Call of the mild
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Details, page 2
Wednesday
Published since 1889 by the students of the University of Kansas
February 11,1987 Vol.97,No.93 (USPS 650-640)
KU grad recalls campus racism
Staff writer
By JENNIFER FORKER
Kermit Phelps, the first black man to receive a doctorate from the University of Kansas, said yesterday that attaining his doctorate degree in the 1950s was difficult because of racial discrimination.
In 1982, he received KU's Distinguished Service Award.
Phelps, who received his doctorate in 1952, was the first black man in the United States to receive a doctorate in clinical psychology.
Phelps, chairman of the American Association of Retired Persons, visited KU yesterday to informally kick off a new radio program for blind and handicapped people. The program will be produced in cooperation with KU's Audio-Reader Network and the association of Radio Reading Services.
Phelps reminisced about the years after World War II, when he was at KU working toward his doctorate.
Phelps said that the racial discrimination at the time was painful.
Fred Sadowski/KANSAN
Hops said he was vaccinated at the time he visited because he had no money. Phelps, a native of Kansas City, Mo., worked as an assistant librator while finishing his education.
It was a trying time, he said. At first, then-Chancellor Deane Mallett would not allow Phelps to teach because he was black. But the chairman of the newly formed psychology department, Roger Barker, demanded that Phelps be made an instructor and threatened to take his department elsewhere, Phelps said.
Malot gave in, and in the next year Phelps was lecturing his own courses, he said.
"Barker made kind of a drastic step." Phelps said.
Barker, emeritus professor of psychology, said yesterday that it had been an unofficial University policy not to allow blacks to teach.
"We appointed Phelps as a teaching assistant, and I was then told by a dean that the policy of the University wasn't to appoint any teaching positions to blacks. But it hadn't been recorded. It was just an understanding." Barker said.
"We didn't say anything," he said. "We just went on with the lecture, and there weren't objections from students or University officials."
Barker said that Phelps was a quiet, good-humored man.
"He did the job he was supposed to do and he had the ability to succeed." Barker said.
"They'd ask me. 'Are you lost?' or "Do you know where you're going?" when I entered the cafeteria," he said.
Phelps said he and other instructors would warn black freshmen about racist professors' unfair grading. He said some teachers didn't matter what grade they deserve, because "C is for colored."
Phelps also described the KU campus as it looked in the 1920s, when he was working on his undergraduate degree.
"Those early days were something," he said. "You could walk all over Lawrence in 15 minutes, but when they eared that came on the bill.
"You could get fined $5 for spitting on the sidewalk."
Kermit Phelps, chairman of the American Association of Retired Persons, announces the beginning of a taped radio program tailored for blind and elderly persons. Phelps was the first black to receive a doctorate in clinical psychology in the United States and the first black to receive a doctorate at the University of Kansas.
Students, faculty show support for education
By TIM HAMILTON
Staff writer
More than 50 people gathered in front of Strong Hall yesterday to listen to students and faculty talk about the effects of state budget cuts on the University of Kansas.
Students and faculty voiced their concerns about the budget cuts and the importance of higher education at a 'teach in' sponsored by Faculty and Students Together. FAST
"Students and faculty are too often ignored by state and federal government." said Kirstin Myers, Shawnee senior and spokesman for the group. "We're trying to get people informed so that they may act conscientiously. So that we may do something about the budget crisis and the broader issue of education in the state."
Myers said the group didn't have any answers to the crisis but wanted to raise some questions. The teach-in was intended to be the beginning of a series of budget crisis forums.
Among the speakers at the teach-in was Mel
Dubnick, chairman of the University Senate Executive Committee.
Dubnick shared with the audience lessons he said he had learned in the past months from the budget crisis.
The crisis in higher education, he said, was the product of several factors, including decades of underinancing, rising enrollment and budget cuts in 1982 that were never pristine.
Dubnick also said the budget crisis was caused partially by the state's loss of tax rates.
