Tuesday February 2,1988
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Published since 1889 by the students of the University of Kansas
Vol. 98, No. 87 (USPS 650-640)
Pat Greene, right, consoles Joan Arnold as she describes her 30-year-old son's ordeal with AIDS Greene and Arnold were on a panel that spoke last night in Woodruff Auditorium about life with AIDS
Panel tells of AIDS horrors
By James Buckman
Joan Arnold's son handed a box of condoms to his younger brother recently.
Recently.
"He said, 'Use them. You don't want this.'" she said.
Arnold's oldest son has AIDS.
Arnold was one of seven people from the Good Samaritan Project of Kansas City, Mo., who told about 300 people last night in Woodruff Auditorium about problems facing people with acquired immune deficiency syndrome.
Two of the seven panelists had AIDS. Most had lost a close relative to the disease. All had a story about the hell that AIDS had put them through.
The first panel member to speak delivered a short message to the crowd.
"My name is Mark Sweetland and I have AIDS," he said.
Sweetland spoke of how the disease had affected him.
"AIDS has been a very positive aspect of my life," he said. "It has brought me closer to my family and friends. I am now able to face things in my life that I had been ignoring."
But Sweetland's story, like the others, was one of harsh realities.
"I was fired from my job over the telephone while I was still in the hospital," he said. "I was told simply that I was not allowed to return to work because of the fears of the other employees."
Pat Greene, another member of the panel, did not have the disease but had a son who died of it. She now works with the project, which was created two and a half years ago as a forum to reach out to those with AIDS and to inform people about the disease.
She said she began working with the project because of the effect her son's death had on her.
tell," she said. "It's not easy to lose a child."
"I don't want other parents to have to go through what we went through," she said. "It's not pleasant to watch your child fade before your eyes."
"Mine is not an easy story to
Kathy, 23, declined to give her last name. She said she found out she had the disease while trying to get into the army. She contracted AIDS through limited heterosexual contact.
For audience member Mike Wetter,topea senior,the personal testimonies of the members of the nanel were educational.
"If it can happen to me, it can happen to you," she told the audience.
"I had never seen people with AIDS except on TV," he said.
Water system unfit may fail firefighters
No improvements expected until 1989
Bv Donna Stokes
Kansan staff writer
Even with the addition of a new fire hydrant on campus last week, KU might have problems extinguishing a major fire in some campus buildings with its current water system, the Lawrence fire chief said yesterday.
"At this point there could be some fire that may occur where property protection would not be as good or as fast as it would be if the system was upgraded," said Fire Chief Jim Mcswain.
Last week, the city added a fire hydrant in front of Stauffer-Flint Hall capable of pumping 2,000 gallons of water a minute.
The new hydrant would not be able to provide the type of fire protection that should be available for the size of buildings and number of people at KU. McSwain said.
McSwain's concerns echo the findings of a 1986 study that indicated that KU's current water system needed to be updated.
Major improvements to KU water distribution systems have not been made since 1965, even though approximately 2.2 million square feet of new facilities have been built on the main campus, the study said.
Black and Veatch, a Kansas City engineering firm that is designing an improved system for KU, completed the 1986 study.
It showed that the capacity of the existing system was inadequate to provide the required fire flows and that water main improvements were necessary to increase the system capability to include new buildings
Connections for water service to these facilities were made to the existing system.
James Modig, KU director of facilities planning, said, "Improvements are becoming critical now, even more as we continue to add buildings
'A.
At this point there could be some fire that may occur where property protection would not be as good or as fast as it would be if the system was upgraded.
Jim McSwain Lawrence fire chief
such as the science library."
Although facilities planning will ask for money next year to update KU's current system, the money would not become available until 1989.
Richard Perkins, associate director of utilities and facilities operations said, "The major problem we have now is having the capacity to handle water flow under extreme conditions. There are no immediate problems due to water pressure levels.
"The system we have now is essentially the system that was put in when the University was built," he said. "We have needed to update for a while."
McSwan said. "The system proposed in the report would provide an adequate level of protection for the weak areas of campus."
Modig said that the weakest areas of campus were KU's multiple story buildings at the top of Mount Oread. Because water has to be pumped up the hill, water pressure is lowest in those places.
The proposal by Black and Veatch to update water flow is given in increments, Modig said. The four stages would allow the University to
pick up improvements in smaller dollar amounts, he said.
The engineering group identified what they saw as problems in KU's system, then recommended several ways they could improve it.
One problem identified by the group was the variety of water pressure levels at different elevations on campus. The wide variation in the topography within KU's system causes low water pressure in high elevation areas and high water pressure in low elevation areas.
To equalize pressure on campus, the group proposes to separate the system into two service levels, with the boundary at an elevation of 970 ft., by constructing a pressure reducing station and by closing selected valves.
