kessler wrote in her ruling that tobacco companies used labels "low tar," "light," "ultra light" or "mild" to persuade people to not quit smoking. She also ordered the companies to begin an advertising campaign in newspapers and on television networks about the harmful effects of smoking.
The government suggested the judge make the companies pay $10 billion for smoking cessation programs, but in her ruling she said she didn't have the power to impose
"It was a moral victory," she said.
"The judge said yes, you're wrong,
but what we need is a financial penalty that can go toward righting the wrongs of tobacco companies."
Michelle Bernth, vice president of marketing and advocacy for the American Lung Association of the Central States, said she thought more money was needed. She said Kessler's "remedies" for the companies were not strong enough.
financial damages.
Berth said the organization was encouraging the Department of Justice to appeal the remedies portion of the verdict.
Bernh encouraged people to learn about smoking from science-based research, not from cigarette companies.
"Tobacco companies have been misleading the American public for years and years, so at this point to expect honest science-based information from tobacco companies is unreasonable," she said. "They will continue to be deceivers because
mately 90 percent of smokers begin smoking before the age of 21.
According to the American Lung Association's Web site, approxi-
their primary goal is to get more people addicted to smoking"
SEE TOBACCO ON PAGE 3A
facts about smoking
> More than 35 million Americans are now living with chronic lung disease.
> The mission of the American Lung Association is to prevent lung disease and promote lung health. The following facts are from the organization's Web site,
> Cigarette smoke contains more than 4,800 chemicals,69 of which are known to cause cancer.
> Smoking is directly responsible for approximately 90 percent of lung cancer deaths and approximately 80-90 percent of emphysema and chronic bronchitis deaths.
> Males tend to have significantly higher rates of smoking prevalence than females. In 2004, 23.4 percent of males currently smoked compared to 18.5 percent of females.
> Secondhand smoke involuntarily inhaled by nonsmokers from other people's cigarettes is responsible for approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths annually in U.S. nonsmokers
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> Of the current 44.5 million smokers, more than 32 million people reported they want to quit smoking completely.
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Source: www.lungusa.org
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