Royal blues
SINCE 1889
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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9. 1986, VOL. 96, NO. 129 (USPS 650-640)
THE LION
Cooler
Details page 3.
Shauna Norfleet/KANSAN
Senators compromise on Union
Lance Adams, Raytown, Mo., freshman, practiced his new saxophone outside Memorial Stadium Monday night. Adams said he bought his saxophone the day before and was teaching himself to play.
KU student body leaders and two state senators compromised yesterday on a legislator's suggestion that students vote on a $5 fee increase to help finance renovation of the Kansas Union.
Night music
By Barbara Shea
Staff writer
By Barbara Shear
David Epstein and Amy Brown,
student body president and vice
president, worked out the com-
promise with state Sens. Frank
Gaines, D-Augusta, and Wint Winter,
R-Lawrence. Gaines had asked for
a student referendum to approve the
proposed $5 increase.
Epstein said he thought the state was overstepping its bounds by requesting a referendum, especially after Student Senate voted down a Union renovation bill amendment
that called for a referendum.
The compromise calls for an informal poll, instead of a referendum, to ask student opinions about the Union renovation. If 7.5 percent of the students are opposed to the renovation, the project will be delayed, and the Student Senate will vote on whether to have a referendum in November.
The state Senate yesterday gave final approval to a bill that allowed the Board of Regents to issue revenue bonds for the Union renovation.
Gaines originally attached the proposal for an immediate student referendum to the minutes of the bill. The minutes are not binding, but a strong suggestion from the Legislature, Gaines said.
Gaines said he thought students should vote when so much money was involved.
Both Epstein and Brown, as well as Winter and Gaines, were pleased with the results of the compromise.
Financing of the $6.5 million first phase of the Union renovation hinges on a $5 increase in student fees. The Student Senate approved the increase, effective next semester, on March 26.
"I think the compromise we came up with is very fair," Gaines said. "And if the students are not interested in it, at least they had the opportunity to express their opinions."
Epstein said, "I feel very success
and accomplishment to I feel one of
anxiety is in danger."
Brown said she had thought Gaines
"He wanted to make sure we were doing the right thing for the students," she said.
Students can sign the petitions next week at tables set up around campus, Brown said. However, she said, she did not expect a tremendous response.
wouldn't bend, but said he was very cooperative.
If the poll, in the form of a petition,
indicates less than 7.5 percent opposition
to the renovation or less than 7.5
percent of KU students sign the petition,
the Union renovation project
will continue as scheduled.
"I don't think it of students will sign the petition," she said. "But of those who do, I think it will be favorable."
Finance Committee budget passes, allows for appeals
By Piper Scholfield Staff writer
The Student Senate Finance Committee approved the fiscal 1987 budget for $5,000 last night, allowing four student organizations to appeal the committee's denial of funds before full Senate.
If the Committee had put the four groups in one finance bill, and then killed the bill, the groups would have been prevented from appealing.
The four groups denied financing are the Commission on the Status of Women, the Objectivist Study Group, the KU Honors Student Association and the Society of Professional Journalists.
The committee approved financing 41 other student organizations Monday night. The budget recommendations now go to full Senate on April 16 for final approval.
J. J. LeBlanc, Finance Committee member, moved to deny the four groups' ability to appeal. He said the Finance Committee, not the full Senate, should decide whether the groups' requests were worthy.
The groups, he said, were denied financing because of Senate rules and regulations.
Since the committee decided not to finance the groups, he said, then there was no point in sending them to the Senate.
recommended for financing or not.
Liz Walt, AURH senator, opposed the motion. Walt said all groups that were considered should be presented before Senate, whether they were
"These decisions were made by committee members after three weeks of consideration," LeBlanc said. "We should not pass them on to Senate, where they will throw them money after hearing five minutes of a sob story."
recommended for financing of it. Walz said that if the committee prevented the four groups from going to the Senate, Senate could attempt to take away the committees' power in the future.
Walz said some senators already thought legislative power should be delegated only to senators, not committee members.
"I know this is horribly political, and it stinks that it is political," Walz said. "But if we do this we're in big trouble."
"There's no reason to risk all this controversy and all this crap." Walz said. "The committee structure as a whole is really on the rocks right now."
LeBlanc said he did not want the Senate to influence committee decisions.
"I don't particularly want to make my decisions because I'm afraid of something bad that Senate might do to me," LeBlanc said. "If that's the case then they've already taken the committees' power away."
Despite the arguments of LeBlanc, the motion failed.
Walz, the only voting senator present at the committee meeting, said after the meeting, "It's scary to have that discussion come up when there's only one senator present."
Many problems could have arisen for the committee if the members had passed the motion, she said.
The KU India Club was allotted $630.
The Commission on the Status of Women was not financed.
The budget recommended to Senate by the Finance Committee is as follows:
"The Free China Club was allotted $325.
The Counseling Students
Organization was allotted $325.
The Engineering Student Council was allotted $2,000.
The Atmospheric Science Booster Club was allotted $222.
The Freshman Disorientation was allotted $1,500.
The Amateur Radio Club was allotted $2,112.
The Gay and Lesbian Services of Kansas was allotted $890.
The KU Honors Student Association was not financed.
"The Kansas Crew was allotted 7.721."
"The Biochemistry Club was allotted $85."
In The Streets was allotted
$2,900
Amnesty International was allotted $460.
The International Club was allotted $5,700.
The Expressions dance company was allotted $811.
The Society of Professional Journalists was not financed.
The Black Student Union was allotted $3,362.
The KU German Club was allotted $254.
