Calling the strokes
Coxswains provide brains behind rowing muscle.
See page 11.
SINCE 1889
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY,APRIL 23,1986,VOL.96,NO.139 (USPS 650-640)
Mild
Details page 3.
City wants to be site for summit of superpowers
Staff writer
By Brian Kaberline
Stan Writer
As President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev renew hopes for a second summit meeting, a group of Lawrence residents watch anxiously.
anxiomy. The group not only hopes the meeting will take place, it hopes the meeting takes place in Lawrence.
mithing time. The two leaders in a meeting here between the leaders of the two superpowers began in 1883 when a group of Soviet athletes were invited to the University of Kansas to participate in the Kansas Relays, said David Longhurst, city commissioner and mayor of Lawrence at that time.
Longhurst said renewed efforts to promote Lawrence as a summit site began about eight weeks ago. At that time, officials at the White House contacted Kansas Secretary of State Jack Brier about possible sites.
JACK BRIER He was John Brieder, a spokesman for Brieber's office, said Brier had suggested Lawrence because of the city's past desire to hold a meeting of the leaders. The secretary of state's office has not heard anything else about the subject since making the recommendation.
recommendation. Upon hearing the recommendation, Longhurst said, a prospectus outlining possible arrangements for a meeting in Lawrence was sent to President Reagan.
A letter that accompanied the prospectus invited the president to consider the city as a site because of its interest, accommodations and services.
amphitheatre.
The letter said, "Lawrence is widely known and respected in both countries as a community working diligently and creatively for a more peaceful world."
pedericus of the letter also were sent to Secretary of State George Shultz, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, Sen. Nancy Landon Kassbeaum, R-Kan., the five Kansas congressmen, and Gov. John Carlin.
Del Shankel, acting vice chancellor for academic affairs, said the University had cooperated with efforts to bring a summit to the Press conference. The university could bid because of its experience in sponsoring dignitaries.
Bob Swan, who helped bring the Soviet athletes to Lawrence in 1983 as founder of Athletes United for Peace, now is coordinating a visit to the city by three Soviet veterans of World War II.
War II. He said he hoped the visit by a group of soldiers that linked with
Lawrence would have an advantage in the choice for sites because of the visits by the Soviet athletes in 1983, the World War II veterans this year and because it already had a detailed prospectus prepared from the 1983 meeting bid.
— Bob Swan Founder of Athletes United for Peace
U. S. forces at the Elbe River in 1945 would show the city's desire to learn about and get to know the Soviet people.
people.
"After an official welcome to the city and a 'March For Peace' through Lawrence on Monday, he said, the veterans will be presented with a copy of the prospectus for a summit to take back to the Soviet Union.
Last night, city commissioners passed a resolution welcoming the Soviet veterans and another which would impose on the city a wish to summit.
hold a sunflight.
Mayor Sandra Praeger said she hoped the city had done everything it could to promote its bid, but she did not know how effective the efforts would be.
would we, not going to be anything that we can talk somebody into," she said. "Either we meet the specifications or we don't."
Longhurst said he thought the leaders could accomplish more in Lawrence, away from the cold, pressure-packed conditions of traditional meeting sites. The team's attitude at the conference is the sphere of a lowlevel town might rub off on the participants and lead to a friendship between the leaders.
Swan said Lawrence would have an advantage in the choice for sites because of the visits by the Soviet athletes in 1883, the World War II veterans this year and because it already had a detailed prospectus prepared from the 1983 meeting bid.
Glassy eyed
Craig Sanda/KANSAN
ABOVE: Ted Boster, Chicago sophomore, works on a project in his glass-blowing class. He is using an optic mold to help shape the glass. ABOVE RIGHT: Vernon Brecha, associate professor of design and glass-blowing demonstrated his technique recently. He said he thought optic molds should be thrown away because they inhibited personal creativity.
Professor teaches about art, life
By Lynn Maree Ross Staff writer
Inside, the heat from four ovens keeps the glass inside them molten
The limestone barn's wooden doors stand open, allowing heat to escape into the chilly morning air.
keeps the glass inside them molten – orange hot. The students' attention is on Vernon Brejcha, associate professor of chemistry instructor, and the teardrop-shaped piece he is creating.
