Thursday, Jan. 23, 1986
Campus/Area
University Daily Kansan
3
News Briefs
Man to hear charges in killing of KU prof
A Kansas City, Mo., man charged with killing a kou professor in December will make his first appearance in Douglas County District Court today or tomorrow, pending his return to Lawrence from Kansas City, Mo., the Douglas County district attorney said yesterday.
Jim Flory, Douglas County district attorney, said Avis would return to Lawrence either late last night or early today. Avis will be in Douglas County Jail.
Avis has been charged with first-degree murder and felony theft in connection with the death of George V. Hixson, former professor of interior design. Avis was arrested Dec. 23 in Kansas City, Mo.
The man, Eugene Avis Jr., 25, waived extradition yesterday in Jackson County, Mo., District Court, said a spokesman for the Jackson County District Attorney's office.
At his first appearance, Avis will be informed of the charges filed against him and a date for the preliminary hearing will be set, Florv said.
Hixson was found dead in his apartment Dec. 2. Investigators determined that the cause of death was strangulation.
Workshop scheduled
A workshop, "Today's Woman: Exploring Career Options," will be conducted from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. today in the Governor's Room of the Kansas Union.
The workshop, sponsored by the Emily Taylor Women's Resource Center, is designed to help women develop and achieve career goals. Scheduled speakers are Barbara Ballard, associate dean of student life and coordinator at the center, and Brenda Stockman, graduate assistant at the center.
Beer bill to aid clubs
TOPEKA — Private clubs would be able to sell 3.2 percent beer without obtaining an additional permit under provisions of a bill introduced yesterday in the Kansas House.
The beer proposal would allow private clubs to sell cereal malt beverages, or 3.2 beer, without an additional license.
Private clubs now must first obtain a cereal malt beverage license, in addition to the normal club license, to sell beer with less than 3.2 alcohol.
Weather
Today will be partly cloudy, with a high temperature in the mid-to upper-40s. Southerly winds will blow at 10 to 20 mph. Tonight should be mostly cloudy with a low temperature around 30. Tomorrow should be cloudy with temperatures in the mid-40s and a 20 percent chance of rain.
Corrections
Because of a photographer's error, Tom Berger's name was misspelled in a caption on the chancellor's guesthouse in Monday's Kansan.
Because of a reporter's error, the number of people employed in Douglas County in 1984 was stated incorrectly in Friday's Kansan. The correct number is 28,600.
From staff and wire reports.
Law students learn trade in prison
Bv Leslie Hirschbach
The Defender Project may sound a bit like a television detective show. But the KU "defender's" job isn't quite as glamorous and requires hours of digging and scratching for facts.
The Defender Project's members are KU law students who gain practical experience by representing inmates at the Kansas State Correctional Institute in Lansing and the United States Federal Penitentiary in Leavenworth
Martha Coffman-Gallagher, staff attorney, said the Defender Project was a yearlong class that met once a week for credit.
"When the students first come in, they're pretty insecure and aren't exactly sure what to do," she said.
By the middle of the semester, though, they know what they're doing, she said.
Coffman-Gallagher said that about 250 cases a year were presented to The Defender Project. The interns provide assistance to about
of those 250 applicants, she said.
Paula Drungole, Starkville, Miss, third-year law student, said the Defender Project was not obligated to accept all of the applications.
three-fourths of those 250 applicants, she said.
In some cases, a claim doesn't merit action because a legitimate argument can't be presented in the inmate's behalf, she said.
"In that case, we advise them to research on their own," she said.
Wilson started the program because he thought law students should be exposed to some of the problems they would face as practicing attorneys.
The Defender Project was started 20 years ago by Paul Wilson, a former professor of law at KU.
David Gottlieb, director of the project, said Wilson's program had been the pattern for similar programs at many other colleges throughout the country.
Gottleb said financing for the project had come from a myriad of sources throughout the years. Today, financing is provided mainly by
Legal Service For Prisoners, a non-profit corporation, was formed to provide legal services for indigent state inmates.
the university, the state, and Legal Service For Prisoners.
"Student interns perform many of the same functions as an attorney performs." he said.
When inmates apply for help from The Defender Project, their applications are examined to determine which prisoners have deadlines for appeal.
