Wednesday June 8,1988
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Published since 1889 by the students of the University of Kansas
Vol. 98, No.146 (USPS 650-640)
Frat may be charged for violating fire code
By Karen Boring
Kansan staff writer
City Prosecutor Jerry Little said yesterday he would file charges against the Triangle fraternity next week for failure to comply with city fire codes.
Jim McSain, Lawrence fire chief,
said in a video-taped press conference
on May 5 that after the April 26, 1987,
fire at the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity
house, the Lawrence Fire
Department developed a program to
bring all KU greek houses into compliance
with the fire code.
The department inspected the 37 active greek houses in June and July 1987, said Fire Marshal Rich Barr. The corporation board of each house was given a list of violations and was required to turn in plans of compliance, including a schedule for completion, by January 1988. A corporation board is a group of alumni that acts as landlord of the house.
The Triangle board turned in a statement to Barr, asserting that all required changes had been made, Little said. However, when the fire marshal inspected the Triangle house on May 2, he found that none of the changes had been made.
fire department is interested in with the Triangle house is prosecution." Little said. "The next step is filing charges against that fraternity."
"The only course of action that the
Ron Gast, Triangle corporation board president, said a new board, including himself, was elected in February and that the original plan of compliance had been submitted by the former board. Gast said he and other board members learned of the fire-code problems from the house's student officers after the May inspection.
The board is taking bids so it can make a new plan of compliance, Gast said. He anticipated no problems with meeting the December deadline.
"We want to get costs in mind first," he said. "I think we will have a firm plan by this summer and have some of the work completed by Sementer."
Five other greek houses also are under investigation by the city prosec
The Alpha Kappa Lambda andLambda Chi Alpha fraternities and theAlpha Chi Omega sorority have not come to agreement with the fire department on plans of compliance with the fire code, Little said. The
Tau Kappa Epsilon and Phi Kappa Tau fraternities also have been submitted for investigation.
"They either have not submitted plans of compliance or the compliance time frame is not acceptable." Little said. "What I'm trying to do is to open the lines of communication."
The project involves obliterating grandfather clauses, under which older structures do not to have to comply with fire codes enacted after they were built, he said.
Normally, the fire department inspects greek houses twice a year to ensure that existing fire equipment is working properly. Barr said. The present fire-code project, however, involves seeing that the existing equipment adequately compiles with today's fire code.
"If they do not involve sprinkler systems, because sprinkler systems are a very large project from a structural standpoint, we are requiring those plans of compliance to be completed by December 1988." Barr said at the press conference. "If they involved sprinkler systems, then we extended that deadline by one year."
Dave Niebergall/KANSAN
Give it a twirl
Terri Maness, Lawrence resident, twirls batons with glow sticks attached to the ends. Maness entertained golfers during the Moonshine Night Golf Tournament on Saturday night at the Orchards Executive Golf Course. The tournament was a benefit for the Achievement Place Boys' Home.
Water safe, tests indicate
Cancer-causing chemical no longer present at Lindley
By Monica Hayde
Kansan staff writer
For two weeks, signs were posted inside and outside Lindley Hall warning people not to drink the water in the building. On Friday, they were removed.
Warning notices were posted in the building on May 20 after state and University inspectors found high levels of a cancer-causing chemical in the water in Room 107. But the university also exists, a University statement, released Saturday said.
Official reverses Hoch ruling
inspectors from the Kansas Department of Health and
Bearse said it was unlikely the water in any other campus buildings was contaminated.
"Tests have not been run campus-wide, but they are in the process of being run," he said. "However, the water coming into Lindley Hall is of acceptable quality, so the students should be of acceptable quality going into all the other buildings."
Steve Cater, University environment, health and safety officer, said no one knew why such an elevated level of ethylene dichloride was in the water.
"It's quite possible we'll never know where it came
By Paula Messbarger
Kansan staff writer
A state fire who said in April that Hoch Auditorium might have to be closed because of fire hazards now says it is a safe building.
Paul Markley, who is chief of the fire prevention division for the state fire marshal's office, said after his April inspection of Hoff that the 61-year-old building was too dangerous to use because of fire-code violations.
But Markley said Monday Hoch is safe and can be used by the University.
Students 18 to 80: Hotel and restaurant management class learns meat-cutting
Paul Marklev
have left for work: Skokane Falls Community College campus on the west side of town
20. they have no idea what to do with their lives. Breen graduated from high school with a 2.0 GPA, which was too low to meet university admission requirements. And since he didn't particularly like high school, says Breen, "I really didn't know if I was going to like college and I didn't want to spend thousands of dollars finding out." As it turned out, he loved SFCC. He recently received an A.A. in business and is now working for a local retail store that will pay his tuition for one class per semester at university. Then he had to earn a B.A. If he had gone at once to a university, Bree says, "I would have gotten lost in the shuffle and probably dropped out of school."
state fire marshal's office
main concerns when inspecting a building: fire alarms, clear exits and emergency lighting that comes on after the raining. Hoch has all three. Markley said,
emergency lights are in operation.
differences between students at a community college and those at a university. "A university freshman typically would be more independent and self-starting, able to use the library and find out information on his own," says Arthur Cohen, professor of higher education at UCLA. About half the instruction at a four-year school goes on in the classroom, authorities say, and the rest in residence halls, libraries, lecture series and events that go on around the campus. At commuter schools like community colleges, says Cohen, "80 percent of the learning takes place in the classroom—the rest is made up by a counseling center."
