Kansan
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THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS Wednesday, April 4.2001
of 54
Sports: Improved hitting and team chemistry are helping the softball team climb in the Big 12.
SEE PAGE 1B
(USPS 650-640) • VOL.111 NO.116
Inside: Native Americans discuss citizenship issues at diversity forum.
For comments, contact Lori O'Toole or Mindie Miller at 864-4810 or editor@kansan.com
SEE PAGE 3A
WWW.KANSAN.COM
Online grades make access quick, easy for students
By Cassio Furtado
writer @kanson.com
Kansas staff writer
KU students will be able to access their grades on the Web instead of receiving them through regular mail starting this May.
University Registrar Richard Morrell announced the change yesterday in an email to students.
The new system will allow students to access their grades less than 24 hours after professors give them to the registrar. The grades will be posted no later than Monday, May 21, the last day for faculty members to submit students' grades to the registrar.
He said that about 10 percent of students wouldn't register their summer addresses with the Office of the University Registrar, causing their paper grade reports to be returned to the University.
Morrell also said that online grades would eliminate the possibility of fraud.
"E-mailing grades wasn't a secure way of reporting grades," he said.
The University proposed e-mailing grades last semester but later withdrew the idea because of security concerns.
Chase Cookson, Wichita freshman, said both e-mail and online grades were secure.
"I don't see a security problem," he said. "I don't see why anyone would have any problem with that."
But Cookson said he preferred online grade reports to receiving a report card in the mail.
"It's easier and faster than mailing it to me," he said.
Morrell said that unlike printed grade reports, online grades couldn't be altered or viewed by anyone else besides the student.
He said that in informal conversations he had with students, they had voiced two concerns.
Students wanted to have the option to continue to receive printed grade reports, Morrell said, and they also wanted the online grade reports to look official, so they could show them to employers and insurance companies, which require current grades for premium discounts.
Students who wish to receive printed reports should give the Office of the University Registrar a self-addressed, stamped envelope to receive the printed grade report.
Grades will be posted at www.grades.ku.edu, which contains an online replica of the printed report, Morrell said. That would make it look official. he said.
Tony Monley, Overland Park junior, said he thought grades should be available as soon as possible.
"It makes sense to go to a Web site and have a password." Monley said. "You don't know what people can do with e-mail."
Students will need a KU Online ID to access their grades.
Those who have an Exchange account already have the ID. Students who don't have an Exchange account can set one up at www.ku.edu/computing/services.
— Edited by Brandy Straw
E-GRADES
Grades for the spring semester will be available at www.grades.ku.edu
Students can get an online ID to access their grades at www.ku.edu/computing/services
Call locates missing student
Reasons unclear for disappearance
By Lauren Brandenburg
writer@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
Cayce Thomasson, a Prairie Village senior who had been missing since March 21, was found yesterday morning after she called her mother from a Texaco station near Clinton Lake, said Sgt. Mike Pattrick of the Lawrence Police Department.
Patrick said Thomasson's mother kept her on the phone and called police from another phone, and a sheriff's deputy picked Thomasson up.
Pattrick said Thomasson was then taken to Lawrence Memorial Hospital
for examination. A nursing supervisor said Thomasson had been treated and released.
Patrick said she appeared to be OK, but he could not say where Thomasson had been or how she had disappeared. He said the investigation into Thomasson's disappearance would continue. The entire detective division had been assigned to the case yesterday morning, Patrick said. Before
Thomasson: found after missing since March 21
Thomasson was found, Sheriff Rick Trapp said the sheriff's department was working on ways they could help the police.
Richard Gostautas, Lawrence graduate student, who visited Cayce yesterday afternoon, said she was out of the hospital and was doing well but was pretty shaken up, confused and scared, as one could expect.
"She's glad to be amongst friends and family, and we're glad to have her back," Gostautas said.
He said yesterday's visit lasted about 10 to 15 minutes because Thomasson was so tired.
He said he did not know whether Thomasson had been on her way to or from Marvin Hall when she disappeared, as friends and family had thought.
Gostautas said Thomasson did not remember "a whole lot" but that was understandable.
"That's why police want to give her time with family and friends," he said.
As an architecture student, Thomasson
frequently worked on assignments in the Marvin Hall studio. After she had been sick and missed classes the week before spring break, Thomasson wanted to catch up on schoolwork during the break, friends and family had said. When she did not answer her phone after Wednesday, her mother and friends were not initially concerned because she was often in the studio. But when she did not return the calls, her friends and family became alarmed, and her family went to the police.
Gostautas said Thomasson's family wanted to thank people for helping in their daughter's disanearance.
Student senate debates
"Even though they are declining interviews considering what they've gone through, they want to thank everyone for their help — the media, the architecture students and friends," Gostautas said. "They are deeply grateful."
Coalitions debate issues
Edited by Joshua Richards
Minority recruitment, lobbying among topics
By Brooke Hesler
writer@kansan.com
Kansas staff writer
Minority recruitment and retention, voter apathy and lobbying in Topeka were all hot topics last night as candidates for student body president and vice president faced off in front of a crowd of about 100 for the first of two scheduled debates.
Jessica Bankston, VOICE presidential candidate, said her coalition would lobby the state legislature heavily in the fall for the reinstatement of the two-for-one technology fee. Students now pay $1 per credit hour they are enrolled in while the state doubles that, paying $2 per credit hour. The fee was not continued by the state legislature for next year.
