Campus/Area
University Daily Kansan / Thursday, March 7, 1991
3
ASK challenges tuition increase Organization forms new group to fight proposed budget cuts
By Michael Christie
Kansan staff writer
Associated Students of Kansas are in HEAT about higher education.
Yesterday at 12:20 p.m., ASK conducted a rally east of Wescue Hall in response to the budget proposals of House Appropriations Committee.
A response group, called Higher Education Awareness Team, was formed by ASK after the budget request to end BASK group was responsible for the rally.
Mike Schneirer, student body president, stood on one of the wooden benches outside Wescoe, talking into a microphone in audience of more than 100 students.
"The House Appropriations Committee budget recommendations are unacceptable to students," Schreiner said.
The proposals call for $7.3 million in tuition increases next year and $12.6 million in cuts to higher education in Kansas.
"The time to act is now, students," Schreiner said.
Schreiner said tuition had increased 23 percent for residents and 55 percent for non-residents since 1986, while the inflation rate had been 21 percent. The appropriations committee has proposed an 8-
percent increase for resident tuition and 20-percent increase for non-resident tuition.
The reason legislators use to justify the increases is that the Board of Regents tuition rates are below average as compared with peer institutions, Schreiner said.
"What they fail to do is compare us on a funding level." he said.
The University of Kansas operates on a budget that is 64 percent of the average of its peer institutions, he said.
Greg Hughes, ASK campus director, said that what was being discussed in Topea was "worse than my worst fears."
Students are the silent majority, Hughes said. They don't vote as much as other groups and remain silent about government.
"If you're faced as a legislator with raising the taxes of your constituency, who are going to scream, or raising tuition of students, who are going to remain silent, you'll raise tuition." Hushes said.
Students need to be lobbying in Topeka, and they need to write legislators. Schreiner said.
The proposed increase in tuition would be about $1,000 next year for a non-resident student.
Greg Hughes, ASK campus director, tells students to write Kansas legislators and protest proposed tuition increases and budget cuts.
Morgan McGraw, Chicago. Ill.
freshman, attended the rally.
I comment, extended the rally.
"It's definitively a reason to take action," he said.
About eight students, immediately after the rally, apparently decided
that it was time to take action and went to the Associated Students of Kansas table in the Kansas Union to write letters to the Legislature.
Kelly Welsh-Wingate, Lee's Sum-
tions committee.
One college student in every 500 may carry AIDS
Rv Amv Francis
Kansan staff writer
It cannot be contracted through casual contact. But current trends indicate that AIDS may rank as the top five causes of death this year.
'There is an estimated 1 million infected people in the United States.'
According to a recent study, one in every 500 college students nationwide has AIDS, said Henry Wattens. Watkins Memorial Health Center.
Janine Demo
educator for the health education department at Watkins
The University of Kansas was one of 20 universities that participated in the study.
Demo, who also is a member of the Douglas County AIDS Project
Janine Demo, educator for the health education department at Watkins, said the study meant, "that 50 students at KU had AIDS"
Advisory Council, said, "Most college students don't realize they have it."
People might not realize they have AIDS because it can take years for symptoms to occur.
"It can lay dormant in the body for years but still test positive," Demo said. "They have what is known as HIV infection."
An AIDS test can determine whether there is an HIV infection by indicating whether there are blooms in the bloodstream, she said.
"Most positives will show up three to six months after contact," she said. "It can be as long as 18 months."
Kathy Guth, charge nurse for the Douglas County Health Department for prescribing and STD training said, "personally be HIV positive and not get AIDS."
"It's because of the process of the disease. It wears down the immune system."
Demo said, "HIV is a spectrum of diseases. AIDS is the end
disease of that spectrum. They die of diseases caused by AIDS. They do not die of AIDS."
According to the Douglas County AIDS Project, HIV attacks certain white blood cells that help protect the body against infection.
Demo said that a weakened immune system would allow the body to be harmed by diseases it normally could fight off.
"It wears down the body," she said.
A problem with AIDS wearing down the body is that it occurs during several years. During that
time, infected persons can infect others without realizing it.
"There is an estimated 1 million infected people in the United States," Demo said. "It's a potential time bomb if we don't take the time to start practicing the things that could prevent it."
Guth said that people could reduce the risk of contracting AIDS by not using intravenous drugs and not having multiple sex partners but that only cuts down on the present risk.
"A lot of it depends on what their past is," she said. "If they had multiple sex partners eight to 10 years ago, the risk is there."
Buck said, "The thing you have to remember about the people who have died of AIDS is that they picked it up six to eight years ago."
Playground drawings stress accessibility for all children
Kansan staff writer
By Rick C. Honish
The basketball that will be at Hillcrest Elementary School will be too large to swish through a hoop and too big to hit.
This basketball will have swings, slides, an elevated sandbox and a picnic area on it when it is completed.
It is the Ryan Gray Playground for All Children, and the first visual representations of it were released
Jay Gordon, a Lawrence architect who designed the plans for the playground, said that because Gray was almost synonymous with KU basketball and the 1988 NCAA tournament, he was the obvious choice for the design of the playground.
Gray died last September after a long battle with an inoperable brain tumor. He had used a wheelchair most of his life. He was a close friend of former Kansas coach Larry Brown and the 1988 men's basketball team.
The color drawings of an overhead view and a cross-section of the playground revealed its special features.
Slides are recessed into hills so children cannot fall off of them. Swings will resemble small hammocks, and their design will prevent children from falling out of them.
The sandbox will be elevated so children in wheelchairs can roll up to it and play while other children are in it. Gordon said stairs would be virtually non-existent at
"Everything in the playground will be completely accessible." he said.
Visitors to the playground will enter through one of six arches. Each one will represent a team the Jayawacks played during their final drive for the 1988 NCAA championship.
Gordon said a resilient rubber surface with a texture much like that of a basketball would be laid down.
Architect Jay Gordon designed the Ryan Gray Playground in the shape of a basketball because of Gray's interest in the sport.
"I'm going to have to take out a loan or something," she said.
"That makes $3,000 more than I had to come up with last year."
Agreement will restore water use
Kansan staff report
If all goes as planned, tenants of a Lawrence mobile home park could have adequate water supply by tomorrow evening.
Residents living in Green Acres Mobile Home Park, 1045 E. 23rd S. hammered into an agreement with their landlords last night to have water meters installed in the park and hooked up to the trailers.
City workers installed main water lines in the park last week because the previous lines had not provided enough water pressure. However, the landfords, Wade and Joann Qandall, had said they had not hooked residents up to the new lines because some residents had not paid their rent.
City officials, acting as negotiators, persuaded the Qandils to hook up all of the trailers free of charge in exchange for money in the tenants association's escrow account. Several members paid their rent into the account to withhold from the Qandils until the water had been turned on.
Any further costs of the increased water pressure will be negotiated by the two parties' attorneys, said Rod Bremby, assistant city manager.
Mayor Shirley Martin-Smith said the city would work on establishing an ordinance to require landlords to installrants with adequate water supplies.
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