Because the students in any given class come with such a broad range of academic abilities, they are often called
'Hoch is safe as is. The
Indeed, research shows that there are
He said not having a sprinkler system above the stage would not make it necessary to close Hoch.
Places That Do It All
MAY 1988
Hoch Auditorium once was used as the home court for the Jayhawks basketball team until Allen Field House was dedicated in 1955. Hoch has had a long history of safety and academic achievement. University's decision to build a new performing arts center within the next few years.
NEWSWEEK ON CAMPUS 21
C. L
In recent years, the transfer rate of Associate of Arts degree students to four-year schools, however, has hovered around 20 percent. And now some educators worry that instead of providing a doorway to the baccalaureate, community colleges have become a dead end. To guard against this, two-year schools must maintain their educational purposes, according to a commission headed by Ernest Boyer, president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, which has been studying college dropouts for the past 18 months. Among these recommendations, the report, due in late April, will ask that all community colleges require every associate-degree student to complete a core general-education curriculum.
After several years of decline, enrollment in college colleges nationwide rose 3 percent last year to more than 5 million, a record high. But as state legislatures continue to trim funding, doubts grow about whether two-year public colleges can continue to do it; all provide academic courses for students interested in transferring as well as vocational training for those who want to prepare for jobs. Critics charge that community colleges are leasing too heavily on partnerships with government and industry, which helps them attract students but may force them to expend too much effort promoting the economic growth of their regions. As a result, community colleges are struggling to redefine their role as places of higher education.
Two-year institutions are a 20th-century phenomenon, having begun as private, junior colleges. Today only 162 junior colleges still exist, while 1,062 community colleges saturate almost every state. Community colleges have succeeded spectacularly in extending post-secondary study to some minorities and older students who might other-credit for their studies. A percent of all blocks and Asians in higher education are in a community college; for Hispanics and Native Americans, the percentage is 54.
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"There is an emergency lighting system, and its been there for at least 15 years." he said. "The problem was, no one asked the right person."
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James Modig, campus director of facilities planning, said his office and a committee appointed by Judith Ramaley, executive vice chancellor, are reviewing possibilities for using Hoch once the new performing arts building is completed. Modig said some suggestions were offices, classrooms or an addition to the new science library.
"The sprinklers are there to protect the buildings," he said. "We care about the buildings, but our main concern is getting the people out."
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Tom Anderson, director of facilities operations, said the problem with the original inspection probably was a result of a KU Facilities and Operations employee who was sent with Markley on the inspection. Anderson said it was common practice for KU employees to assist the fire marshals during inspections. He said the employee probably was not familiar with Hoch and its lighting system.
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"We're looking for the general needs of the campus." Modig said.
As for the near future, not much will be done to Hoch, he said. Some of the stonework will be repaired this year under the fiscal year 1988 budget. But there will be no projects for the fiscal year of 1989 because the Board of Regents did not approve the requests.
The Associated Press
Dukakis finishes with nomination
Michael Dukakis clinched the Democratic presidential nomination with a four-state flourish Tuesday night and forecast a "golden opportunity" to win the White House in 1988. Republican George Bush labeled himself the underdog heading into the fall campaign but said, "I'm fighting back."
Dukakis dominated Jesse Jackson coast to coast on the final night of a grueling Democratic primary marathon. He was winning primaries in New Jersey, Montana, New Mexico and California by margins of 2-to-1 or more.
The three-term Massachusetts governor began the night needling about 150 delegates to achieve a mathematical lock on the nomination. He was winning more than 131 in New Jersey, Montana and New Mexico combined, and early returns from California showed him ahead for more than 200 delegates.
Dukakis emerged as the winner of the Democratic primary marathon and owner of a lead over Bush in the nationwide public opinion polls. But Bush, who wrapped up the GOP nomination six weeks ago, holds formidable Electoral College advantages in the South and West, and Republicans have won four of the last five presidential elections.
Thus, the prospect is for a close general election, and Bush and Dukakis seemed to share an eagerness to begin.
"My friends, what a golden opportunity this is for us," Dukakis said as he savored his nominating triumph in a speech in California. He pledged to use his campaign to stand up for factory workers thrown out of their jobs with no warning, to ease the burden of families hit by medical bills and to "share the rage" of those living in neighborhoods threatened by drugs.
"Every day between now and November, the American people will want to hear how we intend to build a strong and vibrant future for our country," he said. "They aren't interested in slashing attacks: They want to judge our positive ideas for change."
Bush posted uncontested primary victories in all four states and said, "I think I can overcome this deficit (in the polls)," he said.
In a television interview, he likened Dukakis to Walter Mondale, the landslide Democratic loser in 1984, for refusing to rule out a tax increase. "I'll rule it out," Bush said in an interview with CBS, and rely on a spending freeze to reduce the deficit.
He decried the "gloom and doom" that he said was emanating from the Democrats and said the polls would change as he began to establish his own political identity. "When we get through in the fall talking about opportunity and peace and numbers of jobs and how much better things are and what I'll do to keep it that way, I think I can overcome that deficit," he said.