Breicha pulls a long pipe bearing a 20-pound mass of hot glass from one of the ovens and swings it gently up over his head. He blows into the pipe and watches the glass expand.
Then he sits down at a bench, rests the pipe on two metal arm-like supports and rotates the pipe as the glass cools. This keeps the pieces symmetrical and on the pipe.
Ted Bosler, Chicago sophomore, said that although Brejcha made glass blowing look easy, it required strength and control.
"I've never seen someone work with that much glass," he said.
An orange sign hangs above the ovens labels the area a “hot glass zone,” and it’s not an idle warning.
The oven's temperature is more than 2,000 degrees, Brejcha said.
He has been around glass-
melting ovens since 1969 — long enough, he said, to know how hot it is by the color glowing inside.
Brejcha began at 8:30 a.m. It's now 10 a.m., and he is almost done.
Each glass piece must go in an annealing oven, which allows the glass to cool slowly. If the glass cools too quickly, it will crack.
As Brejcha finishes the piece and places it gently into an annealing oven, the students applaud his accomplishment. Brejcha said he rarely created a piece weighing 20 pounds.
Brejcha began teaching glass blowing at the University 10 years ago, and the Chamney Barn on West Campus is like a second home to him and like the vibrators he uses with the like the isolation offered by the barn's location, Brejcha said, it also is a disadvantage.
Even though the size of the place allows more room to work, not many people, even those in the design department, know the barn
See GLASS, p. 5, col. 1
Charges $15 a bounce
Service chases bad checks
By Russell Gray Staff writer
Staff writer
Most students can't dribble well enough to play on a big college team such as KU, but it takes no skill or talent to bounce checks.
bounce checks.
CheckRite, a check recovery service in Topeka, helps referee the bouncing for merchants in the Lawrence area by collecting money owed on bad checks.
making money owed on a bad check.
CheckRite is the predominant check recovery service in this area, Bob Perrine, owner of the franchise, said yesterday.
There is a 415 charge for anyone who writes a bad check to a merchant subscribing to its service. That charge is in addition to the amount of the check and any charges from the store or bank.
The service also circulates a list of bad-check writers to retailers. A name will be on the list for six months or until the amount owed to CheckRite and the merchant is paid
paid.
But within 90 days CheckRite plans to change its policy so that the name stays on the list until all charges are paid. Perrine said.
The legal right to charge a fee for the service CheckRite provides for merchants is established by a posted sign that tells a consumer that if he bounces a pheek, the store charges $15, Perrine said.
"CheckRite is no different from any other business." CheckRite is entitled to the fee for a bad check like an bank, he said. The difference is that a bank has direct access to an account and the check can only put name in to encourage payment.
"We don't report to any credit bureau," he said. "We just report to our merchants."
check, the store charges $40. "That cost is incurred because work has been done," he said. "There has been an attempt to collect that check, and we have exerted some expense on that."
on a list to encourage payees. But Cynthia Harris, the associate director for Consumer Affairs Association, 819 Vermont St., said CheckRite might not have a legal right to that $15 fee.
When the consumer writes a check, he isn't entering in a direct contract with CheckRite — only the merchant — so Harris said she doubted the company would have any legal basis if it were to go to court.
any legal right in that case, I see how CheckRiT could have any legal right to that fee," she said. "The leverage they have is puttin'
a name on a list and circulating it.
Circulating the names is legal, though, if the information on the list is correct, Harris said.
"When you get right down to it, it makes it quite a bit easier to pay that list and avoid the list," she said.
oer to pay that tree and a ball the hat. Perrine said, "If they pay $15, maybe they'll watch that next time. Kids sometimes have a hard time cashing checks, and they shouldn't."
checks, and they insure The Rusty's IGA stores in Lawrence have used CheckRite for almost three years, said Jim Lewis, the owner of the stores.
"It's a very good service," he said. "I do not have to handle the checks personally."
"I don't think anything prevents anyone from writing bad checks," he said.