The Environmental Studies Student Organization was allotted $200.
"The Chinese Student Association was allotted $1,146."
The Jayhawk Defense Initiative was allotted #417.
The Free China Club was allotted $845.
The Latin American Students Association was allotted $135.
See SENATE, p. 5, col. 1
Construction on memorial commences
By a Kansan reporter
After three years of discussion and planning, construction is underway on a Vietnam memorial at the University of Kansas, Tom Berger, chairman of the KU Vietnam Memorial Committee, said yesterday.
Workers have prepared the memorial site and begun construction at the southeast corner of Memorial Drive and West Campus Road.
A dedication ceremony is being planned for either May 2 or May 26, depending on such factors as the weather and trouble in construction. Berger said.
The project was originally proposed in the fall of 1983, but has been delayed because of changes in the design and location of the memorial.
The memorial will be a limestone wall with the names of the more than 60 KU students who were either killed or are listed as missing in action during the Vietnam War. It is being built by the Kansas Construction Company, 201 Perry St.
Berger said the memorial committee had raised $40,000 for the project, including $10,000 from the Student Senate. Because of recent vandalism to an unfinished Vietnam memorial in Kansas City, Mo., the committee is now raising money for a maintenance fund.
"The purpose of the memorial is not to glorify the war," Berger said, "but rather to honor the courage and sacrifice of KU students in the war."
Students run electronic bulletin boards
Services used for computer conversations
By Brian Kaberline
Staff writer
from his small room on the seventh floor of Naisimh Mall, Scott Weiner leans back on his half-made bed and smiles. He's just had a conversation with a friend he knows as Snups.
The two have talked to each other many times over the past school year, without ever having seen each other. Weiner, Chicago sophomore, is known by computer users across Lawrence. He has talked to people from coast to coast, all without leaving his bedside.
Scott Weiner, Chicago sophomore, operates the KU Connection, a computer bulletin board service. The service, which he runs from his seventh-floor room in Naismith Hall, allows anyone with a computer and a modem to talk and exchange information with each other.
The source of Weiner's conversations sits on a table next to the bed. It looks like ordinary home computer systems, but actually the heart of the KU Connection.
The KU Connection is one of two student-operated electronic bulletin board services. The services allow anyone with a computer and a modem, a connection that lets computers communicate over phone lines, an important and not-so-important issue, or just talk — free of charge.
issues, of just importance. The other private bulletin board service is called Bloom County. It is run by Brian McClendon, Lawrence senior, known only as Penguin Opus to most of his service's users.
Computerark, 711 W. 23rd St., and Computerland, 1420 W. 23rd St., also run bulletin board services.
Weiner said he first got the idea of starting a service, known as a BBS, last year when he came to KU. He had used BBSs in Chicago, but discovered the only service in
Lawrence was Computerark's.
He wanted to start a service that would appeal more to college students, he said. So at the beginning of this school year, Weiner began the program that became the KU Connection. Since then, the system has been improved and it attracts more users all the time.
As he became hooked on BBS in other cities, McClendon decided it would be cheaper to start his own service and let people call him.
McClendon's interest in BBSs began when he bought a computer and modem only to find out that there was no place in Lawrence to call and exchange information and programs.
Bloom County began operations in June, he said. The telephone number to contact the system was promoted on other BBS systems and in an ad which appeared in the Kansas
Since then, McClendon said, he has received calls from Singapore, Japan, Ireland, West Berlin, Canada, England and from across the United States.
Weiner said the KU Connection's 11 message bases were used primarily for messages between the users. The different bases, like different channels on a television, cover subjects such as movie reviews, hints and tips, numbers for other BBSs and an electronic mail service.
And although Weiner and McClenbon both got started with BBSs for similar reasons, the likeness between the two services ends there.
restriction on the system's approximately 100 users is that they must receive a password for the system. The password allows the user to receive private messages from other people.
Weiner said 25 to 35 calls a day came across the screen of his Commodore 64 computer. The only
McClendon's BBS is more of a national service, he said, with 80 percent of the calls coming from out-of-state. Many of Bloom Court's users are people wanting information on different computer programs.
He lost many users recently while he switched computers, McClendon said, but he still gets as many as 40 calls a day.
McClendon monitors the system to keep illegal activities out of the message banks, which is a tough task, he said. Some things he watches are too numerous to be logged in long distance accounts, pirated software and obsequence messages.
Increased security by long distance phone companies has cut down on illegal calling, McClendon said.
Spuds, or Regan Brown, Hutchinson graduate student, and Mark Pennel, Lawrence sophomore, are steady users of the KU Connection. They said the BBs were a fun way to learn about computers.
"Some of the kids would have no trouble running up $10,000 phone bills on other people's bills, but not much anymore," he said.
"I've learned a lot about computers since I've been on the board from asking other people," Brown said.
Brown said she learned about the system through the KU Dr. Who-Ap
preciation Society, a student organization. The society talked Weiner into including a Dr. Who board, or channel.
Pennet said that he had used some of the BBSs offered by computer stores, but thought that they were boring. He started out with the KU Connection three months ago and also uses the Bloom County board.
His use of the KU Connection led to him running a board on movie reviews.
"I asked for advice on noisy neighbors once and I got 11 different responses," she said.
One of the fun things about the board, Brown said, is seeing how people will reply to what appears on the board.
Brown said the BBSs were the electronic equivalent of citizens band radios. Users feel a sense of freedom to express whatever they want since no one knows who is saying what.
Many people like the freedom provided by BBS since the number of the services keeps increasing, Mc
See COMPUTER, p. 5, col.1