Wednesday, Feb. 19, 1986
Campus/Area
University Daily Kansan
3
News Briefs
KNEA planner starts faculty organization
The higher education organizer for Kansas National Education Association rented an office at 2500 W. Sixth and began operations Feb. 7, Bruce Goeden, executive director of KNEA, said yesterday.
Tom Madden, the organizer,
said last month that the group
planned to organize the faculty of
the University of Kansas.
Goeden said Madden would continue to talk with faculty to find out their concerns and to ascertain their level of interest.
KNEA represents educators. It has about 20,000 members.
Madden said Lawrence was chosen over Manhattan in January partly on the basis of a faculty assessment survey.
If a student received a lower GPA in any one grading period, under the bill's terms, the student then would be suspended from any extracurricular activities.
The survey identified issues of concern to the 64 faculty members that responded.
Study more, bill says
TOPEKA — High school students should place more emphasis on their educations than they do on participation in extracurricular activities, State Rep. Mike O'Neal, R-Hutchinson, told the House Education Committee yesterday.
O'Neal asked the committee to approve a bill he introduced that would require all high school students to achieve a grade point average of 2.0 or higher on a 4.0 scale before they could participate in extracurricular activities.
A scholarship fund of $100,000 has been awarded to the University of Kansas for undergraduate and graduate students who demonstrate academic merit and financial need.
Scholars' fund given
Under current law, students must pass five courses with a grade no lower than a D-minus in order to participate in extracurricular activities.
John G. Luttrell, a KU graduate with a degree in engineering, has given the money to the University in honor of a family physician from Leon who helped him build a career. Luttrell is an executive with Mobil Oil Corp.
The Dr. Harry Last Memorial Scholarship Fund with the Kansas University Endowment Association will give preference to students of Bluestem High School in Leon, although graduates of other Butler County high schools are eligible.
Scholarship created
The Arthur S. Johnson Scholarship Fund has been established for KU students who have completed at least one year of study in the School of Engineering.
Recipients will be selected on the basis of financial need, with preference given to students who must work to pay for their educations.
At least $10,000 in contributions for the scholarship came from Helen-May Johnson of San Diego, Calif., and her daughter, Marcy J. Golde of Seattle, Wash.
Weather
Today will be partly cloudy with a high around 60 and winds southeast 10 to 20 mph. Tonight will be mostly cloudy with a low of 30 to 35. Tomorrow will be mostly cloudy and cooler with a high around 40.
Stricter spoken English test for GTAs wanted by Senate
From staff and wire reports.
Staff writer
By Piper Scholfield
KU graduate students who speak English as a second language may face stricter language requirements to qualify for teaching assistant positions if the administration takes Student Senate's advice.
The Student Senate passed a petition last week asking the University of Kansas to increase spoken language testing for graduate teaching assistants who speak English as a second language.
Rachel Anderson, member of the University Affairs Committee and sponsor of the petition, said if the plan was approved by the University, GTAs would be required to present a lecture in their subject to a board of faculty and students.
The proposed testing plan probably would be started in the fall, Anderson said.
Graduate students who speak English as a second language and who apply for teaching assistant positions now must pass the Speaking Proficiency English Assessment Kit.
The SPEAK exam is a 20-minute exam of spoken English and is administered free to all KU applicants by the Applied English Center. The applicants are asked to speak into a tape recorder and respond to questions such as what they consider to be a perfect day, to describe a telephone, or to give their opinion on the problem of automobile pollution.
The graduate student has from 15
seconds to a minute to respond to each question. The tape then is reviewed and scored later.
Although the guidelines for the Board of Regents schools require a score of 220 on the test, the University requires a score of 240.
Elizabeth Soppela, director of the Applied English Center, said the center had administered about 100 tests since the fall 1984. More than half of the applicants passed the exam, although the exact number was unknown, she said.
GTAs who fail the exam may take a classroom communication course offered by the Applied English Center and then retest upon completion of the course, she said.
Soppelaa said she did not know whether there were any complaints from students unable to understand GTAs. The complaints usually would be voiced to the individual departments, not the center, she said.
Also, she said, some complaints may be cultural and not related to communication difficulties.
