SPORTS: The Kansas women's basketball team plays host to the Dial Soap Basketball Championships this weekend. Page 9.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VOL.103,NO.72
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1993
ADVERTISING: 864-4358
(USPS 650-640)
Vespers regains its tradition in Lied Center
Professor of choral music James Ralston conducts the KU Vesper Choir during practice. This year will be Ralston's last to direct the Vespers before he retires at the end of the spring semester. Performances will be at 3:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday at the Lied Center.
New admission charge fewer seats may prevent students from attending annual choral concert
By Shan Schwartz Kansan staff writer
NEWS: 864-4810
The 60th annual Vespers at the University of Kansas is Sunday, and its move to the new Lied Center means a better venue but a higher ticket price for concertgoers.
Vespers was performed in Hoch Auditorium until 1990. The concert moved to Allen Field House in 1991 after a fire gutted Hoch. The opening of the Lied Center begins a new era for Vespers, said Stephen Anderson, chair of the department of music and dance.
Performances will be at 3:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday and will feature the Kansas Brass Quintet, the combined KU Choirs and the University Symphony Orchestra. The audience is invited to sing along with some songs.
When Vespers moved to the field house, the program had to be changed and many of the traditional processions and activities of Vespers were lost.
Anderson said that Hoch Auditorium was cherished by many as a traditional site for Vespers but that its poor acoustics diminished the quality of the concert.
Vespers is directed by James Ralston, professor of music and dance and director of choral music. Ralston has directed Vespers for 27 years, and this year will be his last. Ralston is retiring at the end of the spring semester after being associated with KU's choral music program since his student days in the 1950s.
The move to the center permits some of the tradition to be restored. Anderson said.
"We believe we have made it a much more enriching production." Anderson said.
But the move to the center also prompted a less popular change in Vespers — a $5 ticket price. Admission to Vespers was previously free of charge.
ed the advance ticket sales.
Anderson said several factors necessitat:
One of the factors was crowd management because the Lied Center cannot accommodate as many people as Hoch or the field house, he said.
"In Hoch, two performances could seat over 6,000 people, and in the field house, we think we had upwards of 7,000," Anderson said.
"The Lied Center is a magnificent place, but we can accommodate only 3,000," he said. "There are two concerts there, and that's all we can schedule."
Anderson said advance tickets were necessary to prevent having to turn away large crowds on Sunday.
Anderson said he was sympathetic to those who might not be able to attend Vespers this year because of limited seating or the ticket price. But he said the decision came down to continue the Vespers tradition in a high quality performance hall or cancel it altogether.
The admission fee will cover the costs of the concert — music, programs and advertising — and will benefit scholarship funds for music majors.
"We've always taken a free will offering, but those have been going down," Anderson said. "And it is for the students because some of the money goes to those kids on the stage."
Tickets are available at the box offices at the Lied Center, Murphy Hall and Student Union Activities. Lied Center box office officials said that tickets were still available yesterday afternoon but that they were selling quickly.
"We are very excited about finally being able to do a wonderful production that is very musically and artistically fulfilling." Anderson said.
The 3:30 p.m. Vespers performance will be broadcast live on KANU 91.5 FM. The performances also will be recorded for compact discs and cassette tapes that will be released in April.
nontraditional return
No longer is the college classroom filled with fresh-faced high school grads. In 1991, about 45 percent of university students in the United States were over 25.
Valerie Botranger / KANSAN
For these students, tests and homework often compete with full-time jobs and families.
Tony Jones, Lawrence sophomore, explains childcare at the University to Roxanne Doyle, Hays graduate student. Jones and Doyle were enjoying lunch Tuesday at the Burge Union during a brown bag lunch sponsored by OAKS—Non-Traditional Students Organization.
By Donella Hearne Kansan staff writer
In classrooms across campus there is someone sitting in the front of the room who seems older than the other students. Maybe the tell-tale sign is that she has gray hair or that he is balding.
Jones is one of 4,703 nontraditional students enrolled at the University of Kansas this semester, making up almost 25 percent of the total undergraduate population.
Maybe that student asks more questions or just answers more. Maybe that student is setting the curve.
Tony Jones is a 41-year-old sophomore and one of those students. He is a single father who has come to college in hopes of providing a better life for his 5-year-old daughter.
More and more people are going back
to school. In 1991, about 45 percent of the 10.6 million college students in the United States were over 25, according to the 1991 Guide for Nontraditional Students from the Association of American Publishers.
"I thought I was going to get a million dollars," he said. "I just assumed I would
After graduating from Lawrence High School, Jones said that he wasted a lot of time waiting for his ship to come in.
have a successful life even though I didn't have a plan. I woke up and realized that wasn't going to happen."
He decided that he needed to find a career and that same day he joined the Army. After four years in the service, Jones returned to Lawrence from where he was stationed in Frankfurt, Germany, and started a construction business with
See NONTRADITIONAL, Page 7.
Leadership program dropped
Program's termination could be related to cuts in budget allocations
By David Stewart
Kansan staff writer
The Office of Student Affairs will discontinue the student leadership program next year, said Kelli Zuel, assistant director for the program.
