Kansan Summer Weekly/Wednesday, June 24, 1987
5
KU housing director praises renovation of Battenfeld Hall
By KEITH ROBISON
Staff writer
Ken Stoner, the director of student housing, has a philosophy about his work.
"If you have a gw wrapper you want to get rid of, and you're standing in a yard full of trash, you'll throw the wrapper down," he said.
"If you have a gum wrapper you want to get rid of, and you're standing in a trimmed yard with no trash, you'll probably put the wrapper in your pocket.
"It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. People will treat a facility as they perceive it.
"If the students don't feel that you're meeting their needs and keeping the place up, they'll treat the facility as such."
This summer, Stoner is trying to meet the needs of the students who next year will live in Battiefen Scholarship Hall, 1425 Alumni Place, and the Jayhawker Towers apartments, 1603 W. 15th St.
Money for the project comes from a Kansas University Endowment Association construction fund.
Battelfeld Hall, an all-men's scholarship hall built in 1940, is getting a $450,000 renovation job, he said.
Stoner said that the second floor, previously the scholarship hall's living area, and the third floor were being changed to four-man, tworoom rooms. In each suite, one room will have four study desks, and the other will have four beds and four closets.
"The men didn't care for that too much." Stoner said.
He said the new arrangement would make it easier for the residents to live together.
Before, all Battenfeld residents slept in a large room located on the third floor.
"If someone wants to stay up all night studying, they can do it without bothering anyone else, where before, that was impossible."
Also, Battenfield's kitchen will be converted to use gas instead of electricity. Stoner said.
"We're going to have the entire project done by the time school starts, with one possible exception," he said. "The kitchen might not be done. It has to do with the bringing of power to the building and to have to with removing the existing gas lines and replacing them with electric lines. It all depends on the utility companies.
"It's a trade-off we're willing to make to get the project done on
time."
He said the residents wouldn't have to go hungry.
"If the kitchen isn't done, we can feed them somewhere like GSP (Gertrude Sellars Pearson-Corbin Hall), if they want to eat together. If they don't care about eating together, we will spread out among the different scholarship hall's," he said.
Mike Van Dyke, site foreman for Harris Construction Co., Lawrence, said his crew had been on the job about 10 days.
He said about 20 men were working on the project.
"The heat's been burning them up.
We try to get done early," he said.
"We start at 7 a.m. and quit around
3:30 in the afternoon."
Stoner said, "Our interest is to try to renovate one scholarship hall each summer. Next summer, the summer of '88, we'll work on Pearson Hall."
Miller and Watkins scholarship halls were renovated last summer, and Stoner said he was pleased with the results.
"We put the facilities in excellent condition, and they are keeping them in good shape."
Van Dyke and his crew also did the renovation work on Miller and Watkins scholarship halls.
Work is also being done on the Jayhawker Towers.
"We're spending some money down there, and they're starting to respond," Stoner said.
Three rooms adjacent to the lobby in Tower B will be converted into a vending machine area, a laundry and an equipment check-out desk.
Ken Hopkins, Topeka sophomore, lived in the Towers last year. He said vandalism was an everyday occurrence.
"They ripped the dryers off the walls, they tore the lids off the washers and even urinated in the washers. There were half-eaten popsicles lying on the carpet, melting. There was always urine in the stairwells. I'm not going to live there anymore," he said.
However, Stoner said, "We feel like there is less vandalism there now than there used to be. It went from a private facility with a certain reputation to a University facility with another kind of reputation.
"We want the message made that we intend to keep the facility up and be responsive to student needs and concerns. I think they'll respond to that."
Turning to her classmates, 20-year-old Louise Hirwa says "Good morning" in a deep, melodic voice, pleasantly accented by her native French language.
By IEAN KETTER
They are enrolled at KU this summer in English-as-a-second-language classes offered by the Applied English Center.
They have come here for the tool needed to break down this barrier of silence and to build a future — English.
Coffey said the center received no state or federal funds, contrary to a common misconception. Tuition, equal to out-of-state KU fees, provides the only income.
They respond politely and become silent. These students cannot chat informally before class because they do not share a language.