When a check bounces, it goes straight to CheckRite,
and his employees don't have to work to collect it, Lewis said.
The stores get the list immediately, which slows down the number, of repeat offenders, he said.
mics, assistance in building a network.
The unions can determine what happens to the students and can be more flexible if there are extemuating circumstances, he said.
"We like to be able to have that flexibility to work on things ourselves to better serve the students." Larry Bill
the number of repeat checks.
The Kansas and Burge Unions don't use the CheckRite service because they have their own system of collecting checks. The fee for a bounced check at the unions is $5
CheckRite's business picks up during school sessions because there are more potential bad-check writers, Perrine said.
Fine said.
"Students don't write any more bad checks," he said.
"When students go home for breaks, we still get bad checks."
Because students are young and usually haven't been taught how to handle money, Lewis said, they really are not aware of what they're doing with their checks until one bounces. So they write more bad checks than most people.
"Students write bad checks because because they're not good bookkeepers," he said. "They're sloppy and lazy because they've had Mom and Dad taking care of it."
Change in requirements OK'd
By Tom Farmer Staff writer
A special meeting yesterday of the College Assembly approved a list of courses that will decrease by 90 percent the number of courses that could fulfill distribution requirements.
The Assembly, the governing body of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, will institute the new listing for the bachelor of arts and bachelor of general studies degrees beginning in the 1987 fall semester.
in the 1970s and later.
James Carothers, acting associate dean of the college, said the list of principal courses was approved to make sure students were enrolling in courses designed to give them an education more representative of the college.
"People will have a broader education as a result of the principal course chanches," he said.
changes. The two students can take almost all of the undergraduate courses within the college, as listed in the undergraduate catalog, to fulfill distribution requirements for the two degrees, Carothers said.
Limiting the number of principal courses available which would fulfill distribution requirements was done to ensure that students take courses described by the college as representative of the various departments.
In determining the list of principal courses, each department in the college submitted a maximum of four courses and each area studied the grammatical course to the mathematics on Undergraduate Studies and Advising.
students and the Committee then categorized the courses according to three topical areas — natural science and mathematics, humanities and social sciences — before giving them to the Assembly for its approval.
Students seeking either degree will be required to take three principal courses from each of the three topical areas to fulfill their distribution requirements.
tion requirements.
Making the decision of which courses to submit was difficult for many of the departments.
many of the top internets Gordon Wiseman, associate chairman of physics and astronomy sold
Also approved by a voice vote of the assembly was a list of non-western culture courses to be included as part of the new curriculum.
The non-western culture courses will provide students a perspective of culture, society and values of non-western people. Carothers said.
Lineberry said the approved principal courses and non-western culture courses will be included in the 1987 undergraduate catalog and timetable.
selecting the principal course was a process of give and take, but the final decision was very difficult.
Included on the agenda for the meeting, but not discussed before it recessed, was a proposed amendment to the college probation and dismissal policy.
Robert Lineberry, dean of the college who presided over the Assembly, congratulated the committee for its efforts in organising a list of problems ordinarily making numerous errors in listing the course numbers and descriptions.
Olathe man to face felony charges
KANAS CITY, Mo. — A 20-year-old Olmstead man was arrested yesterday near the U.S.-Canadian border on felony charges of defacing the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Kansas City, authorities said.
United Press International
Gregory Thonen was scheduled to attend an extradition hearing yesterday in Whatcom County, Washington, said a spokesman for the Kansas City police.
Thonen was charged with destruction of property last week for the incident. An ink marker was used to scrawl slogans and swastikas on the wall at the Kansas City Vietnam Memorial on March 29.
"Sucker the Memorial," Red, white and blue is all you see, does it mean that you are free" and "World War III or world revolution" were among the slogans inked on the gray granite wall.
Eight to 12 people may have been
X
present during the vandalism, said Sgt. Dennis Ullery.
Thonen faces up to five years in jail and a $5,000 fine if convicted.
The wall of the memorial, which was dedicated in December, lists the names of 369 missing or dead Kansas City area veterans.
The entire memorial project, including a fountain and paved walkways in the city's Westport area, is scheduled for completion July 4th.