"Kansans are paying less in taxes on the dollar now than two years ago," he said. "The state is not experiencing an economic crisis but a fiscal crisis."
In addition to the revenue loss, Dubnick said the budget crisis was made worse by the low interest rates.
Many states have comparatively worse economic problems than Kansas. he said
education.
"Higher education is undervalued," he said. "Funding for higher education is perceived as an act of charity."
He said education essentially was regarded as part of the welfare system.
Dubnick said he supported several proposals that would help alleviate the higher education crisis. One is Gov. Mike Hayden's fee release proposal of $553,418 to pay for fall and spring classes originally scheduled for cancellation. Hayden also favors the reinstatement in the next fiscal year of the 3.8 percent cuts in the state's general fund.
Dubnick also he wanted to see a change in the financing formula for state universities in Michigan.
But, Dubnick said, "None of the changes we want or Hayden wants will be put into effect unless people make their voices heard."
Del Shankel, acting executive vice chancellor, also said at the teach-in that lobbying was
important.
Shankel said that student lobbyists had been doing an excellent job and that their efforts needed to be continued and reinforced.
He said he also favored Hayden's fee release and budget cut reinstagram proposals, as well as the proposed 2.5 percent pay increase for faculty and students.
The University already has spent most of the money to keep classes open in the fall and spring.
"If we receive that release, some restoration or summer school programs could occur." Shara said.
Angie Hawkins, Kansas City, Kan., junior, said she depended on student financial aid to attend KU and favored increased lobbying to fdtfent federal student financial aid cuts.
Elaine Sung, Rochester, N.Y., freshman, said she came to KU because of its reputation but couldn't recommend it to her friends because of the budget crisis.
Students upset by fee taxes
By ROGER COREY
Staff writer
And many GTAs are upset about the losses in their incomes.
The act will make taxable the fee waivers that GTAs at the University of Kansas receive as part of assistantships.
"If a GTA had his tuition reduced by so many dollars, that amount would be added to his monthly wages," Richard Augustin, KU's assistant comptroller, said yesterday.
Augustin said 677 GTAs at the University would be affected by the tax reform act. For students who receive the maximum fee waiver, which is $435, the difference in salary will be considerable, he said.
"Those students will have their paychecks reduced by $142.83 a semester." Augustin said.
The rate could be higher for non-resident GTAs, who often have larger fee waivers.
Augustin said that because of the act, the amount of GTAs' fee waivers would be added to their incomes each semester. Students who receive a waiver of $435 and earn $1,423, for example, will now be taxed on the total $1,858. Before, they were taxed only on income.
"It's something we absolutely don't need," said Travis Patton, a GTA in the sociology department. "It's tough enough to survive on what we get paid."
Many GTAs have families. The pressure of trying to make ends meet each month takes its toll, Patton said.
"It's senseless," said Ted Vaggalis, a GTA in the department of Western Civilization. "The purpose of the fee waiver is to give us a break. Now it's like they're giving us something with one hand and taking it back with the other."
The tax reform act, which the U.S. Congress passed last year, affects both federal and state taxes because the law changes what is considered taxable income.
GTAs will be taxed at the rate for their adjusted income. Now that their taxable incomes are higher, more taxes will be taken out.
Patton said the Graduate Executive Council sent letters last year to the Kansas congressional delegation in Washington, D.C., to protest the tax reform's effect. But nothing happened.
"Those people who can't afford to lobby are hit the hardest," Patton said. "As graduate students, I guess we're expected to live in abject poverty for a while."
INSIDE
Playing basketball for a crowd of nearly 11,000 in Allen Field House last night was one of the biggest thrills for former Kansas All-American Lynette Woodward she joined the Harlem Globetroters. See story page 11.
The big thrill
Battenfield Hall residents are unhappy with a renovation plan that would replace the hall's large sleeping room with smaller two- or four-man suites. See story page 3.
How suite it isn't
Departments cut back on operating expenses
By PAUL SCHRAG
Thrift has become a way of life at the University of Kansas.