Prisoners with deadlines are served first, and the rest are served on a first-come, first-served basis.
Gottlieb said he assigned each student to a specific case. The students confront clients, advise them, dig for facts, and negotiate with administrators.
In a few instances, interns have appeared in court as advocates for inmates, although much of the work they do is for parole hearings and divorce proceedings, he said.
Mike Bartee, Topeka second-year law student, said he had done more than 40 hours of research for a parolee, and that it would all pay off.
"He will get paroled." Bartee said.
Gottlieb said the name, The Defender Project, might sound glamorous, but the word 'exciting' was more fitting, because students were getting a taste of the real world.
They also put in a lot of hard work - more work than is required for most of the other classes they take, he said.
The cards and letters hanging on the bulletin board in The Defender Project's office prove that the hard work is appreciated.
Inmates who have received help often send a few words of thanks and best wishes to the future attorneys.
Coffman-Gallagher said she received personal thanks when she was a member of the project.
She did research for an inmate that was up for parole, but was unable to attend the hearing, she said.
Computer inspects essays
'Terminal' English popular
By Tim Hrenchir
Staff writer
Computers at the University of Kansas have been used to grade multiple-choice tests for years, but a program originated last semester by the KU English department uses a computer to analyze English essays.
Michael Johnson, chairman of the English department, said yesterday that he thought the Computer Assisted Instruction in Composition program was probably the best of its kind.
Julie Deisler, administrator of the program, said the computer evaluated essays by reacting on its programmed knowledge, which was especially strong in style and diction.
"The program simply helps students in revising their papers." Deisler said. "It might help them in terms of learning to write better but it doesn't affect how the teacher grades their papers."
She said the evaluation caught essay mistakes that were governed by formal English rules.
This semester the program involves students from four classes of Composition, ENGL 101, and seven classes of Composition and Literature. ENGL 102.
Students type a rough draft of their essays into a computer in 4074 Wesco Hall, then receive a computer-generated analysis.
Through a computer software program called Writer's Workbench, the computer checks essays for cohesion, unity, spelling errors, punctuation errors and effectiveness of transitions between paragraphs. It also alerts students to any vague or abstract words or sentences in their essays.
Students then use the computer's advice to type a final copy.
Lisa Purdon, Lawrence freshman, participated in the program last semester when she was in Composition, ENGL 101.
Before they enter the program, students are encouraged to go through a brief computer training program conducted by the English department.
"I had no previous experience with computers, but I caught on really fast," Purdon said. "I didn't even go through the training program because I enrolled late, but I still had a great time."
Purdon said working with a computer instead of a teacher was unusual at the start, but later she learned to enjoy the program.
"I enjoy the one-on-one situation, even if it is a computer," she said. "It's kind of like having a cross between a book and a teacher. I'm dying to go back and do it again."
Deisler said more than 85 percent of the students in the program's initial run last semester wrote favorable evaluations after completion.
"It's not prescriptive," she said.
"I don't itse 'do this' or 'change that.' Instead it'll say, 'This is often a problem. Consider whether or not it
is effective in the context of your essay."
Deisler said a knowledge of bits and bytes was unnecessary to work on these computers.
"We use one of the easiest word processor systems to learn that I've ever seen," she said.
The Writer's Workbench program, which was developed by American Telephone & Telegraph Bell Laboratories, was first used in 1981 at Colorado State University. KU picked up the program last year.
Johnson said the English department and the department's computer panel made several modifications in the program for KU.
The program's terminal manual and handbook were rewritten and the analysis was simplified to fit the needs of the University, Johnson said.
"We have a far better system than we started with," he said.
The computer supplies the writer with such information as the average length of sentences and words, the percentage of passive voice verbs and percentage of sentences that are five words shorter than average.
It also reveals the essay's Kincaid scale of readability, which tells the student at what school year level he is writing.
The English department said the program was not able to detect some grammar errors such as comma fragments, sentence ce fragments, run on sentences, dangling modifiers and agreement errors.
Bathroom graffiti abounds
Staff writer
By Piper Scholfield
One constant of human life is bathroom graffiti.
So says Phillip Endacott, associate director of housekeeping. Endacott said yesterday that in the 17 years he had worked around bathroom walls, he had seen plenty of graffiti.
