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Kansan
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS Tuesday, April 17, 2001
Sports: ESPN's Dick Schaap visited Lawrence Thursday to autograph books.
SEE PAGE 1B
Inside: A labrador helps a Templin Hall resident assistant who is paralyzed for life.
SEE PAGE 3A
(USPS 650-640) VOL.111 NO.123 For comments, contact Lori O'Toole or Mindie Miller at 864-4810 or editor@kansan.com
WWW.KANSAN.COM
Chancellor swaps duties with student
By Amanda Beglin
writer@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
Loud sounds of coughs and sneezes echoed around the Budig Hall auditorium as he listened to a professor talk about the role of religion in modern culture.
They should hand out cough drops at the beginning of class, thought Chancellor Robert Hemenway as he sat in the first of his two classes yesterday.
Hemenway swapped his authority to join the majority yesterday when he went to classes as a student, while Lane Bellan, Missouri City, Texas, freshman, attended meetings as the chancellor.
The switch was made as part of a Lambda Sigma Sophomore Honor Society fund-raiser to benefit the Jubilee Cafe, a Lawrence community group that serves breakfast to homeless and needy residents.
"Then I found a Post-it note on my door that said I'd won," he said. "I didn't believe it. I thought it was a joke so I checked my e-mail, and sure enough."
Bellan was selected from a pool of students who had purchased $1 raffle tickets to be the chancellor-for-a-day. The drawing raised $312 for the cafe.
Bellan said he bought the ticket because he owed his friend a dollar.
Afterward, Hemenway attended Bellan's two morning classes - elements of sociology and math 101.
Hemenway said that although he had been in the Budig Hall auditoriums before, his trip to the sociology class there reminded him of the post-class migration toward the doors.
He had earned a day of waking up earlier than usual, but didn't have to obey the 20-minute-after whistle that signifies the end of classes. Bellan said he woke up at 7 a.m. and presented a $15,000 check — alongside Hemenway — to Habitat for Humanity at the site of the second House that Greeks Built in East Lawrence.
"I got a feel for the larger classrooms," he said. "But when those rooms are full, it takes a while to get out."
The math class didn't jog his memory as much.
"I'll just say that it's very clear that I'm 30 years away from college algebra." Hemenway said.
His math class in Strong Hall was just paces away from the chancellor's office, where Bellan said he spent most of his morning with the office staff and in a meeting about Kansas Union renovations.
"They talked big numbers," he said about the renovations. "I mainly observed. They were talking about the stage and the glass paneling they wanted and they said, 'Does the stage look good?' and I said, 'Yes.'"
After the meetings, Bellan went to his 12:30 p.m. class to write an in-class essav.
And because Hemenway had afternoon meetings scheduled in Kansas City, Mo., the chancellor-for-a-day served only half a day — but that's OK with Bellan.
"They wouldn't let me write it for him." Hemenway said.
"I enjoyed it, but it's a tough job for sure," he said.
Nader: said people need to be unhappy with America's future
Advocate urges student activism
By Cássio Furtado
writer@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
Students are in a unique position to combat corporate dominance, Ralph Nader told a crowd of 1,500 last night at the Lied Center.
The former presidential candidate
Edited by Doug Pacey
and consumer advocate said students were at the peak of their idealism and had higher expectations than average citizens.
Nadar said Americans should be proud of what their country had achieved so far, but needed to be unsatisfied with its future.
"We all grew up corporate. Let's face it." he said.
"That's patriotism," he said.
Nader said the United States didn't have an universal health system, sick leave, maternity leave or four weeks of paid vacation like countries in Western Europe have.
"We're 17th in infant mortality and 37th in health care," he said.
He said corporations distorted research priorities in fields such as genetic engineering and biotechnology to accomplish their commercial
interests, many times launching products before they were ready to be commercialized.
"Commercial values prevail over academic values," Nader said. "And it often hurts people."
He said proof of that claim was found in the confidentiality of contracts between corporations and professors performing research. Nader said such contracts allowed researchers to keep their projects
See NADER on page 3A
Water from the Kansas River rushed in and flooded north Second Street at the crest of the 1951 flood, and many North Lawrence residents fled in boats. The building pictured on the left is now Johnny's Tavern, 401 N. Second St. All roads into and out of Lawrence were impassable and the city was isolated until the waters receded. Photo courtesy of the Kansas Collection
Lawrence residents remember Kansas' greatest disaster
Story by Erin Adamson, Kansan staff writer
Bob Zimmerman will never forget that night 50 years ago. Bathed in sweat, he and a crew of local volunteers and Navy personnel from the National Guard frantically plied sandbags on the Union Pacific railroad tracks that served as the levee protecting North Lawrence from the swollen Kansas River.