Other operating expense budgets comprise various miscellaneous expenses, including classroom supplies, stationery, postage, paper and dublicipating.
To comply with the 3.8 percent budget cut ordered in the fall by Gov. Mike Hayden, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences reduced by about 15 percent the money available to academic departments for other operating expenses.
Staff writer
Cost-cutting measures in the college have taken many forms, from communications studies instructors to student educators and student students sharing frogs to dissect.
And faculty members' familiarity with penny-pinching is serving them well this semester.
"We are underfunded in OOE to begin with," said Wil Linkugel, communications studies department at SUNY New York and fund of money a little sooner this year.
Living with the University's latest austerity requirement isn't easy, faculty members said, but at least learned to deal with such things.
Some departments are making cuts where they can, but admitting
that it won't be enough.
"We may be in trouble in six weeks," said Michael Johnson, English department chairman. "We're hoping to get help from the fee release. I don't see any way we can get to the first of May without help."
Communications studies has taken one of the most drastic cost-cutting steps. Faculty members and teaching assistants are required to pay for any paper materials that they hand out besides syllabi and examinations.
Departments with laboratory courses have reduced expenses by making students share experiments rather than doing them individually.
James Sherman, human development chairman, said, "It's doubly difficult when you're already operational. You have to be sure it's nothing you can comfortably cut."
By eliminating some experiments and making students do experiments in groups, the chemistry department hopes to reduce by one-third its expenditure for chemicals for undergraduate laboratory courses.
Some students in these courses may feel shortchanged, said Marlin Harmony, chemistry department head at the University of getting less hands-on experience in
Budget cuts likely to hurt thoroughness of KU police
See REDUCE, p. 6, col. 3
By PAUL BELDEN
Staff writer
KU police officers foresee less thorough investigations and 3.000 fewer man-hours of police and security patrol this year because of the 3.8 percent cut in KU's budget this fiscal year.
"I't hard to predict what will happen." KU police director James R. Denney said this week. "It may be horrible, who knows. Two officers can be a tremendous resource."
Denney said that to save money, he would not fill two patrol officer vacancies and one security officer vacancy from last semester.
Security officers are unarmed and patrol the campus at night, checking doors and looking for suspicious activities.
The vacancies normally would have been filled over the Christmas break, Denney said, but leaves from unfinished will save at least $8,000.
Denney said that because newly hired police officers would have undergone six to eight months of training before receiving regular shift assignments, their absence would not be felt fully until the fall
KU police statistics indicate that fall semester crime rates are typically 30 crimes a month higher than spring semester rates.
"Fall is a very heavy demand time," he said. "And we know that even fully staffed, we have our hands full."
1987 semester.
"It doesn't make anybody hapy, but the officers here are professionals. We'll survive."
KU police were short on manpower once before in this decade. The KU police budget was cut 4 percent in the fiscal year ending June 1983 because of a similar budget crisis.
Lt. Jeanne Longaker, KU police spokesman, remembers those days.
She said the department fully
The department's annual report for 1983 states that at the end of that year, the department was short one patrol heatenant, one detective sergeant, two patrol officers and one security officer.
"They couldn't devote full time to investigations that merited it," she said. "I recall that (the investigations) were followed up to a point, then put on hold."
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investigated all important cases, but did not have the manpower to follow up on some cases that it normally would have investigated further.
"Other programs also took a back seat," she said. "Liaison with residence halls and scholarship halls was very limited."
To save money this year, Denney said. KU police also will delay for a year the installation of a new computer in Carruth-O'Leary Hall, the police headquarters' building.
Now, the department's computer is tied to the University mainframe. Denney said.
Because of the possibility of a hacker's sneaking into the computer by means of the University's mainframe, only non-secured information can be stored in the police computer, he said.
Therefore, police reports full of secured information are stored in file cabinets in Carruth O'Leary, he said.
In a free-standing computer, all information could be stored together and analyzed to spot similar methods of operation and crime trends.
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