Unless the University finds a replacement position for her by then, she will lose her position as an unclassified University employee. Zuel said.
Zuel said Ann Eversole, director of the Organizations and Activities Center, told Zuel on Nov. 2 that the program, which is based out of the center, and her position will end as of May 17.
Eversole did not confirm whether the program had been cut.
"All the noninstructional units have been reduced by a certain amount, including the Office of Student Affairs." Eversole said. "But I can't comment on that specific program right now."
David Ambler, vice chancellor for student affairs, and Caryl Smith, dean of student life, were unavailable yesterday for comment.
Zuel said she thought the program's termination and her dismissal had come from budget cutbacks.
"I was assured it had nothing to do with my performance," Zuel said. "I knew it was concerning budget cuts."
According to the 1993-94 KU budget, the University allocated $2,663 to the student leadership program for a supply and expense account, along with the salary of Zuel, the program's only assigned employee.
The four-year old student leadership program promoted leadership development among students, enhanced students' job skills and assisted student leaders with their organizations. Zuel said.
Along with developing the annual Blueprint Leadership Conference, held Nov. 13, Zuel said that she worked with students to design and promote the Emerging and Established Leaders Series, a series of workshops designed to help students develop leadership skills.
After learning of the cutback, many students had expressed their surprise and disappointment to Zuel, she said.
"They find it difficult to understand why this happened," Zuel said. "What our office does is help students. They should have had some say in whether this should have been discontinued or not."
John Shoemaker, student body president, said the University had chosen the wrong area to make budget cuts.
"I realize there are a lot of budget cuts going on," Shoemaker said. "But the student leadership program is one of the major reasons I have the position I have."
Shoemaker said that he was shocked and that he did not understand why the Organizations and Activities Center had not consulted students.
"I'm trying to figure out why Student Senate was not consulted," Shoemaker said. "They may have gotten student input but used a different method than usual."
Shoemaker said he thought that the lack of student input was an oversight on the part of the Organizations and Activities Center.
Jamie Cuturbitt, president of the Association of University Residence Halls, said Zuel's role as an adviser for student leaders affected many students, not just participants in the leadership-development programs.
"The program might work with 50 people who work to train 2,000 others," Cuturbth said. "This is a senseless budget cut. It takes away the venue for students who aspire to be leaders on campus."
Hearthemring
The ringing season goes hand-in-hand with the holiday season, and bellringers are out in full force despite the frosty weather.
Page 3.
Professors do not reap book profit royalties
By Kathleen Stolle Kansan staff writer
To Carole Rich, associate professor of journalism, $120 is a small price to pay to avoid any hint of unethical practice.
She could have earned that much in royalties. But instead she doled it out to students in her reporting classes this semester after requiring them to purchase a textbook she wrote.
"I don't feel that I'm here to make money off my students," she said.
Kansan staff writer
Is it unethical for professors to require textbooks they have written for classes they teach?
Some students and professors say no,not if the product is high quality.
Matt Irwin, Overland Park sophomore, is a student in Rich's class.
"I felt really bad taking the money," Irwin said. "I think she earned it because the book's really good."
In fact, Pinches' students can actually recover the cost of the textbook if they are quick enough. The preface of his textbook promises $10 to each student who is the first to find a new error, everything from a misplaced apostrophe to a mathematical error.
"I've got some colleagues who are forceful enough to say, This stinks. We want to use something else," he said.
George Pinches, professor of business.
"I'm sure we've paid out $500 or $600," he said, noting that the publisher helped with that cost.
said because his colleagues helped select his book as a required textbook, he felt justified in using it.
Pinches said he relied on his students to improve the quality of his textbook.
"The ultimate consumer is the student, and what you want is something that addresses the students' needs," Pinches said. "That's why I encourage my students to tell me if there's something wrong or something they don't like because they are
Judy Perkinson, marketing manager for Prentice Hall, a New Jersey-based textbook publisher, said most textbook authors — almost all of whom are professors — earned about 10 percent of the book's list price.
"The other ones I've had, for the most part, were horrible," he said. "I think the professors wrote them so they could make money."
But if a book's quality is questionable, then so is the motive for requiring it, said Derek Shirk, Iola senior. Of all the textbooks that professors wrote and required in Shirk's classes, only one book was satisfactory.
the ultimate judge."
And that is only for new books. Professors and publishers get nothing from the sale of used books, she said.
"It's a big problem that no one's been able to figure out vet." Perkinson said.
As the author of several textbooks, Douglas Whitman, professor of business, knows
the ways of the used textbook industry.
The professors' loss may be the students' and bookstores' gain. Bill Muggy, manager of Jayhawk Bookstore, said two-thirds of his store's annual textbook sales was in used books, of which profits go to the bookstore only.
"I haven't received a dime in years on books sold here," he said. "You basically sell the books the first semester. For most professors, they're not going to be making much money on their books, period."
Muggy said used books in very good condition were bought back at up to 50 percent of the new book price and were resold at 75 percent of the new price.
Aside from the ethical debate, professors and students alike agree that having the author of the textbook behind the lectern can be advantageous.
"Obviously with that you're getting it pretty much straight from the horse's mouth," said Jarrett Steele, Prairie Village senior.