Yousef Alshaniali, a GTA from Saudia Arabia, said he thought the lecture test would better determine spoken English skills than the SPEAK test.
"It's a very complicated matter," Soppelma said.
"You take the test in a very short time," said Alshaniifi.
Alshaniafi, who has been a math GTA for two semesters, said he had never received any complaints from
Anderson said she decided to petition the University for more extensive testing after she talked with students who said they were having problems understanding their GTAs.
students who were unable to understand him.
Bryan Stubbs, Shawnee sophomore, said he had had one bad experience with a calculus GTA. He dropped the class in the middle of the semester because he was unable to understand the teacher.
"I could understand some words, but couldn't understand the concepts he was trying to explain," he said. "A lot of the other people in the class had the same problem."
But another student said the GTA he had for class who spoke English as a second language was doing a good job.
It was unfair for students to pay tuition to come to the University and then be unable to understand the instructor, Stubbs said.
Phil Case, Leawood sophomore, said he had difficulty understanding his statistics GTA on the first day of class. He said it was getting easier as the semester progressed.
"One thing he does is write everything down on the board," said Case. "In this case it's better that he's from a different country because statistics can be hard to understand and he goes slower. I think he does a good job."
Restaurant specials enjoyed by students
By Brian Kaberline
Staff writer
The phrase is "all-you-can-eat." It is spoken in many Lawrence restaurants.
There is a powerful phrase spreading through town. It can make students skip the cafeteria and frozen dinners, and sometimes, make restaurant managers cry.
Students love all-you-can-eat specials because they can fill their stomachs without emptying their wallets. And although thespecials are a bargain for students, they often are good money-makers for participating restaurants.
Mark Arndt, owner of Border Bandido, 1528 W. 23rd St., said his restaurant's two all-you-can-eat specials a week were a big hit with KU students.
"We fill up the place so much sometimes that we don't have a place for them to sit down," he said.
Arndt said business usually doubled on Wednesday nights because of a Mexican buffet, even though the buffet only lasted four hours. A Monday night taco bar usually brings in $1\frac{1}{2}$ times its normal weeknight business.
"I had no KU business before these things," he said. "Now, I have so much KU business I don't know what to do with it sometimes."
Another special recently mobbed by students is at Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers, 523 W. 23rd St.
Wendy's is nearing the end of a two-month chili special, offering all the chili a person can eat for 99 cents on Tuesday nights.
Tod Roy, manager, said the store went through 20-24 batches of chili on a night when the special was on, as opposed to five or six batches on a normal cost. And since each bowl usually costs $1.24, it is not a profitable night for the restaurant.
He said customers were so desperate for seats during the special, that some arrived 30 minutes early just to stake out tables.
Craig Arnold, manager of Whistler's Walk Family Restaurant, 3120 W. Sixth St., said he had worked at many restaurants in college towns and all-you-can-eat specials were usually successes.
Whistler's Walk offers a special on barbeque ribs on Friday nights as well as a Sunday special on chicken. Arnold said the ribs were popular with students, but the chicken drew mostly an older crowd.
Arndt said there was a special recipe for a successful all-you-can-eat special. Besides having food that is popular with KU students, the food must be served easily in large amounts.
Library is a home for 300,000 plants
By Lynn Maree Ross
Staff writer
That library is a herbarium
A library without books is like a book without leaves. But one library at the University of Kansas has leaves and no books.
The herbarium is on West Campus. It is the home for over 300,000 plants. Ralph Brooks, assistant director and curator, said yesterday that many plants in one place might create visions of a jungle but many visitors go away disappointed.
The plants actually are dried specimens that are attached to 12-inch-by-14-inch cardboard sheets. But the sheets, unlike books in a library, are stored in tall, gray file cabinets.
However, like students who request books through interlibrary loan, researchers from this country and others such as Germany, Mexico and Switzerland can request specimens to study.
"There's so much we don't know about the plants around us," Brooks said.
By studying a specimen along with information about where it was collected, when it flowered and what
other plants were nearby, Brooks said, he and other researchers around the world can learn more about plants and where they grow.
Although Brooks is assistant director of the herbarium, half of his research is done for the state biological survey.