The group also said a new 16-inch supply main was required to provide increased flow capacity and supply reliability to the power plant pumping station.
New mains would be provided in each of the proposed stages. The stages indicate the relative importance of certain mains in terms of providing fire flows to the largest areas of campus, and to providing a priority schedule for planning processes.
The entire proposal, estimated at 1986 prices, is more than $1.1 million and would include a new supply main, distribution mains split into four stages, a pressure reducing system and a device to increase pumping efficiency.
Law students volunteer time to aid Cubans
Stage one of the plan will be included in the budget proposal for fiscal year 1990, which must be approved by the Board of Regents, said Allen Wiechert, director of facilities planning.
It would include four new water mills at an estimated cost of $280,000.
Kansan staff writer
About 125 KU law students will represent Cuban prisoners held in the Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary at their release hearings, which begin Monday.
By Dayana Yochim
During the hearings, the INS will determine whether the Cubans pose a criminal threat to society and
whether they should continue to be detained, be released or be deported back to Cuba.
The Coalition to Support Cuban Detainees recruited the law students in January. The organization has vocally supported the 3,800 Cuban prisoners that were involved in December prison riots in Oakdale, La., and Atlanta. About 350 of those prisoners remain in Leavenworth.
The students have been organized by a Georgia-based coalition to make sure the detainees are dealt with fairly by the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
The coalition recruited a total of 200 law students from Washburn University in Topeka, the University of Missouri-Kansas City and the
University of Kansas, and held a training session in January to prepare them for the hearings, which will be held in Leavenworth.
Dwaine Hemphill, second-year law student and local coordinator of the project, said the response to the project was unusually high.
"This is all voluntary," Hemphill said. "Law students have few opportunities to apply what they have learned to real situations."
Hemphill said that the INS hearings would last at least two months and that he was encouraging law
students and the public to help represent the detainees.
"Even if we can't help the detainees, we can make sure the INS follows the guidelines that are set up." Hemphill said.
Carla Dudek, co-coordinator of the national coalition, said her group sought law students because lawyers were not coming forward to help the Cubans. She said law schools, where clinical programs were used, were ideal for this type of work.
"It's hard to say what practical results this will have, but we must
ensure that what limited rights the detainees have are observed by the INS." Dudek said.
She said that, ideally, the coalition would like to see immigration attorneys at each hearing, but given the time and resources, that was not possible.
David Gottlieb, professor of law,
said that the program at the law
school was administered and organized
entirely by students.
"This is a volunteer effort by law students to provide a service," Gottlieb said. "It's not a law school
course, and there is no formal faculty involvement."
Gottieb spoke at a training session sponsored by the students last month. He spoke about prison procedures and told the students what to expect in a maximum-security prison.
"They will gain some insight into the problems of the Cubans, experience the environment of a maximum-security institution and work briefly on the administration process," Gottlieb said.
Books returned late cause library pileup
Extra workers called on to reshelve
By Elaine Woodford
Kansan staff writer
Watson Library workers have been scrambling to resolve thousands of backed-up books, and their hard work will soon pay off, said Cynthia Shively, library assistant.
Watson Library employees have been concentrating this week on reducing the number of returned books that haven't been shelved. Library officials said part of the backlog was caused by an estimated return of 45,000 books in December.
Shively said the books were reshelved according to the due date. Books with the oldest due dates went back on the shelves first. No preference is given to books requested for reserve status.
"We should have all the books reshelved within ten days to two years."
Shively said although she would probably overspend her budget, she had found several ways to request extra workers.
She did not estimate how many books remained to be shelved.
Survey recently sent out a letter to all the students listed with the work-study program to see if they would be interested in working part-time
"I overspent last year anyway, but other departments should be under budget enough to make for up the excess." she said.
reshelving books.
Still, professors might run into trouble trying to request books to be put on reserve for their classes. Bayliss Harsh, library assistant in reserve books, said that if a book still was waiting to be shelved, the reserve department might not be able to find it.
"I have also requisitioned workers from other departments to work reshuling books. We've made a lot of progress," she said.
Karen Ohnemus, graduate student in communication, said she had requested a book last December for a report due in one of her communication classes.
Students requesting books to be recalled also have had to deal with the book jam.
She still hasn't heard from the library about the book.
Despite the efforts of the library staff, several students expressed their concern about future problems that might affect the library system.
"I turned in the report anyway," she said.
Lauren Huang, Goodland junior, said, "It's hard to believe that the library doesn't have a better system of penalizing students who don't return books on time and a more organized system for reshelting the books once they are returned."
Going up
Workmen for R.D. Andersen Construction Co., Inc. begin constructing the elevator walls for the $13.9 million science library, located southeast of Hoch Auditorium. The library, which is expected to be
complete by the spring of 1990, is on schedule, according to Robert C. Johnson, site superintendent for the company. The library will house the University's science and technological collections