THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Wednesday June 8,1988
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 grease 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 brigade arrived at the house on May 2, he found that one 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."
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 in 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 September."
Five other greek houses also are under investigation by the city prosecution.
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
rerri 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
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.
Kansan staff writer
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 latest tests have shown that no health hazard exists, a University statement released Saturday said.
Inspectors from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, found high levels of 1,2-dichloroethane.
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 tests have not been run of acceptable quality going into all the other buildings."
Official reverses Hoch ruling
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 official 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 Hoch 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.
'Hoch is safe as is. The
- Paul Markley
emergency lights are in operation.
state fire marshal's office
main concerns when inspecting a building; fire alarms, clear exits and emergency lighting that comes on during the day. Hoch has all three. Markley said.
He said not having a sprinkler system above the stage would not make it necessary to close Hoch.
"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."
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 works, when it moved to the University's descent to build a new performing arts center within the next few years.
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.
JOHN P. DENSLER Boston University Boston, Mass.
tent in any engineering solution to a problem, the thinking typified by "We can't have any pollution" will eventually lead to the downfall of our civilization.
It's wonderful to know that I'm not alone! I spent three years in the chemical-engineering program taking humanities classes on the side. I left engineering last year to pursue a dual degree in chemistry and English. The synthesis of these diametrically opposed ways of thinking is important and people who can do that will, I'm sure, be indispensable in uniting the factions of our society.
MICHELLE SERRYNN Wayne State University Detroit, Mich.
Dorm Update
In your March issue, John S. Davis stated that the term "dormitory" is outdated (the MALL.) I beg to differ. When you share a room smaller than a $10-a-night hotel room, the correct term is "dormitory," not "residence hall."
DAVE WAGNER, "Domit"
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Madison, Wis.
The grass seems greener just over the neighbor's fence (CAREERS). Although turfgrass management may seem an ideal college major, low salaries, long hours and health risks due to pesticide exposure are three major negatives students should consider before deciding on this career.
Turf Management
JAMES W. MARQUART
Ohio State University
Columbus, Ohio
A New Course of Study?
I tread your March cover story, "Colleges Chart a New Course of Study," with distressing interest (EDUCATION). What the editors had promised would be "a discussion of some of the great issues facing higher education and college students today" but was a patronizing and cursory treatment of a subject that deserves better. No wonder the man on your cover appears to be undergoing a frontal lobotomy!
JOSPH C. SMITH Jr., Staff Columnist
Yale Daily News
Yale University
New Haven, Conn.
Quality education is not just a variety of subjects—it is equally necessary to have
quality professors. What is the good of a prestigious school and a varied curriculum if the teacher can't teach?
AMBROCIO P. BALDONADO University of Southern California Los Angeles Calif
. . .
You state, "Despite Allan Bloom's fondest wish, we cannot stop time or freeze knowledge." I'm sure that Professor Bloom wishes to do neither. Rather, he wishes to see our finest thinkers (college graduates) exposed to the great thinkers ("Plato. Shakespeare. Rousseau. Etc.)." How can we hope for any but technological progress if our colleges produce graduates who are fundamentally ignorant of the past?" The surest way to "freeze knowledge" is to throw out what has already been learned in the cold.
CLAY BRIDGES University of Alabama Tuscaloosa, Ala.
Your charge that Bloom's is a "Euroentric, male-centered, antidemocratic perspective" is itself the product of a shallow perspective, ignorant of the Western intellectual heritage and wedded to superficially examined dogmas. To brush off history's most profound thinkers as "Etc." and the truths they discovered as "reactionary"—that, not Bloom's, is the "constricted viewpoint."
MARK PUNDURS
Illinois Institute of Technology
Chicago, Ill.
Judging from what we have seen as students and teachers at a large public university, Professor Bloom is all too correct in believing that modern students do not care about a liberal education. We simply cannot imagine hearing any of our undergraduates using the words "passion" and "education" in the same sentence, let alone voluntarily meeting to discuss an intellectual juggernaut such as Professor Bloom's book. As for the "chronological snobbery" of your conclusion that although the past can speak to us, "we must consider the present and the future," we'd like to ask why permanence should carry with it a connotation of stagnation in the modern mind? Is the new automatically superior to the old?
"We're looking for the general needs of the campus." Modig said.
KEVIN B. WWINRICH
MICHAEL J. MORCRAFT
University of Georgia
Atlens Ga.
Athens, Ga.
letters to the Editor, with the writer's name and address and daytime telephone number, should be sent to: Letters Editor, Newsweek on Campus, 444 Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10022. Letters may be written for spaces of reason and clarity
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"The sprinklers are there to protect the buildings," he said. "We care about the buildings, but our main concern is getting the people out."
cited the lack of and of a sprinkage area. Mark could be closed correctly the nber. However, iiversity officials informed there rator at Hoch, seen, that conry emergency
," Markley said.
its are in opera-
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.
office has three
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.
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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 2-10 or more.
The three-term Massachusetts governor began the night needing 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," Dukapis 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.