The herbarium has about 10,000 plants on loan, he said.
Ronald L. McGregor, director of the herbarium, said the plants stored at KU represented the largest plant collection in the Great Plains. As a result, the herbarium has been designated as a resource center for Great Plains plant taxonomy.
The Great Plains extend from the base of the Rocky Mountains east into Iowa, Missouri and Minnesota, and from the Canadian border down into Mexico.
McGregor said he liked studying plants because he never knew what he would discover.
"It's detective work," he said.
However, McGregor's detective work leaves him little time to do other things, like gardening.
"Your work is your hobby, and your hobby is your work," he said.
While McGregor and Brooks spend most of their time studying dried plants, Brooks said he also studied
Diane Dultmeier/KANSAN
Ralph Brooks, assistant director and curator of the herbarium, sits with his research plants in the greenhouse on West Campus. He said yesterday, however, that he preferred to work outdoors.
live plants. A greenhouse located near the herbarium is one source of live plants, but it's not Brooks' favorite place to work.
"I'd rather work out in the field.
It's hot out there," he said, referring to the greenhouse.
part of his research.
Lester Mitcher, professor of medicinal chemistry, said Brooks and McGregor were an instrumental
Mitscher looks for natural antibiotics and anti-tumor compounds in plants. Brooks and McGregor have collected all the plants for Mitscher.
Group wants fallout shelter built at KU
Staff writer
By Tim Hrenchin
During the last two weeks posters have appeared throughout the campus. "The Jayhawk Defense Initiative," they said, "With Enough Shovels..."
On Tuesday, members of the Jayhawk Defense Initiative ended the suspense.
They said the new campus organization was starting a referendum drive to provide an underground nuclear fallout shelter for the University of Kansas.
"It if we our own research, based on looking at science books, etc., we wouldn't make this proposal," said Kirstin Myers, Shawnee junior and JDI president. "But based on the fact that there has been scads and scads of government information telling us we can survive a nuclear war, we feel we really don't have any choice."
studied more than 50 recent government documents and publications that indicated a nuclear war would be survivable.
JDI members said they had
Group members said they hoped the drive would educate students on the dangers of nuclear war and bring
them out of a "nuclear malaise."
Myers said the group originated a year ago, after students at Brown University in Providence, R.I., voted to stock suicide pills in case of nuclear war.
"We thought that was too defeatist of an attitude," she said.
Karen Matheis, JDI secretary and Overland Park sophomore, said inspiration for the shelter had come from the Reagan administration.
"For example, T.K. Jones, former undersecerist of defense, said that with enough shovels to dig a shelter and cover it with dirt, we could survive a nuclear war," she said. "So we started doing research."
Eric Matheis, JDI vice president and Overland Park junior, said, "Right now we're compiling a bibliography of all the research that we've been doing, and we'll make it available to all KU students."
The group will kick off the referendum drive March 17. It needs signatures of 10 percent of the student body to get the issue on a student ballot.
Myers said, "We think there will be no problem getting that number of signatures."
If the proposal passes, JDI members will ask the Kansas Legislature to appropriate money to build the shelter.
Myers said the group, which became a campus organization this semester, has about 30 members. F. Allan Hanson, professor of anthropology, is faculty adviser.
"We're very organized," said Karen Matheis. "We didn't want people to look at us as if we were off the wall, so we have been very careful about anticipating every problem along the way."
WOMEN'S CAREER FAIR
Wednesday
Feb. 19, 1986
7-9 p.m.
Big Eight Room, Kansas Union
This Fair is a chance for women to meet other women to discuss career choices, paths and options. If you want to know what it is like in the "real world," if you are career shopping, transferring careers or wondering what it's like to work in a male dominated field, this fair is for you. There will be no formal presentations, just a chance for you to talk to professional women. Some of the fields to be represented include:
Engineering
Marketing
Advertising
Public Works
Nursing
Health Education
Psychology
Accounting
Financial Planning
Management *
Consulting
Research News
Print Media
Athletic Coaching
Art Administration
Visual Arts
Speech-Language Pathology
Sales
Dietetics
Child Care
Armed Services
...and more...
Sponsored by
The Emily Taylor Women's Resource Center