University Daily Kansan / Friday, April 22, 1988
Campus/Area
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GPA criterion limits options
'C' students subject of report
By Rebecca J. Cisek
Kansan staff writer
The average student is facing fewer career options because of higher standards imposed by professional schools, according to a report presented to members of the University Senate Executive Committee.
Ron Francisco, associate professor of political science, and Sharon Bass, associate professor of journalism, presented this week to SenEx a report titled "Opportunities for the C Student."
The report said that professional schools at KU and at some of its peer schools had raised their minimum average requirements for entrance.
One reason for the increase at KJ was persistent enrollment pressures. "It's clearly an effort to try to get a can on enrollment." Bass said.
But Bass said the higher GPA requirements had not succeeded in controlling enrollment. Despite higher requirements, enrollment in the School of Journalism has continued to increase, she said.
Other reasons for raising GPA requirements include attempts to raise the quality of students and responses to external pressures. Recruiters for companies have screened devices for their applicants.
Bass said that she knew of a case in which a company requested the GPA of a man over 40 years old who was applying for a job.
One side effect of the increased GPA standards, she said, is that students might be less likely to take courses that might threaten their GPAs.
Bass challenged the thinking behind raising GPA requirements in professional schools.
Evelyn Swartz, chairman of SenEx, said, "What we have done is create a different definition of average. It's not 2.0, it's 2.5."
"A C grade is not a failing mark but an average grade," she said. "Average is what most of us are."
Bass said that the University needed to become more creative in enrollment planning. Because growth is cyclical, she said, KU might not have enough students in the college to neglect the higher GPA requirements.
If students aren't able to enter professional schools because their GPAs are too low, they won't find much relief in those schools, he said.
Francisco said that a 2.0 GPA was still used as the minimum in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, but now it is the Arts, Pharmacy and Engineering.
Francisco wanted to know why it was acceptable for people who would be designing bridges and writing prescriptions to graduate with 2.0 GPAs but it wasn't acceptable for graduates from other schools.
He said that different GPA requirements sometimes created certain ironies among programs.
A mere formality
Charlie Caenen, McLouth High School senior, is fitted for a tuxedo by Jamie McReynolds. Caenen rented the tuxedo at Mark's Bridal and Formal, 815 Massachusetts St.
Welcome planned for 3 Soviet veterans
Three Soviet World War II veterans and their translator will be in Lawrence on Monday to celebrate the "Spirit of Elba" day.
On April 25, 1945, the U.S. and Soviet armies joined forces at the Elbe River to insure the defeat of German forces.
Soviets at 3:30 p.m. Monday with a citywide welcome near the train in Central Park, between Kentucky and Tennessee streets and Sixth and Seventh streets. A formal reception will be at 6 p.m. at the Eldridge House, and a banquet with entertainment will follow at 7:30 p.m.
On Tuesday, the veterans will meet with Lawrence citizens, city officials
By a Kansan reporter
and KU representatives at 5 p.m. regarding Lawrence proposals for a visit by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to Kansas and for the establishment of a U.S.-Soviet center in Lawrence.
U. S. veterans of Elbe in the Soviet Union.
On April 25, 1985, Bob Swan, Lawrence resident and co-founder of the Kansas Else Alliance, organized a rally in Chicago that linked up 300 Soviet and
The first delegation of Soviet veterans came to Lawrence two years ago, and they were greeted with a parade on Massachusetts Street. During that visit, negotiations were completed for the Declaration of American and Russian Veterans, which was signed in Washington D.C., on April 30, 1986.
Lawrence will officially greet the
Group organizes to protest the use of grading system
By Brenda Finnell
Kansan staff writer
About seven students, calling themselves Students Against the Plus/Minus Grading System, are posting filers around campus asking students to "Just say 'No' to plus/minus."
A newly formed student group wants to make sure that students see the negative side of a plus/minus grading system in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
In March, the College Assembly,
the governing body of the college,
approved a plus/minus grading system
in a 213-165 mail vote.
The student group is concerned about several aspects of a plus/minus system.
Frances Ingemann, chairman of the committee on undergraduate studies and advising, said that the system would take effect next fall.
The college should evaluate student opinions before going ahead with the system, said Michael O'Rourke, Lawrence junior and group treasurer. Although he thinks most students are against it, he thinks the college has a responsibility to determine student opinions.
By posting fliers and circulating a by petition, group members hope to inform students about the new system of student records. The essence sophomore and group president.
O'Rourke said group members would ask at the May 3 College Assembly meeting that the proposal be reconsidered and that students' opinions be considered more seriously. The group also plans to work with teachers and fail to recruit more members and inform students about the system.
Bayne said about six of every 10 students he had spoken with were unaware of the system. He said the number of about 100 petition signatures so far.
Ingermann said existing University
codes would determine the specifics
of the system, such as what grade
would be assigned to different
grades.
The policy could be changed in the
same manner it originated, Ingemann said. If someone asks for the system to be rescinded, the assembly will consider the proposal.
About seven students, calling themselves Students Against the Plus/Minus Grading System, are posting fliers around campus asking students to "Just say 'No' to plus/minus."
In addition to wanting student opinions to be heard, group members are also bothered by the effects they experience. A mini system will have on students.
They said they thought that student incentive will be affected because some students might work harder to raise their grade an entire letter than they would to raise it, for example from a C to a B-
Another concern is grade compression, which means teachers would award fewer F's and A's. The students think that this system will reward poor academic performance at the expense of students who work hard to keep high grade point averages.
