THE UNIVERSITY DA KANSAN
VOL.101.NO.20
KANSAS STATE HISTORICAL
SOCIETY
TOPEKA KS 66612
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
ADVERTISING:864-4358
FRIDAY,SEPTEMBER 20,1991
(USPS 650-640)
NEWS:864-4810
Regents proposal sent back for revisions
Mission statement places too much power in too few hands, officials say
Kansan staff writer
By Alexander Bloemhof
TOPEKA — A controversial mission statement proposed by the Board of Regents staff is going to be changed substantially before the board will consider it for approval.
That was the consensus among university administrators at the Regents meeting yesterday.
"Everything we interpret as centralization will be written out of the document," said Bob Ratzell, vice president of academic affairs at Pittsburg State University.
"Everyone feels uncomfortable with that,"
he said.
During the summer, the Regents staff drafted a mission statement that would have reduced the schools' control of their own management and would have given the Regents central authority.
The statement drew sharp criticism from representatives of the Regents schools.
The heads of the six Regents institutions recommended the mission statement be deferred to the Council of Chief Academic Officers for review.
The council consists of the heads of the academic affairs departments at the Regents' University.
The Regents accepted that recommendation and asked the council to present a revised version of the mission statement at the November meeting of the board.
University officials expressed relief.
"I think the Regents had this very well," said Frances Ingemann, presiding officer of KU's University Senate. "They recognized that the statement is a concern of people at all levels and that the document prepared over the summer had not had adequate time for discussion."
TheRelegats had advised its staff in June to write a document that would state in broad terms the goals of higher education in Kansas and those of Michigan, where those goals despite the tight state budget.
But Regents and university officials said he thought the staff's document went beyond the scope.
"The proposal was indeed more specific than we expected," said Charles Hosteler, Manhattan tenant. "There are a lot of things in here that I don't agree with."
After the Regents had deferred review of the document to the council, discussion focused on the reasons why a new mission statement was necessary.
"What we are thinking about is keeping control of our destiny," he said. "We have to show responsibility and accountability, otherwise someone else will try to take control."
Jack Sampson, chairperson of the board, said that the new mission statement would have to focus on ways to make universities more efficient because the state lacked money.
"The Legislature wants us to be even more efficient than in the past," Slawson said. "I am
Wichita Regent Donald Slawson agreed.
clearly an advocate of higher education. But I am not a blind advocate.
"There is deep concern as to how much money from the state will be available, and the Regents feel the schools have to adjust to the new economic era."
Del Shankel, KU interim executive vice chancellor, said he thought that the discussion had been very helpful and that the council's proposal would address the Regents concerns.
*I think it will differ dramatically from the earlier document while still achieving the same results.*
Elections Commission discusses presidency
Ratzlaff said there was enough time now to work out a more accessible document.
"We are trying to find a way to solicit input from faculty, students and administrators," Ratzlaw said. "So far, reactions were negative. Now we need positive input."
Questions about recall procedure answered
By Blaine Kimrey
Kansan staff writer
The Student Senate Elections Commission concluded last night that Jason McIntosh, senior senator, would not have the option to assume the presidency of Darren Fulcher, student senator, who was removed from office in a recall election.
McIntosh was the student-body presidential candidate who lost to Fulcher in the spring.
Contradictions between the Student Senate Elections Code and the University Senate Code has led to confusion after the succession if Pulcher were removed.
However, the University Senate Code states that if the office of the presidency became vacant, the vice president would assume the presidency. A new vice president would be elected by the Senate from its 72 members.
The elections code states that the candidate who received the second largest amount of votes in the original presidential election would fill the office of the presidency if it became vacant as a result of a recall election.
The passage states that in cases of contradiction, the University code supercedes the elections code.
At last night's meeting, which was the Elections Commission's first of the year, Ruth Storer, assistant to the dean of student life and commissioner in the Student Senate Elections. Code in response to the confusion.
Therefore, if Fulcher was removed from office, Alan Lowden, student-body vice president, would become president.
Fulcher was charged with battering his ex-girlfriend, a KU student, during a domestic dispute in February. Lawrence police and court reports
Disclosure of the battery charge
raised questions about Fulcher's cred-
ibility and led Senate to adopt a motion
Sent 121 remove Fulcher.
The KU Judicial Board has accepted two appeals to the motion. Fulcher will remain in office at least through the second appeal, which could last the epigree停奏.
During the meeting, Stoner said the commission had no time constraints on how long it could take to conduct a recall election.
If the commission receives a petition signed by 15 percent of the body calling for a recall election, the commission must conduct an election.
"We will try to be as expident as possible without rushing it," Stoner said. "It's too early. We're just starting our proceedings."
Fulcher has said that he would step down if a majority of the student body voted so.
However, the elections code requires a two-thirds vote of the students voting to remove an officer in a recall election.
Fulcher said yesterday that he was not aware of the recent election process.
He said he now did not know if he would step down if a simple majority voted for his removal in a recall election.
In other business last night, the commission elected an assistant chairperson, Angela Shirk, St. Louis patient, but did not elect a chairperson.
Calle Denton, the commission's inspector, was absent because she was ill
The commission chairperson presides over all commission meetings.
The commission set Oct. 1 as its deadline to select a commissioner.
Stoner said the commissioner serves, in essence, as an adviser to the commission.
