Thursday, March 27, 1986
Campus/Area
University Daily Kansan
3
News Briefs
Clove cigarette ban approved by Senate
TOPEKA — The Kansas Senate gave overwhelming approval yesterday to a bill that would ban the sale of tobacco products that contain more than 30 percent cloves, including clove cigarettes.
Proponents of the bill, which passed 40-0, said cloves increased the risk of respiratory problems among smokers and created numbness that caused smokers to inhale deeper.
Businessman injured
The bill now will go before the House Federal and State Affairs Committee.
A Lawrence businessman was injured when he was thrown down the stairs of his downtown business during an attempted robbery shortly after 2:30 p.m. yesterday.
Horace Masden, owner of Masden's Watch Shop & Bible Supplies, 816 Massachusetts St., suffered a bad cut to his leg when he was thrown down the stairs by an unknown assailant. police said.
Masden was taken to Lawrence Memorial Hospital by Douglas County Ambulance Service where he was treated and released.
Police said the robber, described as a young white male wearing a light-colored shirt and bib overalls, fled through the front door of the shop after the failed robbery attempt.
ASK sends letters
Members of an ad hoc committee formed to look into the Associated Students of Kansas began sending letters last week to other state student body presidents to encourage them to investigate ASK's effectiveness, the KU campus director said yesterday.
Kris Krenbach, campus director, said letters were mailed to the other schools represented by the student lobby organization suggesting they look into ASK's effectiveness. The letters also explained in detail what KU did in its investigation.
"We did it mainly for educational purposes," Kurtenbach said. "I think the schools should do it every year. That way, they can avoid the problems, frustrations and emotions that KU went through."
Art display opens
The Spencer Museum of Art opened two exhibits of Renaissance art this week.
"The Codex Hammer," featuring original notes and illustrations by Leonardo da Vinci on the nature and movement of water, will be on display in the museum's Central Court.
"In Leonardo's Shadow," featuring drawings by the artist's followers, will be exhibited in the museum's White Gallery.
Correction
Because of an editor's error,
Lisa Juola's name was misspelled
in a photo caption in yesterday's
Kansas.
Weather
Today and tomorrow will be sunny and very mild. Temperatures will reach the lower 70s today and should hit 80 tomorrow. South winds will blow at 10 to 15 mph. Tonight's low will be in the mid-40s.
From staff and wire reports.
Epstein fishing for relaxed atmosphere
Sixty neon tetra, five caffish, two kissing gourami and one snail represent the University of Kansas — at least to David Epstein, student body president.
By Barbara Shear
Staff writer
To promote a more congenial atmosphere in the Student Senate office, Epstein has an aquarium in his office containing the different fish. Each represents a senator, office staff member or administrator.
"The aquarium symbolizes the University environment on a much smaller scale," he said. "We are trying to promote a casual theme to the office rather than a strict administrative office."
The sixty neon tetra fish are blue and red and symbolize the sixty student senators who represent KU students. The five catfish represent the Student Senate office staff: Jennifer Balzer, executive secretary; Tim Henderson, treasurer; Kris Kurtenbach, campus director of the Associated Students of Kansas; Stephanie Quincy, student executive committee chairman; and Tom Woods administrative assistant.
Epstein said he chose catfish for the office staff because, like catfish cleaning the remains from the tank, the office staff did all the dirty work for the senators.
The two kissing gourami represent Epstein and Amy Brown, student body vice president.
"The fish represent the loving relationship that we have," Epstein said. "They represent the mom and dad aspect of Senate."
The snail represents Chancellor Gene A. Budig, Epstein said that he
"The snail represents how the wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly." he said. "But mainly we chose the snail for humor's sake."
nose the snail for humor but that in some ways it did represent the administration and governmental processes.
Some of the office staff and senators think the idea behind the aquarium is good.
"I think it promotes a better feeling and a willingness to participate
'The snail represents how the wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly.'
David Epstein student body president
Michelle Brouillette/KANSAN
and get to know Senate," said Woods
"It is better than a stark office."
One senator, though, said he thought that even though it started as a great idea, he now could not tell which fish was his. He also said the neon tetra would not survive.
"I had neon tetra that died in flocks," said Paul Duff, architecture and urban design senator. "I think they'll die. I guess that's appropriate for Senate. though. As the meetings increase and get longer, senators start quitting."
David Epstein, student body president, feeds his fish; which represent each member of the student senate and staff Epstein keeps 67 fish and one snail in his office.
Epstein said he and Brown had
come up with other ideas to try to get senators involved in Senate including maintaining office hours, hanging a Nerf basketball hoop in the office to try to promote a more casual atmosphere and organizing a president's club.
"For president's club, we go to the Wheel after Senate meetings," said Epstein. "After being at each other's throats for four hours, it's good just to get together socially."
The office staff said they thought
there was now more of a relaxed feeling in the office.
Courses teach computer linkages
"It has made for a much more open atmosphere," Brown said. "But it does make it hard to do work sometimes."
Bv Sandra Crider
Staff writer
The new KU department of computer engineering is working on technology that will help bring about a meeting of minds thousands of miles apart.
The key to transferring information lies in linking different computer systems, department faculty and staff said Monday. The undergraduate program established last fall trains students to make compatible computers and to make different computers compatible.
A few years ago, several professors decided that the demand for engineers who could solve the problems of the information age would skyrocket, said James Rowland, chairman of the departments of electrical and computer engineering.