The center, in a large room on the second floor of Lippincott Hall, is not a high-tech, slick place. Counselor Margaret Coffey's office is one of many formed by white partitions set up in a maze-like fashion. The office walls are peeped with hand-lettered signs explaining waiver options open to students and details of planned parties.
★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★
All students must take proficiency examinations when they enroll and again when they complete each level
Students whose proficiencies place them in the two lower levels cannot enroll in University classes. Students in the more advanced third and fourth levels may take one to three University courses, depending on each student's proficiency and the course's difficulty.
Staff writer
Although students sometimes are sponsored by corporations or by their governments, most pay for the courses themselves, she said.
The center offers four broad levels of classes year-round. Within those levels are subdivisions of classes to meet the needs of students leading to their proficiencies in English,
English classes break down barriers
Applied English Center helps foreign students make adjustment to new culture
Hirwa currently is taking the most
"You can't learn how to speak English correctly when your teacher has an Arabic accent." he said.
When Alabaddula speaks, his 'v's sound like 'w', and he pronounces the short 'i' in Arabic as a long 'e' sound.
Each nationality has special pronunciation problems, but speaking English is difficult for all beginning center students. English has more than 40 vowel and consonant sounds, many more than most languages
Alabdulla, 19, studied English in Qatar but had an Arabic teacher.
tures and shiny, black, shoulder-length hair tied back in a ponytail, Yokoi never had been out of Japan before she left for the United States three weeks ago. When she speaks, Yokoi raises a fluttering hand to her elbow. Her head in apology and embarrassment what she thinks is poor pronunciation.
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"Please, more slowly," Chikako Yokoi pleaded with her teacher in a high, soft voice as fragile as her appearance.
Nasser Aladubla, from Qatar, a Middle Eastern country near Saudia Arabia, said he would major in communications either at KU or at another U.S. university after he completed his studies at the center.
English has no rules determining stress, said Cindy Pronko, the instructor who teaches the class.
Many of the students have studied English in their own countries, but the emphasis there was on reading and writing rather than speaking and listening.
"You just have to listen." Pronko told her students. "You can't learn it by reading."
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In the Speaking and Understanding class, Yokoi and her classmates study correct pronunciation carefully. They examine the pitch, clarity and length of the vowels in each syllable of a word to determine which syllable is stressed.
Pronko does not speak any more slowly or loudly in this class than she would in a class of U.S. students, but she checks often for understanding, using her warmth and a sense of humor to encourage her students to speak.
Changing stress in an English word can change its meaning. For example, the word 'record' can be either a noun or a verb, depending on which syllable is stressed.
As part of her instruction for this class, Prono listens to tapes of each student speaking and gives them a prompt to describe their special pronunciation problems.
The students also study non-verbal communication. Gestures vary in meaning from culture to culture, and students could embarrass themselves by misinterpreting or misusing gestures.
A small person with delicate fea-
In Korea, 19-year-old Inki Kim told the class, the wagging-finger gesture that means "Come here" in English and has been used like how you'd call a dog." Kim said
Kim, who plans to major in engineering, attended a U.S. high school in Saipan, a western Pacific island, after moving there from Korea last year.
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advanced of the second level classes. She said she planned to spend five years at KU earning a bachelor's degree in business administration before returning to her home in Rwanda, a central African country.
Beginning instruction for Hirwa and her classmates concentrates on pre-academic skills such as speaking and understanding. The class members also will study U.S., Kansas and KU history to improve their adjustments to a new culture.
I study English four hours a day. I don't like to watch TV because it takes too much time.'
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They will lose their overly precise pronunciation of consonants and will learn to respond in flat, unmusical "yeps," and "uh huhs." Then, they truly will be speakers of English.
"From the classes I've taugh, would say the majority of my students are very motivated and serious students." Coffe said.
Kim shares his classmates' serious attitudes and commitment.
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Coffey said Kim's attitude was typical of an otherwise diverse group.
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If the students are successful, in several months they will chatter comfortably together before class in a shared language.
Students sit erectly in their chairs and keep almost constant eye contact with the teacher. In spite of their embarrassment, they volunteer struggle with finding the correct word and its correct pronunciation.
"I study English four hours a day. I
learn to watch a movie," because it
takes too long.
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