Jackson rebounds Darnell Jackson took on a full load of family problems early in his career. Now he's ready for intense basketball. 1B
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 16,2007 WWW.KANSAN.COM VOL.117 ISSUE 98
KANSAS
THE STUDENT VOICE SINCE 1904
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
PAGE 1A
student fee vote
The lack of voter turnout canceled the KU on Wheels referendum. The referendum would have allowed for 30
6A $ ^{new buses.} $
The 'Hawks will play their first home game at 3 p.m. Sunday 3B
opinion
After being associated with words like "backward" and "laughingstock," Kansas is coming back by re-instating evolution in school curricula
7B
women's basketball
It's been six years since the Jayhawks beat the Wildcats. Sharita Smith and company look to change that.
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index
Classifieds...5A
Crossword...7B
Horoscopes...7B
Dpinion...7A
Sports...1B
Sudoku...7B
Playing it safe
Sarah Leonard/KANSAN
All contents, unless stated otherwise,
© 2007 The University Daily Kansan
>> STUDENT SUCCESS
Alyssa Bueckner, Lawrence sophomore, and Mikayla McAtee, West Des Moines, Iowa, senior, race to see who could put a condom on the fastest while wearing drunk goggles. The Wellness Resource Center, part of Student Health Services, sponsored "Sexual Responsibility Week by handing out safer-sex kits and educating students about sexually transmitted infections." It had a booth set up in the Kansas University on Thursday where students could win prizes and free stuff, such as safe-sex kits, coasters and towels.
Women lead GPA, enrollment stats
BY NATHAN GILL
"There are people that are worried that men are falling behind." Wolf
Lisa Wolf Wendel, professor of education, sad women in general were more likely to graduate from high school, go to college and graduate with higher GPA's than men.
Women at the University of Kansas are graduating faster and with higher grade point averages than men.
According to University data, women's GPAs have been about 2. GPA points higher than men's since at least 1996. The percentage of women graduating in four, five and six years has exceeded that of men since 1985, according to the most recent University data.
Wendel said.
Wolf-Wendel said women were the majority of students in almost every academic area except mathematics, engineering and the physical sciences. She said some American universities had female-student populations near 70 percent.
Wolf-Wendel said she didn't know exactly why women were outperforming men. She said some have argued that K-12 education was not conducive for men because the teachers were women. This is just one of many possible answers.
"I do think that this is an indication that we need to be actively recruiting men." Wolf Wendel said.
Frank DeSalvo, associate vice prov for student success, said the
GPAs at KU by Gender
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001
Males 2.75 2.76 2.78 2.79 2.80 2.83
Females 2.92 2.93 2.95 3.00 3.03 3.06
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006
Males 2.85 2.87 2.81 2.78 2.81
Females 3.07 3.06 3.04 3.00 3.03
DeSalvo said students generally
"Gender differences are certainly an important factor," DeSalvo said. "We want to have a diverse campus that reflects the nation and the world."
the academic split between men and women at the University, but that the Office of the Vice Provost for Student Success was planning a project that might provide more information.
gender disparity was a complicated situation.
DeSalvo said he wasn't aware of
SEE GENDER ON PAGE 3A
>> LAWRENCE REGISTRY
Domestic partner bill hearing opens up
BY MATT ERICKSON
The bills first hearing in the House Federal and State Affairs committee took place Thursday.
A bill in the state House of Representatives would stop Lawrence from creating a city domestic-partner registry.
The bill, submitted by Rep. Lance Kinzer (R-Olathe), would forbid cities and counties from recognizing "any domestic-partner relationship not recognized under state law"
A registry would allow domestic same-sex couples and unmarried, domestic, opposite-sex couples to formally document their relationships, but it would provide no legal rights.
Last month, a majority of the city commission supported the idea of a domestic-partner registry.
Kinzer said that domestic-relationship law should be created at the state level, and he didn't support domestic-partner registries in general. He said Lawrence's discussion of a registry prompted his creation of the bill.