"I suppose it's been around since the time of the Greeks and it will probably be here as long as human beings inhabit this Earth," said Endacott.
Graffiti certainly abounds in KU bathrooms and is as diverse as KU's population. Graffiti themes vary from bathroom to bathroom, and even from building to building. But a careful graffiti observation will reveal trends.
For example, the bathrooms in Fraser Hall are labeled ladies and gentlemen, but most of the graffiti on the walls is obscene.
Endacott said the type of sign on the doors depended on the era it was installed. Some of the signs say ladies or gentlemen, while others say men or women. In Strong Hall, some of the signs may have been on the doors since the building was constructed in 1920s, he said.
In the men's bathroom in the Wescoe Hall cafeteria, a chalkboard has been provided in one stall, although there is no chalk. There is no chalkboard in the corresponding women's bathroom.
Possibly to make up for the difference, couches are provided in the women's bathrooms in Learned Hall, but not in the men's.
Endacott said that it had been a practice all his working life to put couches in the women's bathrooms but that he didn't know what the couches were intended for.
There is also a greater share of graffiti in the men's room in Learned, including, in one stall the request: "Place old UDK's here in case toilet paper runs out."
"Sometimes I write political stuff against Republicans," he said. "It's a way of expression, and I've written other people's phone numbers up there."
Underneath the request, several copies are supplied.
Stewart Nelson, Topeka freshman,
said he often wrote on bathroom
walls if he was there and had a pen.
The most difficult writing to
remove is that done with a permanent magic marker, said Endacott. Sometimes, though, the writer uses a sharp object and scratches into the finish, completing a message that is impossible to remove, he said.
Endacott said he had received very few complaints from students or staff concerning the graffiti, so it wasn't cleaned off very often. Sometimes after the writing was removed, it didn't reappear for a long while, he said.
The writing appears in trends. the wall will be clean until one or two persons write on it, then suddenly more writing appears, Endacott said.
Ed Markham, Topeka sophomore, said he used to write on bathroom walls on campus, but that lately he just hadn't had the time.
"I just like to reply to stupid messages up there," he said. Markham said he usually didn't write anything obscene on the walls and had never called telephone numbers which appeared on them.
Endacott said that in all his years if working around graffiti, he had never once written anything on a bathroom wall.
Kicking back
Mary Burger/KANSAN
John Unger, Marysville senior, sings on his front porch at 1134 Kentucky St. Unger said he enjoyed spending time by himself.
Staff writer
By Mark Siebert
Lottery plan faces vote in committee
TOPEKA - The fate of the proposed Kansas lottery could be decided today by a House committee that heard testimony from lottery opponents yesterday, the committee chairman said.
State Rep. Robert Miller, R-Wellington, chairman of the House Federal and State Affairs Committee, said he thought the resolution get the committee's endorsement and go to the House floor for debate.
the committee heard pro-lottery testimony on Tuesday
For the proposed amendment to be put on the ballot for popular vote, the House must pass the resolution by a two-thirds majority. The Senate passed the resolution in the 1985 session.
Miller said that he wouldn't make a prediction on the vote but that he didn't think a large majority of the 21-member committee was in favor of the bill.
"It's not going to get a two-thirds majority in this committee," Miller said.
If the bill makes it to the floor, House Speaker Mike Hayden, R-Atwood, said at a news conference Tuesday that he thought the proposed amendment was about five votes short of the 84 votes needed for a two-thirds majority.
Hayden said he wanted to bring the issue to a House vote in the first week of February.
"It is illegal to take people's money and give them nothing," he said. "All the money comes from the losers."
Miller said that the opposing testimony focused more on lotteries themselves, such as problems confronting other states with lotteries, than did the testimony from lottery supporters.
Twenty-one states and the District of Columbia, including Colorado, Iowa and Missouri, have authorized lotteries.
Harley Duncan, state revenue secretary, said that if voters approved a lottery, he expected Kansas would raise $30 to $35 million annually.
Another opponent, Donald Hafner,
a businessman from Wichita, said
the motives for shoplifting and
gambling were the same.
United Press International supplied some information for this story.
Opponents testifying yesterday included the Rev. Richard Taylor of Kansans for Life at Its Best!, a lobbying group. He said starting a stateowned and-operated lottery would be like asking Kansans to steal from each other.
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