CAMPUS/AREA UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Friday, April 21, 1995
3A
Greeks may be largest voter group in election
By Ian Ritter
Kansan staff writer
Are members of fraternities and sororites the only students who vote in Student Senate elections?
It's a question many at the University of Kansas ask, and there is no easy answer.
In last week's Senate election, 3,834 students voted. According to a voter registration survey taken by the elections commission, 1,850 of those students said they lived off-campus, 1,185 said they lived in a campus residential building, and 799 said they lived in a fraternity or a sorority.
But Scott Moore, Lenexa senior and chairman of the elections commission, said many people who live off campus or in student housing could still be greek-affiliated.
"I think that a majority of people who vote are greek, and I don't think it's good," he said, adding that only 15.8 percent of students on campus were greeks.
Moore said that it was easier for candidates involved with fraternities or sororites to mobilize votes.
"It's a lot easier if you're running and you're a member of a fraternity to get people in your house to go vote together," he said. "One of the older people can say, 'Hey, go vote,' and all of the freshmen go vote in a mass."
The only fool-proof way of finding out whether the majority of students who voted were greek-affiliated, Moore said, would be to look up all 3,834 in the University of Kansas Greek Directory. This would be a very time-consuming process.
Plus, some fraternity or sorority members are not listed in the directory. Samantha Bowman, Wichita freshman, is a member of the Delta Delta sorority and is not listed, for example.
Student Senate election numbers
Total number of students who voted: 3,834 (16 percent of the student body)
Off-campus voters:1.850
Braternity/sorority voters:
799
Student body President-elect Kim Cocks, Lee's Summit, Mo., said she didn't think greek-affiliated students formed the majority of voters. Cocks ran with the United Students coalition and is a member of the Chi Omega sorority.
"Those numbers don't represent that only greeks vote," she said, referring to the commission's survey.
Off-campus voters: 1,860
Student housing voters:
1,185
Cocks said she believed most off-campus and residential students who voted were not greek-affiliated. Some members of fraternities and sororites said that they were strongly influenced to vote for a particular coalition.
"The United Students coalition was very strong in our house, being that many members in the coalition were greek and that a member of my fraternity was on the United Students coalition," said Derek Niehus, Overland Park freshman and member of the Phil Delta Theta fraternity.
But Kimberly Schlie, Albuquerque, N.M., sophomore, and member of the Delta Delta Delta sorority, said that even though two members of her house were running for Student Senate, she was not pressured into voting for a particular person.
"They just said to read the literature they handed out and make our own decision," she said.
Mock trial shows greek liability
By lan Ritter
Kansan staff writer
A mock trial last night showed that rape doesn't pay off — financially.
About 130 people attended the Greek event at Woodruff Auditorium in the Kansas Union to watch Dave Westol, Theta Chi executive director and former assistant prosecutor from Kalamazoo, Mich., conduct a mock civil trial.
The trial was conducted to show that a fraternity or a sorority could be sued if it held a party during which a crime took place. This time, the crime was rape.
Westol set up a scenario involving two make-believe houses: a fraternity called Gamma Nu and a sorority called Zeta Zeta Zeta.
The audience was told a 19-year-old Zeta Zeta Zeta member named Jennifer O'Brien had been raped by Gamma Nu member John Corchran during a party held by the two houses.
Brad Steeple, Lawrence junior,
was the first defendant to be
questioned by Westol. Steeple played
the president of Gamma Nu.
"He was just doing the normal
thing a fraternity guy would do with a young woman at a social function." Steeples said of Corchran's behavior before the crime was committed.
Westol then concentrated on the fact that there had been beer at the party.
Westol questioned Carrie Heinen,
Valley Falls freshman who played
the treasurer of Zeta Zeta Zeta,
about a $300 check that she authorized
the sorority to give to Gamma
Nu for the party.
During his questioning, Westol made it clear that the money could have been used to buy beer.
"Could it have been used to buy gasoline for a bus?" he asked.
After the questioning, Westol showed that both Gamma Nu and Zeta Zeta Zeta were responsible for the fact that alcohol was at the party and that the alleged rapist and the victim both had been drinking.
"Could it have been used to purch alcohol?" he asked.
"Yes." she replied.
