UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Thursday, April 3, 1997
3A
Senate hopefuls debate important issues
Raising student fee for recycling might be option
By Emily Vrabac
By Emily Vrabac
Kansan staff writer
Recycling on campus is now handled by various organizations, but Student Senate presidential candidates have expressed ideas to consolidate and finance a recycling program.
The Unions handle their recycling programs and Facilities Operations oversee the newspaper bins and the white officepaper recycling.
Student Senate recently proposed a resolution to establish a $1 student fee to finance collection bins and hourly student employee positions to maintain recycling in residence halls, fraternity and sorority houses and scholarship halls.
Michael Yaghmour, independent presidential candidate and Pittsburg junior, said he supported the concept of a universal recycling program.
"If the proposal does get through Senate, it would be an
excellent idea," Yaghmour said. "If no one steps up, it's up to the Student Senate."
Yaghmour said he didn't like the idea of raising student fees and that he would like to investigate whether the fees were being spent efficiently before increasing them further for the recycling program.
He said he and his vice presidential candidate, Dave Hennessy, Ballston Lake, N.Y., junior, thought that the purchase and use of recycling bins was the easiest and most efficient way to recycle on campus.
Jason Fizell, Delta Force presidential candidate and Olathe junior, said recycling was part of his candidacy's platform.
"When we came out with this on our platform, suddenly Student Senate was behind recycling," Fizell said. "Even if they do pass this fee in Student Senate on April 9, you need to have someone in office to see it through and get money from the administration."
Fitzell that as a member of the Student Environmental Advisory Board, he had been focusing on recycling all year and he had been trying to obtain signatures on the recycling proposal petition.
Scott Sullivan
comprehensive recycling p ro g r a m where there are going to be bins available on every floor to recycle paper, cans and glass," Fizell said. "We just
"What we want to do is have a
want to have a system in place that's very regimented."
Mike Walden, Unite coalition vice presidential candidate and Leawood junior, said he and Scott Sullivan, Unite presidential candidate and Leawood junior, were in full support of the current Senate proposal.
"We feel that a $1 student fee increase is a reasonable amount to pay for recycling on campus," Walden said. "We feel that this is going to pass through Senate, and we feel that the campus and Senate are in broad base support of this."
Walden said that if the proposal passes, he and Sullivan would seek financing from the administration as well.
"It should be a commensurate funding scheme to ensure that students aren't paying for everything," Walden said.
Safety discussion includes lighting improvements
By Kevin Bates
Kansan staff writer
Campus lighting has been a perennial issue in Student Senate campaigns, and this year is no different.
Students now pay $2 in fees, which is matched by the administration, for lighting improvements on campus. The program was extended this semester, a move that Jason Fixell, Delta Force presidential candidate and Olathe junior, said his coalition favored.
"We're all for more lighting and more blue phones," Fizell said. "But just because an area's lit doesn't mean it's safe."
Improvements can always be made in campus safety, said Scott Sullivan, Unite presidential candidate and Leawood junior. He said that lighting still had yet to reach every nook and cranny of campus, and that members of his coalition already have worked in Student
Senate to improve campus lighting.
"We want to continue the current program and use student funds to improve campus lighting," Sullivan said. "Students should have
Jason Fizell
the opportunity to walk through campus at night, and we want them to be able to do it safely."
Sullivan said that the addition of new lighting across campus helped to reduce crime.
"We need to make sure that trend continues." he said.
David Hennessy, independent vice-presidential candidate and Ballston Lake, N.Y., junior, said that campus lighting was adequate but students should never let themselves feel too complacent about their safety.
"From my own personal experience, I've always felt pretty safe on campus," Hennessy said. "The campus is fairly well-lit, but some places aren't, like the area between Murphy Hall and Summerfield. And that's the first place that things happen."
The Delta Force coalition has
proposed an intra-campus escort service to ensure the safety of students after dark, Fizell said. He said it would complement Saferide.
"Saferide does its job, but all it does
Michael Yaghmour
is get people back home from bars," Fizell said. "And it only starts at 11 p.m. It starts getting dark at 6:30 to 7 p.m."
Fizzell said escorts would be situated at various places on campus and would respond to calls made to a central location.
"Many, many other college campuses have these kind of programs," Fizell said. "These escorts would have a training program, background checks and would walk with someone wherever they want to go."
"It is more important to find a way to make people feel safe on their own and not have to rely on a stranger," Sullivan said. "We want people to be able to walk freely on campus."
Sullivan said that the University would not benefit from an escort service.
E-mail policy may restrict use
By Nicholas C. Charalambous
Kansan staff writer
The draft of the University e-mail policy will go through several revisions, and staff, faculty and students already are questioning its practicality, legality and common sense.
The first draft of the University of Kansas e-mail policy, based on the University Medical Center policy already in effect, is intended to protect students, faculty and staff from harassment and nuisance e-mail. It also attempts to restrict the use of the University e-mail system to mission-related purposes defined as teaching, research and public service to prohibit system abuse for private or commercial gain.
But some administrators, faculty and students say the wording of the policy is broad and ambiguous.
Danielle Dempsey-Swopes, associate director of the equal opportunity office, said a student who uses fighting words in e-mail for the sole purpose of offending a person or causing them bodily harm could be guilty of discrimination.
But Ted Frederickson, professor of journalism and an expert on first amendment issues, said that although the policy protected people from harassment, the wording of the policy threatened the fair discussion of ideas such as race and sex.
The e-mail policy has a nondiscrimination clause that could enable the University to take disciplinary action against students sending discriminatory messages, but the policy does not state what would constitute discrimination.