Bankston, who is director of the Student Legislative Awareness Board, said that although the University lobbied the legislature, it was also important that Student Senate lobby.
"Student issues are different from University issues." Bankston said.
During opening remarks, Justin Mills, Delta Force presidential candidate, called for protests at the Capitol about University budget cuts. Kyle Browning, Delta Force vice presidential candidate, called Bankston's focus as legislative director misguided. He said SLAB needed make students more aware of legislation.
VOICE presidential candidate Jessica Bankston criticizes Delta Force presidential candidate Justin Mills for using parking issues in his party's platform because Bankston said these issues had already been addressed by Student Senate. Bankston was responding to a question posed by Barbara Ballard, associate vice chancellor, on what she disliked most about her opponents campaign. Photo by Selena Jabara/KANSAN
"We need to get away from Topeka." Browning said. "It's not doing anything." Bankston disagreed that her focus had been misguided.
Hunter Harris,VOICE vice-presidential candidate, said lobbying was a more professional approach.
Increasing minority recruitment and retention is a platform issue for both coalitions. Mills said Delta Force would implement a program to educate students about the benefits of having a diverse University community and work to increase the number of minority faculty.
"I'm going to be honest with you, for most students, minority recruitment and retention is not important." Mills said.
Bankston said that because Delta Force ran on the issue of improving minority
recruitment and retention in 1998, the coalition should have done something about it before now.
"Delta Force let you down," Bankston said. "VOICE produces results. If you're going to take credit for the sunshine, you have to take credit for the rain."
said he agreed that Delta Force dropped the ball. He said that was the beauty of having a history voters could refer back to and also pointed out that Delta Force did not win presidential and vice presidential seats that year.
Mills, who did not run for office in 1998.
See BROWNING on page 5A
Bret Robinson, a ninth-grader at Southwest Junior High, congratulates Sue Hack on her victory in the Lawrence City Commission election last night at the Douglas County Courthouse. Hack, who received the most votes of the three winners, is Robinson's civics teacher at SJHS. Photo by Laurie Sisk/KANSAN.
Sue Hack takes first
By Erin Adamson
writer @kansan.com
Kansas writer
By Erin Adamson
Newcomer Sue Hack took first place in the City Commission election last night and incumbents David Dunfield and Marty Kennedy followed in second and third places.
Hack finished with 4,736 votes, Dunfield with 4,579, and Kennedy with 4,221.
Hack said the election had been a new experience for her, and that she was looking forward to starting work on the commission Tuesday, when the new commissioners meet for the first time.
"I'm not a politician," Hack said. "I'm a school teacher who wanted to run for City
Commission."
Hack said the city and the school board had an opportunity to work together to keep Lawrence schools strong in the upcoming years.
Dunfield finished fourth in the city primary elections Feb. 28, but he credits a strong campaign and increased voter interest in the issues for his second-place
"I think quarterly meetings are a start." Hack said of meetings where City Commissioners and School Board members are present. "I appreciate the comments people made about schools being a community asset."
See ZONING on page 5A
Irate student sounds off on parking ticket
By Amanda Beglin
— the Monday of spring break — to work on a formula car in the building. He said he hadn't expected to get ticketed for parking there.
writer@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
It was merely a moment of frustration that caused Paul Sedlacek, Tecumseh sophomore, to do it.
"I probably don't pay my people enough for what they do," Sedlacek said. "It really wears them down. Some people will come in, pay their ticket, and it's no big deal. But if people write the check in front of you and write choice cuss words, we don't have to take it. It's like a direct insult to the cashier."
After signing a $20 check to pay a fine for parking in the wrong zone, Sedlacek scrawled "Parking Nazis" on the memo line and pushed it toward the clerk across the counter.
But that small pink envelope tucked under his windshield wiper sent him into the Parking Department last Thursday with a chip on his shoulder.
"She told me it was a derogatory remark and that they wouldn't accept it," Sedlacek said. "But that's not fair. If I were an atheist and looking at a dollar bill that said 'In God we trust,' I might think it was a derogative remark."
Sedlacek said he had parked in the east Learned Hall parking lot March 19
"I got pissed off and wanted to give my two cents worth," Sedlacek said. "That was my first parking ticket."
"I've been here three years without getting a ticket," Sedlake said. "And, I mean, it's a $20 ticket. What in God's name could cost $20 to park? Especially over spring break."
But Donna Hultine, assistant director of parking, was unsympathetic. She said her employees were as weary of rude student behavior as students were of paying their ticket fines.
Which is what Sledgeck said Hultine told him when he requested to see her, angry about his unaccepted check.
Sedlacke's check was not accepted that day — he didn't change the memo and the cashier didn't budge about not accepting it.
Sedlake said he took the check home, scratched out "Nazis," replaced it with "people," and mailed the check the next day.
Kathy Barnes, customer service representative at Commerce Bank, said there was nothing illegal about the incident.
"It's really up to the merchant if they want to accept the check or not," Barnes said. "But what happened is not illegal on the cashier's part — or his part."
Hultine said cashiers usually asked angry students to rewrite checks that had lewd comments on the memo line.
"This really doesn't happen that often, though," Hultine said. "The majority of people who get tickets pay their tickets. There's only a handful of people who get tickets over and over and get mad about paying them.
"But it's really up to cashiers. Some probably take checks and don't think a thing about it. It's just a way to have control over what happens in their day." — Edited by Megan Phloes
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