JACKSONVILLE JETTING BACK
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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Friday December 4,1987 Vol.98,No.72
published since 1889 by the students of the University of Kansas
(USPS 650-640)
Black enrollment drop at KU is part of trend
By MARK TILFORD Staff writer
Staff writer
While overall enrollment continues to increase at the University of Kansas, black student enrollment has decreased 9 percent from last fall and 15 percent from the fall of 1981. University of Kansas figures show
Black student enrollment is at 716 students this semester.
Blacks now make up 2.7 percent of the University's overall enrollment. that
The figures reflect students enrolled at the Lawrence campus, the Capitol Complex in Topeka and the Regents Center in Overland where they do not include students at the medical centers in Kansas City or Wichita.
Since last fall, overall KU enrollment has increased by 2.4 percent.
"It's significant," said Marshall Jackson, assistant director of admissions at KU. "That's a big drop. I wasn't expecting that big of a drop."
Jackson said he didn't think most of the officials had taken real notice of the attack.
The problem, he said, reflects a national trend of decreasing black student enrollment.
But the problem not been ignored, according to other KU offi-
"Have we taken cognizance of it? You bet we've taken cognizance of it," said David Ambler, vice chancellor for student affairs.
Ambler said the current economy and federal budget were part of the problem.
For example, two-thirds of a student's financial aid package in the past often comprised grants and scholarships, which do not have to be paid back. Now two-thirds of a financial aid package often comes from
loans and work. Ambler said.
That greater financial burden puts more of a strain on minority students. Ambler said.
One change designed to help minority students, Ambler said, has been to change the immediate supervisor of the office of minority affairs. The director now reports directly to Ambler's office. That puts the office more in touch with student concerns, Ambler said.
The office previously reported to the office of the executive vice chancellor.
Administrators also are working to find a new director of minority affairs, Vernell Spearman, the director, is stepping down for personal reasons and will be announced by the beginning of the spring semester. Ambler said.
"It is a very tragic thing," Spearman said of the enrollment drot. "I
was not expecting a drop that large. It means that we must certainly increase our recruiting efforts."
Also, Ambler said, a new admissions staff member recently has been placed at the Regents Center to help with recruiting students from the Kansas City area.
Chancellor Gene A. Budig and Executive Vice Chancellor Judith Ramaley are looking closely at the decrease, Ambler said.
"It doesn't come as too much of a shock, but it doesn't lessen the worry and anxiety."
Other people have other reasons for KU's decline.
Richard Lee, director of KU Supportive Educational Services, said that tighter out-of-state admissions requirements also were discouraging blacks from coming to KU.
"The parents of a black student approached me at a meeting the
other day and asked, 'Is KU working to the elimination of black students?'
Brian Dougherty, Black Student Union president, said the atmosphere of an predominantly white campus often gave black students a reason not to come to KU.
Ambler said that expanding KU's orientation program to include programs emphasizing cultural diversity was one of the steps the University took.
"It's a continuing concern to the University." Ambler said.
Concern about black enrollment also exists at KU's five peer institutions.
See ENROLL, p. 6, col. 1
State may hire staff to help with health plan
Peaceful ending in Atlanta
Cubans inmates release hostages
The Associated Press
Hostages immediately rushed out of the U.S. Penitentiary through the room in which the eight-point agreement was signed shortly after 1 a.m.
ATLANTA — Cuban inmates freed their 89 hostages early today, peacefully ending an 11-day prison uprising under an agreement that provides a moratorium on deportations of 3,800 Mariel detainees nationwide.
it and immunity from prosecu- for damage at the prison during inoting.
The first to taste freedom was Basil T. "Buddy" Levens, a 44-year-old prison hospital administrator, who said it "feels great." He rushed into the arms of 11 waiting relatives.
The two-page agreement is similar in most provisions to one that ended a siege by Cuban inmates in Louisiana on Sunday.
Both granted permission for some to go to any third country willing to accept them, a guarantee of medical treatment for those inmates who
e Atlanta siege, one of the last prison uprisings in U.S. ary, left one prisoner dead and buildings gutted.
wever, only the Atlanta agree- mentions U.S. Attorneyral Edwin Meee III's proposed atorium on deportations of ms who came to the United as in the 1980 Mariel boatlit.
the ceremony, one of the in-ssions at the table had wrape- himself in the Cuban and african flags. The group placed a silver crucifix on the table them.
e. others in the room began to
ter the agreement was read in ish and then English and signed, nmates shook hands with Aux-1 Bishop Agustin Roman, the n-born prelate who helped end tandoff at Oakdale, La., but did take part in the Atlanta tensions.
e freed hostages shook hands Cuban inmates and hugged al officials as they streamed a short hallway line by SWAT members. Outside, vans waited the men to the prison en's house
2 hostages were to be given cal evaluations.
e hostage, Ellison McKnight,
Cable News Network after the
il that it was "just long, hard,
what, when. It is too of thing.
was stressful but not painful,
didn't mistreat us. They were
good to us. They wanted to
sure we stayed alive. They
that if we stayed alive, they
aid," McKnight said.
atives of the hostages, wearing w i b ribbons and carrying us, had packed into a small prison to wait for their ones.
rily after the agreement was
vied Thursday afternoon, cheer-
taintes waved and sang the
national anthem on the roof at
stone prison. "Tomorrow
we will go home." the inmates
standoff here and one that endday in Louisiana had threatenunravel an agreement between United States and Cuba to deport of those imprisoned after arriving the Mariel boatload of 1980.
oncert
e said.
that Lawrence citizens spers a traditional part of
one crowds last year, I'd community, Vespers is a r holiday season," he said. president of Sigma Nu fraternity had a semi-forar on Vespers day.
ets here before Vespers
*over to Hoch*, *Erickson*
$, we have a real nice
izz band plays through the
Jick, Shawne senior, said
urtiers have had to trek
at least once in recent
ch.
rough some kind of bad
brickwall said "The walk in,
sleet or snow."