Lower GPAs will be a disadvantage to students when they enter the job market or apply for graduate school, O'Rourke said. Graduates of schools without a plus/minus grading system might have higher GPAs.
Stephen Shawl, associate professor of physics and astronomy, originally proposed the plus/minus system. He said the system would allow instructors to give students more accurate evaluations of work because the system avoids grading options. The system would also reduce grade inflation.
Shawl said many universities such as Harvard, Columbia and Princeton currently use a plus/minus system. In addition, all of KU's peer schools except the University of Oklahoma use a plus/minus system.
Prisons official names options for crowded state institutions
Kansan staff writer
By Flaine Woodford
For the last four years, Kansas has had the nation's highest increase in the number of new inmates in its prisons, and that overcrowding is creating an unsettling situation for the state secretary of corrections said yesterday.
"I'm sitting on a powder keg that is growing, and it's not very comfortable' the secretary, Roger Endell. 'people at the Adams Alumni Center.'
The speech was sponsored by the Kansas Chapter of the American Society for Public Administration.
Kansas is involved in court proceedings that are a result of the prison overcrowding. Endell said he had to remove about 2,400 inmates from various state penal institutions before Sent.1.
The inmate population has been growing at an alarming rate. Between 1983 and 1987, Endell said, an average of 475 people became part
of the Kansas prison population each year. To have enough space to keep all those prisoners, the state would have a new 500-bed institution each year.
"We don't select our clientele," Endell said. "They're sent to us."
The Kansas Legislature has been working on a possible solution to the overcrowding situation, but legislators haven't reached a decision yet, Endell said. A House and Senate debate is currently debating the issue.
Endell said that only two options were available to correct the situation. One is to divert criminals out of the system, through the front door, by releasing them on early paroles, or through the back door, by not prosecuting suspected criminals.
tors might be tempted to op for early releases as a cheap way to solve the problem, it would take only one hour. The system to be worn was it before was.
The other option, which will cost the state a significant amount of money, is to build more institutions.
Endell has suggested several new programs that would solve the immediate problems with overcrowding and also stop future problems.
One program would put able-bed members of the inmate population to work. Working makes inmates better, not bitter, Endell said.
"We need to teach them how to live in a community." Endell said. "Don't ring a bell in the morning, give them alarm clocks. And if they oversleep, and they are late to work, in our communities," he just like it is in our communities."
Endell said that by putting inmates to work in jobs that improved the community, the public is paid back for their investment in the corrections system.
Endell said that although legisla
Former La Prensa newsman to speak
By a Kansan reporter
A former executive of Nicaragua's major opposition newspaper will speak at the University of Kansas Monday night.
Pedro Joaquin Chamorro worked for La Prensa, a newspaper in Managua, Nicaragua, from 1980 until 1986, when the newspaper was closed by the Sandinista forces and both the Sandinistas and Anastasio Somoza, who was dictator of Nicaragua until 1979.
308 Dyche Hall.
Chamorro will speak at 7 p.m. in
Charles Stansifer, director of Latin American studies, said the visit was extremely important because Chamroso was one of the leading spokesmen of the contra forces in Nicaragua and he has had a primary role in the ceasefire negotiations.
"His significance is that he is from a distinguished and conservative family that opposed the military marroo's father was assassinated
in January 1978. That incident triggered universal dissatisfaction with the Somoza regime and led to the conflict that ousted Somoza in 1979," Stansier said.
Chamorro, whose father and grandfather also directed La Prensa, left Nicaragua in 1986. He now works out of San Jose, Costa Rica.
The visit is sponsored by the University Geopolitical Forum and co-sponsored by the department of political science and the center of Latin American studies.
Two more arrests made in local drug bust
By a Kansan reporter
Two more drug-trafficking arrests Wednesday night brought to 13 the number of people arrested this week, the largest local drug bust since July 1968.
Arrested Wednesday were
Arrested Wednesday were Douglas A. Gish, 27, 383 Brushcreek Drive. He was arrested and
charged with a felony count of possession of LSD with intent to sell and was released on $5,000 bond.
Larry R. Gray, 35, Lt. 1, Bonner Springs. He was arrested and charged with a felony count of possession and was released on $2,520 bond and was released on $2,520 bond
The arrests are being made as the
result of undercover investigations carried out intermittently in 1986 and 1987 by the Douglas County Drug Bureau in Kansas the Kansas Bureau of Investigation
Douglas County District Attorney Jim Flory said that a total of 14 arrest warrants had been issued after the investigation.
PADDY FOUND DEAD!
Paddy Murphy, special envoy sent by SAE Nationals, was found dead early this morning by Lawrence police. The cause of death is not precisely known, but it is suspected that the dozen bottles of Jack Daniels found surrounding the corpse may have been a contributing factor.
Paddy was truth with lipstick on his collar, beauty adulterated only by his sweat shirt and cut-offs; wisdom with a beer in his hands; hope for the future with a date on his arm. He liked wheels, girls, parties, Jack Daniels in the black, unlimited cuts, McDonalds, and the rack. He was not much for blind dates, final exams, the judicial council, or getting up early. No one else was quite so attractive or so unaware of it. No one else could sleep as much, eat as much, drink as much, date as much, clown as much, or enjoy life as much. He is survived only by his reputation, one of which no one else could claim or live up to.
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