University Daily Kansan / Thursday, April 14, 1988
Campus/Area
3
First-day turnout high for Senate elections
By Jeff Moberg
Kansan staff writer
About 2,750 students turned out yesterday for the first day of voting in the Student Senate Elections
Yesterday's turnout is only 405 votes short of the two-day total turnout last year.
Brian Stern, elections committee chairman, said the first day of election been a success, and he commended members of the elections committee.
"I think they're going great," Stern said. "Voter turnout was a lot better than I expected."
Although turnout was high, enough ballots were printed, he said. Some polling stations ran low on ballots for the smaller professional schools, especially the School of Pharmacy, but the shortages were taken care of
tables to be set up outside. The parade for the KU basketball team did not keep students away from the polls.
Brian Short, elections committee member, said he thought that the sunny weather had helped voter turnout by allowing many voting
"I would say, if anything, it encouraged people to get out," Short said. "Since they were out for the parade, why not drop by and vote?"
Students had to wait in line between classes to vote, but most did not seem to mind.
"People have been very patient despite the lines in between classes."
said Sean Holmes, Ottawa, Ontario,
Canada, graduate student and a poll
worker at Watson Library. "Other-
wise, things are very smooth.
Students offered different reasons for why they voted.
Kevin Jesse, Olathe junior, said that all students need to take note of their voting rights and that issues of contention with coalitions had an influence on him.
"I've seen the issues," he said.
"The issues played a big part in why I voted. I'm a student here, and I have my say."
Chris Massey, Holton freshman,
said he thought that voting allowed
him to voice his complaints if he did
not like Senate actions.
"I if did not like what's going on, at least I feel I could complain." Massey said. "I'd have more of a voice if I voted than if I did not vote."
Students may vote today for student body president, vice president and 58 senate seats. And at seven polling stations they also can help decided whether KU should participate in a national AIDS study on college campuses.
Polling stations are open from 8 a.m to 5 p.m at Carruth-O'Leary Hall, the Kansas Union, Learned Hall, the Strong Hall rotunda, Summerfield Hall, Watson Library and Wescoe Hall.
Professor remembers city in '51, time at KU
By Julie Adam
Kansan staff writer
Calder Pickett remembers when basketball was played in Hoch Auditorium and when students would dress up on go dates.
He remembers what Lawrence was like when he moved here in 1951 after the great flood. The area beyond 23rd and Iowa streets was like "Bod Rod Serling's 'Twilight Zone.'"
Many who listened to those memories last night took time to recognize Pickett, who is retiring after 37 years of teaching journalism at the University of Kansas.
I wanted to give my students something of me because they could get the subject matter out of the books.'
Calder Pickett
Journalism
Clyde M. Reed Distinguished Professor of
Pickett, Clyde M. Reed Distinguished Professor of Journalism, received the Kappa Tau Alpha award for outstanding service to the journalism profession. In a speech given to journalism faculty and students, Pickett recounted memories from his teaching years at KU.
Pickett, considered one of the country's foremost authorities on the history of the U.S. press, said that when he arrived at KU in 1951, the population of Lawrence was about 20,000 to 25,000, and KU's enrollment was about 7,000.
Dave Niebergall/KANSAN
"You could drive on campus," he said.
"There were no buses, there were no bicycles. There was only one dog on campus."
He could remember his first meal in Lawrence, at the Chateau Drive-In: a grilled cheese sandwich. Because of the flood, there was scarcely a decent grocery store in town.
$^{2}$ I wanted to give my students something of me because they could get the subject matter
Pickett said that he had seen many changes on campus but that the students didn't changed much. He remembers when the school of journalism had only about 100 students, and he figured out that he had taught 16 different courses.
"I wish they brought more into my classes. More knowledge, I mean, not more Diet Dr. Penners."
Pickett said that in the '60s, the mood and culture were a lot looser. In the '60s, he didn't have to get a haircut every few weeks, and he could wear a sportswear to class.
Pickett said he always would remember his colleagues in Lawrence and the thousands of students who went through his classes. He will remember a puddle called Pitter. He plucked blossoms and spring trees and the beetles and the fall of autumn trees around Memorial Stadium.
A colleague once asked him, "Don't you think it's wonderful to go to work everyday in a bark?"
He said, "I've thought about that many times."
A fisherman on Clinton Lake hangs a lantern in his boat as he prepares to do some trolling late into the evening.
Fish tales
Legislators question fairness of recent KU computer sale
Bv David Sodamann
Kansan staff writer
State legislators say they are becoming concerned about the fairness of computer sales such as the one recently conducted at KU, and are asking KU and Regents officials to look into the matter.