Westol said that if he had been prosecuting a real case, both the fraternity and the sorority would have been prosecuted.
Wes Friedman, Wiltney, Ill., sophomore, tries out the virtual reality video game in the lobby of the Kansas Union. Many students turned it to try the game yesterday and donate canned foods, which will be distributed to area food banks.
Edmee Rodriguez / KANSAN
Virtual reality check at Union
Kansan staff writer
By Robert Allen
It was high noon, and two students met in the Kansas Union, drew their guns and blew each other away.
Actually, the students were fighting in a cyberspace realm, courtesy of virtual reality and Student Union Activities, which brought the technology to Lawrence for a day. Students paid $2 or two cans of food — which went to local food banks — to play.
"Virtual reality is a 360-degree journey into cyberspace, which is a computer-generated world," said Ryan Kramer, a representative of Kramer Entertainment Agency, which has a traveling display of virtual-reality entertainment. Inside the world, people can interact with the environment and embark on anything
that the world allows them to do. Kramer Entertainment had two different worlds that students could enter: Zone Hunter and Dactyl Nightmare. Each is a two-player game with an objective.
"In Zone Hunter, they're partners in a game fighting in a city that aliens have," Kramer said. "They try to eliminate all the aliens and save the city."
Zone Hunter looked and played much like an ordinary shoot-em-up game available in stores today.
But the more popular game by far was Dactyl Nightmare, a surrealistic gunfight that pits two players against each other.
"Two players are inside the same world," Kramer said. "They try to shoot each other, like a modern-day paintball game."
But what separates these games from the
rest is that players enter the game and become part of it. Instead of watching the game on a computer monitor, players strape a visor and a belt pack. The visor has earplugs and two tiny screens that supply total visual and audio sensations. The belt pack monitors the position of the player's body and movies it in the game. For example, in order to turn in the game, a player must turn his or her body. To look up, the player must tilt his or her head up.
"I enjoyed it a lot," said Anastasia Z.ermeier,
Ekaterinburg, Russia, junior. "You are in the action. I've dreamed about seeing something like that."
Wes Friedman, Wilmette, Ill., so somore,
said he was disoriented after play one of
the games and taking the visor off.
Bike trails are here to stay
"It's a new experience. It's really insease," he said. "This isn't Sega Genesis."
By Paul Todd
Kansan staff writer
Welcome to Moab — Kansas, that is.
Even without well known mountain bike trails, such as those found at Moab, Utah, the mountain bike capital of the world, KU has its share of mountain biking for the average thrill-seeker right on campus. In fact, there are trails that lead to many points on campus.
The bike trail that Tony Stanislav, Omaha, Neb., junior, likes to ride begins at the top of Louisiana Street behind the chancellor's mansion. It takes him over brick walls, down steep descents and finally leaves him...near class in Malott Hall.
"I ride the dirt trails if I'm on my mountain bike," Stanislav said. "It tends to add a little excitement."
He said that the trails were useful and fun and that they did not hurt the beauty of the campus.
But those who use the campus as a mountain bike course make a little extra work for facilities operations.
"It eventually makes a ditch," said Wayne Reusch, physical plant supervisor. "We go through there and fill up the pitches, put seed
Some of the trails in the grass between Battenfeld and Sellards scholarship halls have been filled in with seed and blocked off with plastic fencing for the summer.
and grass in there until they walk it out or ride it out."
Reusch said the trails, especially the one from the physical plant down the hill to Malott, probably were here to stay.
"There's not anything you could do about it," he said. "After all, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line."
The straight line may be on walkways, through the grass and through bushes, and police said it usually was OK for bikers to ride off the streets.
Officer Cindy Alliss of the KU Police said that city law prohibited bike riding on sidewalks near business areas. KU, however, is not a business area, so biking on sidewalks through campus is legal.
However, people who ride in the grass and cause destruction and harm to the landscaping around campus buildings could be ticketed.
But, Alliss said, that it was not likely that people would be ticketed for riding on existing bike trails.
The KANSAN's unofficial guide to mountain biking at I.U
For people on the grey line below delineated bike route circling the heart of camp up the trail from the Kansas Union, a biker the Hill, make their way back up to Jawhar Chancellor's mansion, the trail heads north in Spooner Hall and finishes at the Kansas U
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