Campus/Area
University Daily Kansan / Wednesday, July 17, 1991
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Burge still keeps in touch with KU
Frank Burge, former director of the Kansas Union, stands behind the building. He spends a lot of time with students
'Father of the Kansas Union' oversaw the building's expansion, helped fight the fire that razed it on the 'worst night' of his life
Kansan staff writer
By Jeff Meesey
Kansas staff writer
Frank Burge often rides his black Schwinn mountain bike, its knobby tires gripping the pavement. He wears a helmet and sits on the soft padded seat, his dark sunglasses set before his eyes.
He rides down Burdick Drive near Irving Hill Road, just north of his union.
The Burge Union is named for Frank Burge, for 31 years the director and father of the Kansas Union. He still is a campus figure.
"I don't think they ought to name a building after anyone until he's under," he said. "Suppose I went off my rocker and made a foot out of it, but then been a tradition to name a building after a person who has expired."
As director, he took the Kansas Union from a few rooms, a cafeteria line and a steam-heated table, to the building students use now.
He helped fight the fire when the union burned, and he helped bring a satellite station to students on the campus before refiring in 1983 after a stroke.
Now he is recognized by almost every Union employee and many others around town as the 70-year-old man in the bike helmet who tells war stories, delivers baked goods and spends his days among students in the building he developed for them.
Blue Velcro wallet
He sat at a table in the Union overlooking Memorial Stadium.
"They didn't have anything to speak of," he said. "They had a little old building with a steam table and a cafeteria line. They didn't have a bowling alley or bookstore." Or a movie theater.
He demonstrated with his wallet (a KU-blue Velcro model with a Jayhawk on it) how the Kansas Union grew while he was in charge.
He opened the first section
"There's the original building, long and narrow," he said. He opened the first section.
He pulled it out and placed it on the table. The wallet was closed.
"There's the original building, long ago."
He then opened the small flap, the flap with the Velcro.
"The first expansion was a mam moth expansion," he said "Doubled the size."
"We expanded again and again, clear up into the '70s," he said. "It was finally decided then by the board that we had expanded the
Union enough
"We ceased putting money into this place and put our thoughts and efforts into the Burge, er, what is now the Burge Union. The satellite, we called it."
He admits that he is eccentric. Others recognize his eccentricity, too.
"He was hired by Chancellor (Franklin) Murphy," said Bill Getz, assistant manager for books at the KU Bookstores. "It was a time when we had some administrators with flamboy personalities."
People who know him fondly chuckle when they hear Burge's name.
"People have a different impression of him as a person with whom
they worked than with him in retirement," Getz said.
Those who knew Burge as Union director recalled days when employees knew he cared about them.
Burge said he cared for the Union, too. It was his whole reason for coming to KU.
Union ablaze
On April 20, 1970, an arsenist took the Kansas Union on fire. He knows that date like he knows his own birthday.
"I can truly say that was worst night of my life," he said. "Because I saw go up in flames that facility, which many students, staff and
alumni had paid dearly for."
"He (the arsonist) made damn sure nobody was in there," Burge said. "I bet you a nickel he hung around up there until the ballroom was empty, showing a movie up there. He set it on fire shortly after the movie."
As a World War II veteran and retired Army colonel, Burge knows about war. He said the Union blaze was almost as bad.
Except for the war, Burge has been around a university all his adult life. Perhaps that is why he was dragged away from KU in his retirement.
"When you retire from a place you love, you want to retire in a place you love," he said. "I have
"I was born there on out a farm," he said. "A really great name. There actually is a big great elm tree, an enormous elm tree."
The town has cared for the elm tree and preserved it as it has aged.
There isn't another person like Burge within miles, either.
Class sections cut from computer science
Kansan staff writer
By Jeff Meesey
The computer science department will reduce the number of classes it offers this fall as a result of the University-imposed hiring freeze.
The freeze, which began in June,
mostly has affected a non-major class in the department. Computer
students are often computer-
Based Information Systems.
The department planned to have 22 sections of Computer Science 256, which will be renumbered Computer
Science 128 in the fall. But because of the hireiring freeze, four of those sections that would have had as many as 30 students each will not be opened
"Right now, all the sections are full," said Bill Bulgren, chairperson of computer science. "It is required by the business school, and journalism and education majors take it, too."
Another change this fall for the Computer Science 256 class will be in its content.
This summer, the department is
"KAREL teaches the concept of programming while minimizing the need to learn programming," said Tim Thurman, manager of computing resources.
experimenting with a computer program in Computer Science 256 that will help teach non-majors the basics of programming.
In the past, students in Computer Science 254 learned a program called Pascal. Now, these sections are also a program called KAREL the Robot.
KAREL is less abstract than Pascal and allows students to see graphically what they programmed the computer to do.
The "robot" is a small cursor-like blip that moves around the computer screen on a grid. The movements are programmed by the student.
"It's less painful to do this than Pascal," Thurman said. "The people in 128/256 don't want to learn programming. Business school students wanted to know how to use programs, not design them."
Traditionally, about 60 percent of the class is made up of business majors.
However, Thurman said that if a student who learned KAREL wanted to learn Pascal in the future, the basic concepts learned from KAREL would be helpful.
"We felt students would be less resistant to KAREL," he said.
Thurman said that because the experiment with KAREL was successful, it would be used this fall as well.
No room at towers in fall '91
By Kelley Frieze
Kansan staff writer
About 100 students who planned to live in Jayhawker Towers this fall have found themselves on a waiting list.
Half of these students have not contacted the housing department to change their contracts.
The students returned their signed contracts and first payments, which are the requirements for acceptance into the towers. Generally, a signed contract and payment guarantees a space in the towers.
Jim Wilkins, assistant director for student-housing contracts, said students who returned contracts after the towers were full were informed in mid-June that they had been placed the waiting list.
Some of the students asked to be placed in a residence hall, but others never received the letter, he said. The housing department sent out a follow-up letter Friday after realizing some students still thought they had a room in the towers.
Usually excess contracts at the towers have not been a problem, Wilkins said.
Although each year 10 percent more contracts are sent to students than spaces are available in Jayne's library, the contracts are not returned, he said.
"It's always worked in the past, and just this year it hasn't," he said.
Students on the waiting list usually are ones who have not returned their course.
Charlene Engelking, complex manager at the towers, said, "We always send out the letters, and most people say, 'Thanks but no thanks.' I think the majority of people who apply early will get what they want."
This year, too many contracts were returned before students were notified that the towers were full because letters were sent two weeks later than usual and more contracts were returned than expected, Assistant Director Wilkins said.
"The return rate and the retention rate usually aren't as high in the towers as they were this year," he said. "That's what led to the waiting list."
Wilkins said students on the waiting list could take a residence-hall room and wait for a vacancy in the room or their contracts and receive a refund.
He said he thought that no one on the waiting list had canceled a contract yet. To be able to move to the towers, students on the waiting list would need a contract, which means they must plan to live in University housing this fall.
Because of the unexpected response, the waiting list for the towers has been closed.
The towers, the scholarship halls and all but three residence halls are full.
In early March, Gertrude Sellards Pearson-Corbin Hall became the first hall to fill. Templin Hall is the only residence hall with room for men. Spaces for women are available only in McColum and Lewis halls.
The scholarship halls have a waiting list of 170 women and 50 men.
Most students on the waiting list for scholarship halls already have been placed in residence halls.
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