"The University ought not to be policing the content of e-mail for racism, sexism, homophobia or anything else," he said. "It seems to me to be classic censorship."
Barry Shank, associate professor of American studies, said that it wasn't clear how the policy's mission-related use of the system would function in practice.
"Any attempt to ban political and personal speech because it is not professional strikes me as dubious," he said. "It would be very difficult to establish consistent and coherent principles that would enable the administration to distinguish the professional, the personal and the political."
Jerry Niebaum, executive director of Information Technology Services and chairman of the 10-person committee writing the e-mail policy, said mission-related purposes should include personal use.
"One of the important skills we hope students will gain from the University is communication with other people," he said. "That's very much in line with the University's mission."
Niebaum also acknowledged that the first draft became problematic when it attempted to prohibit the use of e-mail that solicits or proselytizes for religious or political causes.
"I think that's an area where you'd say we have real problems," he said.
Nicholas Shump, Lawrence graduate student, said the entire policy could have a chilling effect on free speech.
Shump participates in a list service of the Center For Community Organizing in Cambridge, Mass., that sends him periodic updates about numerous political issues. Shump said the policy wouldn't allow him to share the updates with his friends.
"It seems to me that if the University does have a mission, it is a place where ideas should be exchanged," he said.
"People may censor themselves without having the University say no." he said
Russia, Belarus sign treaty to reunite
The Associated Press
MOSCOW — In the biggest step toward reintegration by any of the former Soviet republics, Russia and Belarus signed a treaty yesterday meant to bring their people, economies and armies closer together.
President Boris Yeltsin, who signed the accord with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko, stressed that the two Slavic nations would remain sovereign and separate.
"We'll not transform our community into a unified state for now, but a union of two states," Yeltin said at the ceremony in a Kremlin hall.
No other ex-Soviet republics have shown a real desire for reunification since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, creating 15 separate states.
The two countries plan to coordinate economic reforms and military activities, create joint energy and transportation systems and possibly introduce a common currency. They will set up a Supreme Council, including
top leaders from both countries,
to outline joint policies.
The treaty appears to have solid support in both Russia and Belarus, though its critics argue that integrating the two struggling countries will only create more problems for both.
Belarusian opponents fear their country of 10 million people will lose its independence to much larger Russia, with a population of 148 million.
In the worst violence in months, a crowd of 5,000 protesting the accord clashed with police in the Belarusian capital, Minsk.
More than 200 people were detained and most of them were beaten, according to the opposition Belarusian Popular Front and a human rights group, the Belarusian Helsinki Committee.
Belarusian state television, citing the interior ministry, said at least 70 people were detained and three police officers were hospitalized. Government and medical officials refused to comment.
In Moscow, small groups of opponents stage protests, warning of closeness with Lukashenko, an authoritarian leader nostalgic for the old Soviet Union. He has proposed — and Moscow has rejected — a full merger.
The Russian news media and liberal politicians say that Belarus, which has yet to reform its Soviet-era economy, could drag cash-strapped Russia down.
Neither government presented the treaty to the public before the signing ceremony, and critics say its secrecy was also cause for concern.
"Is it a czar or a president who governs Russia?" asked Alexander Lebed, Russia's popular former security chief. "If it's the president, he should have informed the people about terms of unification with Belarus."
Lebed said he agreed with integration, but not for such a hastily prepared unity.
"The construction of a house
should begin with laying a foundation. In our case, the construction has started from the roof. Such houses do not last for long," he said, according to the Interfax news agency.
Yeltsin, apparently heeding critics, signed an agreement that contained only nine clauses, a much shorter document than originally planned. However, the leaders also initialed a more wide-ranging charter that will be submitted for public discussion during the next six weeks.
Yeltsin and Lukashenko hugged and kissed after the signing.
"There is no alternative to integration with Russia," Lukashenko said. "It is the well-considered choice of our country."
Russian hard-liners hailed the treaty as a step toward the revival of a mighty state.
The Associated Press
"Congratulations! We live in a union again," said Communist Party head Gennady Zyuganov. "It's a good thing that Belarus is first. The union once again stretches from Brest to Vladivostok."
Study finds chemical causing cancer-cell division
NEW YORK — Scientists say they have identified a chemical switch that signals breast-cancer cells to reproduce wildly, a finding that suggests a promising line of attack against the disease.
The switch, called MAP kinase, normally acts only briefly to tell a cell to divide, but a new study found that cells taken from breast-cancer tissue contain five to 20 times the normal amount of the substance.
With such an abundance, the substance appears to be giving a
Malbon, whose study appears in the April issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, said the switch could be shut off in test-tube experiments, but it is not known whether that strategy would work in patients.
constant order to divide, causing the wildly reproducing cells seen in cancer, said researcher Craig Malbon of the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
Researchers had suspected MAP kinase was a key player in cancer based on cell-growth studies in laboratories. The new study goes beyond those experiments to gather evidence directly from human breast cancers.
"It's a very important observation that tells us a lot of our thinking is in the right direction," said Larry Norton of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
MAP kinase is one of a series of actors that play a role in regulating cell division.
"Somewhere in this pathway, we'll find the optimum way to interfere ... and thereby kill cancer cells better," Norton said.
Cell biologist Kendall Blumer
of the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis said the results should be considered preliminary because the study involved tissue from only 11 breast-cancer patients.
He also cautioned that the study does not prove that excessive MAP kinase causes the wild cell growth.
Malbon said scientists had been able to shut off MAP kinase production in the test tubes by sending short pieces of DNA into cells. The pieces intercept the chemical orders to produce MAP kinase.
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