University Daily Kansan / Thursday, April 21, 1988
5
KU Info knows it all Well, almost - center fields mix of queries
By Michael Carolan
Kansan staff writer
Mike Mader answers the phone, puts the caller on hold and scoots his swivel chair across the floor to find the answer to the caller's question about a Spanish word.
Carla Dechant, looking in a file cabinet for the answer to another caller's question about directions, Spanish and answers Mader's question
The two return to their phones, answer the questions and hang up. In the small room in the basement of the Burge Union, which is cluttered with books and information pinned on bulletin boards, the phones ring again.
Dechant, Hays senior, and Mader,
Great Bend graduate student, both work for the University Information Center, popularly called "KU Info."
They answer a mixture of insane, trivial, personal and essential questions from nearly every KU student.
*from confounded questions such as* "What does it mean when I find a fish head pointing south on my front doorstep?" to more sober questions like "What time is my final exam?" at the center and heard it all.
The people at that end of the ever-
so-popular phone number (864-3506) also refer students with personal problems to the appropriate help.
"If someone has just been raped or is sitting there on the other end of the line wanting to kill himself, you don't pass them on to the next person right away," said Mader, who receives about six personal assistance calls a week. "You establish rapport with them rather than passing the buck."
"The phone is a very safe and anonymous place for people to talk to someone. We know it's not a counseling center, but it can be a first step."
The center's workers were not surprised to find that in a survey, a student calls KU Info an average of four times a month.
"We answer just about anything," Mader said, "except when we get ridiculous calls like 'How many glasses of milk does Danny Manning drink a day?' That's stupid. What do you say?"
The center, which was started to control rumors after the Kansas Union burned in 1970, handles more University-related questions than referral, general information or community-related questions. Pat Kehde, director of the center, said.
"We're basically rumor control, personal crisis, and a clearinghouse
for information," Kehde said. "People call us about anything, because it's less embarrassing on the phone if it's a dumb question."
With source material such as the World Almanac, press releases and the Joy of Cooking, employees at the center answer between 700 and 900 callers during an average weekday, about 40 or 50 questions per hour. Mader said the center answered about 4,000 calls the day after the men's basketball team won the NCAA Championship.
Kehde said, "We read bulletin boards, call offices, clip newspapers, talk to friends in other offices, receive mailings to get a lot of our information. People just don't call us with information. We have to find it, and that's a challenge."
Kehde said the lines are busy much of the time because the center, financed by the office of the bank, has enough money to open more than six phone lines.
Katie Stolz, Lawrence junior, called the center recently to inquire about the working hours of the Secure Shuttle.
Secure Shuttle.
Stolz said, calling KU Info first out of trouble later. They can't solve problems, but they know where the solutions exist."
AIDS politics is writer's beat
By a Kansan reporter
Randy Shilts, author of "And the Band Played On: Politics, People and the AIDS Epidemic," will speak at 8 p.m. tonight in the Kansas Union Ballroom.
900 interviews and previously-unreleased government documents in writing his book. He also discusses "Patient Zero," the promiscuous homosexual man researchers think may have been the person responsible for the introduction of AIDS in North America.
Shilts, a reporter since 1982 for the San Francisco Chronicle and the only reporter in the country assigned fulltime to cover AIDS, speaks openly in the book about what he perceives as political blunders in handling the AIDS crisis. Shilts used more than
Michael Foubert, member of the Student Senate Task Force on AIDS, said that the book was informative.
"Parts of it made me angry, and parts of it made me sad." Foubert
said. "I got angry at all the politicking and the bureaucratic infighting that detracted from the real issue of the treating those that came down with the disease."
Phil Huntsinger, who teaches sex education classes at KU, said the book, a chronology of events in the AIDS crisis as it spread from the East to the West coast, would be enlightening to those interested in learning about the history of the disease.
Local Briefs
ENGINEERING OLYMPICS: The final events of the Engineering Olympics will be at 2:30 p.m. Friday on the front lawn of Learned Hall.
The events includeug of war,gunny sack race,nerd look-a-like,scavenger hunt,three-legged race,balloon toss,Twinkie eating contest, egg drop contest, glider
design contest, faculty chalkboard speed-writing contest and calculator relay.
Events involve engineering students, faculty and staff. Tau Beta Pi, the National Engineering Honor Society, is sponsoring the events.
Finals will be here before you know it!
Although we can't study for you,we would like to make your life a little easier.
The Hawk's Nest on Level Three of the Kansas Union is open until 10 p.m. Monday-Saturday.
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Kansan Classified Section
you can say goodbye to your favorite graduating senior with a personal ad in the special "Kansan Graduation Classified Section." Your ad will run on April 29th. The cost of the ad is $2.25 for 15 words Each additional word is 15c. The deadline is April 26th at 4 p.m. Simply write your ad in the space provided below and drop it off at or mail it to:
The University Daily Kansan 119 Stauffer-Flint Hall Lawrence Kansas 66045
Lawrence, Kansas 66045
Make checks payable to The University Daily Kansan.