"If you look at the Lawrence bill in particular, I just question what is the public-policy goal that's attempting to be achieved," Kinzer said.
Dennis "Boog" Highberger, city commissioner, said he would support a statewide effort to document domestic-partner relationships, but he said no statewide measure was likely.
"We should have the freedom to take care of the needs of our citizens on a local level". Highberger said.
Highberger said a registry would allow couples to publicly acknowledge their relationships and to provide documentation to employers that offer benefits like health insurance to domestic partners of employees.
Kinzer said that government would be overstepping its bounds to create a policy tailored to private companies' rules. He said most companies asking for documentation of domestic relationships were probably not sincere in their offers for benefits.
"I think that typically is a cop-out on the part of those companies that
>> ATHLETICS DEPARTMENT
SEE REGISTRY ON PAGE 3A
BY KYLE CARTER
Men's basketball tickets frequently go unclaimed
Hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of tickets in the student section at Allen Fieldhouse go unclaimed at men's basketball games.
Even at the Kansas State game, which had the second highest student attendance of the season, more than 500 seats reserved for students were either sold to the general public or left empty because students did not show up to the game.
Associate Athletics Director lim Marchiony said sometimes not all 4,000 student tickets were redeemed during the three day ticket pick up. When that happened, he said the ticket office sold some of the unclaimed student tickets as general admission. He said they waited until two hours before the game started and after all camp groups were let into the game to sell the seats that students redeemed but had left empty.
"We just eyeball the situation as
the place fills up," he said.
Marchiony said that many of the seats were filled by family members of students who bought general admission tickets and sat in the student section.
In 2005 the Athletics Department cut student tickets by 300. In 1990 the student section consisted of more than 7,000 seats. The Athletics Department sold a large portion of those seats to the other fans after they went unsold when offered to students. Bob Frederick, athletics director at the time, often said he wanted to fill 45 percent of the fieldhouse with students. At four games this year, students took up less than 10 percent of the seats available in the entire fieldhouse.
George Regan, Shawnee senior, said he made the commitment to camp out and attend games because he wanted to attend as many games as possible while he still had the opportunity to buy tickets at student prices.
Student attendance at games
The student attendance numbers for the 2006-07 basketball season are below.
Washburn: 2,806
Emporia State: 1,901
Northern Arizona: 3,008
Oral Roberts: 2,365
Towson: 1,805
Tennessee State: 1,501
Dartmouth: 1,629
"My parents and my uncle pay for season tickets and they put money into the Williams Fund and they still can't get as good of seats as we can with a camp group," he said.
USCj 2,568
Winston-Salem: 1,129
Boston College: 2,776
Detroit: 1,813
Rhode Island: 1,343
Oklahoma State: 2,319
Missouri: 2,999
Colorado: 2,959
Texas A&M: 3,626
Kansas State: 3,477
Source: Kansas Athletics
Regan said he preterred attending games to watching them on TV because of the environment at the fieldhouse.
"It's the way many things are going in normal everyday life, you pay for gas on a card, you get food at the Burge that way. It's just the way things are going," he said.
"It feels like you can have an impact on the game" he said.
Starting two seasons ago, student tickets switched from actual paper tickets to electronic tickets redeemed on KUIDs.
Marchiony said one reason for the switch was to curb ticket scalping. He said students initially complained about the $2.50 fee to transfer tickets from one ID to another but that he hadn't heard much negative feedback since the fee was eliminated.
Regan agreed that the lack of paper tickets was not a problem. He said friends without tickets found someone who wasn't attending and used their 1D to get in.
Though attendance lagged at some games against lesser-known teams and during winter break, the past home games had the highest student attendance of the season.
Marchiony said despite the occasionally low numbers, students needn't worry about losing more seats any time soon.
"There's absolutely no chance that the number of student seats will be reduced," he said.
Kansan staff writer Kyle Carter can be contacted at kcarter@kansan. com.
Edited by Trevan McGee
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