A construction crew excavates a tunnel for a new waterline under Sunflower Road. The workers mounted a tunneling drill on a railroad track yesterday to ensure the tunnel remained straight.
Justin Knupo/KANSAM
Down under
Mark Rowlands/KANSAN
During Advanced Swimming, Chris Schneider, Bonner Springs junior, swims a 500-yard training set along with classmates at Robinson Gymnastics Libby Elliot, swimming instructor, said most students enrolled in the class to improve their physical condition.
U.S. Senate votes to curb art organization grants
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Senate refused to cut the budget of the National Endowment for the Arts yesterday, and the Senate has not given federal grants to the organization.
Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., introduced a measure stating that the NEA could use no tax dollars to "promote, disseminate or produce materials that can be made in a patentive way, sexual or excretory activities or organs."
Defeated on the 67-27 victory was a measure by Sen. Nancy Kassebaum, R-Kan, to trim the endowment's next year (41 million, or 13 percent), fund her
Kassbeau's amendment would have cut the NEA's budget from the $143.6 million requested by President Bush and援助 by Senate Appropriations Committee members to $126.2 million.
"With respect to the NEA, there seems to be an atmosphere that anything presented as art deserves public support," she said. "We must send a stronger message."
Meanwhile, Helms withdrew an amendment to shift nearly $65 million of the endowment's grant money to the city, according to each state's population.
Helms withdrew the amendment after Senate leaders threatened to use a parliamentary move that would have required him to muster 60 votes in the 100-member Senate to gain its approval.
The Helms amendment that passed
was added to a bill that was approved 9-3 to finance the Interior Department, the arts and humanities endowments, the U.S. Forest Service and some energy programs in the 1992 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.
Tom Birch, director of the National Assembly of State Agencies, said he hoped the Helms amendment that the Senate passed would later be dropped.
Andrea Norris, director of KU's Spencer Museum of Art, agreed.
"I'm flabbergasted that this came out again." Norris said.
She said the museum received NEA funding for exhibits that the museum staff organized. About 30 or 40 per cent of the exhibition costs to the NEA for one or two exhibitions a year.
If Helms' amendment that intends to curb questionable art is made into law, the museum will have to carefully work of art it can show, she said.
"It makes it difficult for even a conservative institution like our own," Norris said.
She said Heims might have proposed the amendment that would have transferred NEA money to state-based art organizations because it would have limited work that could be considered questionable.
Norris said that after Helms' past attempts to curb funding for art that could be considered questionable, the power to declare an artist's work obscene was put in the hands of the courts.
It should remain there, she said.
"That people should spend so much time worrying about these issues is bizarre," Norris said.
- Kansan staff writer William Ramsey contributed information to this story.
Former CIA lawyer says Gates suppressed Iran-contra findings
Document said U.S. missiles could be traded for hostages
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Senate Intelligence Committee yesterday released sworn statements that conflict with CIA nominee Robert Gates' testimony in 1986 of the Franco-rains contra arms-for-hospairs affair.
In the statement, the CIA's former top lawyer, David Doherty, told Senate investigators that he handed a draft copy of a politically embarrassing memo to Michael R. Fitzpatrick—CIA Director William Casey testified to Congress.
Gates, President Bush's nominee to head the CIA, has testified that he knew nothing about the document at the time he was overseeing the preparation of Casey's testimony, given to Congress on Nov. 21, 1986. The finding retroactively authorized CIA assistance to the U.S. government of U.S. Hawk missiles from Israel to Iran.
Casev did not mention the existence of the docu
ment (called a presidential finding) in his congressional testimony.
According to the documents released yesterday during a third day of confirmation hearings for Gates, Doherty told the Senate on Aug. 5 this year that "I handed a copy to Bob Gates with the comment that we had just found this draft. I don't know what Bob Gates did with this draft."
Gates, in written answers supplied recently to Congress, said that he had no recollection of the effort to get then-President Ronald Reagan to sign the document.
John Poindexter, national security advisor, tore up the document the same day that Casey testified on Capitol Hill, as congressional inquiries into the Iran arms sales began picking up steam.
Gates testified in 1987 that the omission of any reference in Casey's testimony to the presidential finding was an oversight by subordinates who were busy putting the facts together.
Reagan had gone on national television Nov. 13, 1986 to say that he would never trade arms for nuclear weapons.
The presidential finding said just the opposite: that "certain foreign material and munitions may be
Gates maintains he had no idea White House aide Oliver North was running a secret network to resupply the contrains with guns when Congress forbade such aid. And he said he had no solid evidence that Iran arms sale profits were being diverted to the contras.
provided to the Government of Iran which is taking steps to ensure the release of the American intelligence leaker in Lebanon.
But Alan Fiers, a former agency task force chief who has pleaded guilty to withholding information from Congress in the scandal and is now cooperating with prosecutors, has given Senate investigators information about Gates and the contras that could prove troublesome for the CIA nominee. Hints of Fiers' statements came out in senators' questioning of Gates earlier this week.
Gates met with Fiers three or four times from August 1986 through November of that year.
Fiers is expected to testify about a phone call from Gates in the summer of 1986 in which Gates, then-No. 2 man at the CIA, asked why the agency shouldn't agree to buy the assets of the contra resupply network. Gates has said he doesn't recall the conversation.