After cut-rate sales of Apple Macintosh computers at the KU Bookstores during February and March, local computer dealers said their businesses had been hurt. One dealer said the computer sale caused the amount of merchandise he sold to fall by 60 percent.
State Sen. Wint Winter Jr., R-Lawrence, said he had recently learned of the problem the KU Bookstores' sale had caused for area computer dealers and that he had written the Board of Regents, Chancellor Gene A. Budig and the president of Kansas State University asking that they look into the matter.
State Rep. Jessie Branson, D-Lawrence,
said that she too had phoned the Regents to
"It seems to me this could be handled by a Regents policy, rather than by passing legislation." Branson said.
Stanley Koplik, executive director of the Board of Regents, said he had received several complaints about discount computer sales on campus. Koplik he recently wrote letters asking Budig and the president of his company about the discount and sales policies were in effect on their campuses. He said Tuesday that he had not received a reply.
Kopilik said that the Regents did not want to drive anyone out of business.
and legislators reflects a nationwide concern that computer sales at universities may be unfair to retail dealers.
The oversight subcommittee of the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee is considering a change in federal tax laws to discourage such sales. It recently released for public comment a list of discussion options summarizing what it learned during hearings on the changes.
One of those options, should it become law, would impose on not-for-profit institutions, such as the KU Bookstores, responsibility for paying an unrelated business income tax on some computer sales.
The concern expressed by Regents officials
Unrelated business income taxes are paid by normally tax-exempt organizations on income earned in ways substantially unrelated to their tax-exempt purposes.
"The first computer would be exempt (from the tax) because they feel that it would be for educational purposes," said Cynthia Rapp, a spokesman for Rep. Jim Slattery, D-Kan. Any extra sales would not be considered for educational purposes, she said.
The subcommittee is giving the public until tomorrow to make written comments on its discussion options. Next, the discussion options will go before the full Ways and Means Committee for hearing in late April or early May.
Bernard Whale is also spearheading a nationwide fight against cut-rate computer sales on campuses. Whale is executive vice president of ABCD: The Microcomputer
"This is not anything they're going to sit on; this will move," Rapp said.
Industry Association, once known as the Association of Better Computer Dealers. The organization is based in Schaumburg, Ill.
"In a lot of university towns it is not uncommon to find signs on computer stores where they are being sold."
The reason, he explained, is that in most on-campus sales only computer hardware is sold, and usually no training or service is provided. Students needing information about a purchase go to off-campus retail dealers to ask questions, taking up the sales staff's time. Then the students spend their money on campus.
"In a lot of states, if the effect of this was known, they'd put a stop to it." Whalen said.
Red the state of Wisconsin.
Ray Marnocha, acting vice president for business and finance of the Wisconsin Board of Regents, said that last fall Wisconsin Regents began requiring all state schools taking part in computer manufacturers' on-campus discount sales programs to include retail dealers.
The policy was instituted in response to complaints from retail dealers. Wisconsin schools are required to work with any retail dealers within a one-hour drive from campus.
Wisconsin students wanting to buy a computer at a discount may place an order through their school, but their checks are made out to the computer manufacturer, not the university. The university sends the order and check to the manufacturer, who, in turn, delivers the selected equipment to the participating dealers chosen by the students, where the students pick up their purchase.
Proposal to pay college athletes dies in Nebraska
The Associated Press
LINCOLN, Neb. — Gov. Kay Orr veted yesterday a measure which would have allowed University of Nebraska-Lincoln football players to be paid stipends.
The governor returned the bill without her signature to the Clerk of the Legislature. In an accompanying letter, she said she objected to the measure, LB1226, because it violated national College Athletic Association through the enactment of a statute is inappropriate.
The bill, sponsored by Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha, would have provided payment of stipends to UNL football players upon the adoption by four Big Eight states of laws treating their football players as employees.
The bill was passed Friday, the last day of the 1988 legislative session, on a 26-23 vote. It came on a vote to reconsider after falling one vote short the day before.
In past years, lawmakers rejected Chambers' idea, arguing that paying players would leave the players ineligible and the program disqualified under NCAA rules.
By stepping on previously protected NCAA turf, Chambers said that he hoped to pressure the NCAA into "liberalizing its rules." The bill, he stressed, was not meant to cause the university or its football program a problem.
In her veto message, Orr said, "Now that the Legislature has registered its strong concern over the plight of student athletes and the inflexibility and complexity of the NCAA regulations, it is important that the university express itself clear on this issue.
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