"To the bus," the National Guard captain suddenly ordered. The sailors quickly boarded the bus and drove away. Zimmerman looked
down and saw floodwaters rushing between the railroad tracks beneath his feet.
"We got the hell out," Zimmerman said.
Soon, murky brown Kansas River water rushed into second story windows along Locust Street. Fish swam past the building that now houses Johnny's Bar, past the concrete teepees that barely peeked above the water at the junctions of Highways 24 and 40. Those watching from campus on Mount Oread would soon
see a vast sea inundate everything north of the river until all they could see of North Lawrence were the triangular tips of houses and green treetops sticking out of the water.
Fifty years ago, at midnight on Friday, July 13, 1951, the Kansas River crested at 30.42 feet and poured over the sand-bagged levee to cover North Lawrence with dirty water. The flood — perhaps the greatest natural disaster in the history of Kansas — cost the state $100 billion, inspired construction of
Clinton and Perry Lakes to contain future floodwater and garnered political support for then-President Harry Truman's national flood control system.
In 1993, these same reservoirs and levees in the Kansas River basin prevented flooding from recreating the epic devastation of the 1951 flood. However, the reservoirs, at capacity in 1993, are steadily filling with silt and now hold less water than they did when they were constructed. As the reservoirs are becoming less effective in controlling flooding, the city continues to allow developers to build in the floodplain. Recently, the City Commission annexed floodplain into North Lawrence at the request of a developer who is building condominiums in an area where a race track and entertainment park were completely swept away in the 1951 flood.
Geologists warn that such catastrophic floods can and will happen again.
See RAGING on page GA
Gay rights supporters rally to prevent homophobia
Demonstration a reaction to recent anti-gay speech
By Brandon Stinnett writer@kansan.com Kansan staff writer
Unseasonably cool weather did little to smother the enthusiasm of more than 25 gay and lesbian rights supporters who staged a peaceful rally yesterday in front of Wescoe Hall.
Supporters, primarily members of Queers and Allies and the KU Pro-choice Coalition, held signs and recited chants in response to an anti-gay message written last week in Lewis Hall.
The words "AIDS kills fags dead" were written in red permanent marker on the door of Curtis Dixon and Galen Stoeber's seventh-floor room. Stoeber, Garden City sophomore, said the incident was indicative of the intolerance shown by some students at the University and demonstrated an urgent need for change.
"We are here to try and prevent this stuff from happening again and to educate people about homosexuality and how we're not as strange as people say we are," he said.
"I was walking to my office," said Robinson, a Lawrence doctoral student in sociology. "It was late at night and two guys in a white pickup drove by and the window was down, and the passenger guy called me a faggot, and I got really angry."
The Lewis Hall incident wasn't an isolated one. Christine Robinson, a Queers and Allies member, became the victim of student intolerance last week.
Robinson chased after the two men, who parked the truck in a nearby parking lot, and verbally chastised them.
"I let them know that I am proud to be a
lesbian and that they are cowards for their action," she said. "I hope that they would think twice before doing that to someone again."
Despite this incident, Robinson said people in Lawrence generally were receptive and open to gay and lesbian lifestyles.
"I see far more support than intolerance," she said. "People who are intolerant are afraid to be honest about it, and I think the general climate at KU is one of support, and where intolerance and ignorance exist, they come out in very cowardly forms."
Robinson wouldn't speculate on why people resort to hate crimes and insults to voice their opinions, but Stoeber had an idea.
"A lot of times people just aren't OK with their sexuality," Stoeber said. "Other times people have just grown up holding certain views because of their family."
He said he hoped rallies such as the one yesterday would help stop the spread of intolerance on campus.
"We just don't want the hate crimes to happen and with educating people, at least we've done something," Stoeber said.
Megan Murphy, Leawood sophomore and member of the KU Pro-choice Coalition, said the group attended the rally in support of the University's gay and lesbian community.
Queers and Allies is sponsoring Pride Week this week on campus, but the group did not sponsor the rally.
"We're hoping we can help them educate the campus about actions that are happening on campus regarding hate, regarding gay bashing, and we're also hoping that we can spread the word about women's choice's importance."
- Edited by Ashley Rock
Renee Horinek, Topela sophomore, participates in a speak out on Wescoe beach. Yesterday students protested Craig Avery, a KU student who was arrested in connection with the anti-gay graffiti found on a door in Lewis Hall last week. Photo By Kyle Quillen/KANSAN