"We felt that it's not a transient phenomenon, but it's something that is going to be very important for the University and for the state," Rowland said.
Traditionally, about half of the students in the electrical engineering department have taken the computer option in the program. Rowland said.
Rowland said he was encouraging students who were following the curriculum to change their majors officially to computer engineering when they went through enrollment.
The Kansas Senate allocated $157,436 and 4.5
faculty positions to carry out the second year of the bachelor of science in computer engineering program.
However, a House Ways and Means subcommittee recommended earlier that money for the program be cut. The final decision by the committee as a whole will be made next week.
The new computers can hold about 800 million pages of information and can handle up to 150 terminals, said George Brown, director of the electronics laboratories for the departments of electrical and computer engineering.
"Coming into these systems as a user, I've seen these systems' orders of magnitude more friendly than other systems around," Brown said.
The computers can simulate combined effects of adverse situations on electronic components and design them to be more sturdy. For example, computers can be used in a house that would withstand heavy earthquakes.
"If the system is set up properly, it will simulate, for instance, KANU on the air and what would happen in a severe ice storm." he said.
The computers have been linked in a common
network, as well as with the University computer system. According to Gary Minden, assistant professor of computer and electrical engineering, systems such as the ones that operate at KU would not have transferred information five years ago.
Now Minden is able to send messages from his terminal on the MicroVAX to a professor in computer science working in the University's Honeywell system.
"And soon, it will be just as easy to send messages to any university in the U.S. and the world," said Minden.
Students learn in classes such as Minden's digital design and computer architecture to enable different computer systems to share information.
Brown agreed that this type of manipulation was new to the computer world.
"We're seeing implementation for the first time of computers that will be working for an engineer instead of the engineer working for the computer," he said.
Julie Webster, director of engineering placement, said there would soon be a large demand for computer engineers.
"Almost every company has a need for electrical engineers or CS majors," Webster said. "Many of those employers are going to find computer engineers useful for both."
Three top economists to join faculty
Staff writer
Bv Tom Farmer
Three of the most qualified available economists will join the department of economics this fall to ease demands on faculty members, the department's chairman said Tuesday.
Joseph Sicilian, the chairman, said that to get the new instructors to the University of Kansas, the department had to offer top-dollar salaries
- salaries exceeding those paid to several current faculty members.
"They were three exceptional candidates," he said. "We did a very good job in attracting quality people this year."
Reserve System, Washington, D.C.; and Da-HiSian Lien, doctoral candidate at California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
Sicilian said more than 300 people applied for the three positions.
"We have to teach very big classes and our teachers are burdened," he said. "We need a very big increase in faculty to make the department comparable to other schools within the college."
One reason for the addition of faculty is that the number of full-time economics teachers, compared to credit hours they teach, is not equivalent to other departments in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Sicilian said.
Robert Lineberry, dean of the college, said the department of economics was a high priority within the college because of the high turnover rate of instructors.
creasingly high price to pay to a
quire high-quality faculty members
He added that there was an in-
"If you're going to bring in the best people, you've got to pay them a comma."
The salaries for the new faculty members are higher than those of several present faculty members, Sicilian said.
"It's a sign of market conditions in economics," he said. "It may not be good for faculty morale, but the faculty appreciates the attempt to attract new faculty."
Tom Weiss, professor of economics, agreed that it was necessary to pay the high salaries, but he said something had to be done about the salaries of present faculty members.
"I'm not angry about it, because that's how it works," Weiss said. This is a clear sign that salaries at the university of Kansas are too low."
Sicilian said concessions were made in negotiations with the three candidates.
Feltenstein, who will be a full professor, said he was attracted to KU by the quality of its economics department and faculty. He also is looking forward to the opportunity to teach again.
Feltenstein was an assistant professor in economics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1975 and 1976. At KU, he will be teaching money and banking, and international economics.
Sibert, who presently does research on the macroeconomics of developing countries for the Federal Reserve System, will teach intermediate microeconomics and international finance as an assistant professor.
Lien also will start as an assistant professor and instruct a core doctoral course in econometrics.
Senate OKs '87 budget for schools
Staff writer
By Mark Siebert
TOPEKA — The Kansas Senate yesterday approved next year's budget for KU and the other Board of Regents schools, despite opposition to an amendment that would ban the use of state money for abortions at the University of Kansas Medical Center.
On a 28-11 vote, the Senate passed on to the House the $695 million package, of which $185 million and $174 million to the Med Center.
The controversial abortion amendment, proposed by State Sen. Norma Daniels, D-Valley Center, slipped past the Senate on a voice vote Tuesday.
State Sen. Robert Frey, R-Liberal, he could not support a bill that narrowed the choices available to women,
Daniels said she didn't want tax-payers to pay for abortions in a state-supported institution unless the mother's life was in danger.
But Richard von Ende, executive secretary of the University, said the amendment did not have much practical affect on the Med Center. Abortions are performed at the Med Center through a private foundation with private money, he said.
The remainder of the appropriations bill includes $9.8 million for capital improvements at KU during fiscal 1987 and about $700,000 for improvements in four specific programs.
Also approved in the bill were systemwide issues for the Regents schools. They are a 3 percent increase in faculty salaries, a 1 percent increase in the faculty retirement benefit package and a 4 percent increase in student salaries.
Earlier in the morning, a House Ways and Means subcommittee continued to brood over its version of the budget.