Campus/Area
University Daily Kansan / Tuesday, February 19. 1991
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Bill restructures groups
Senate Graduate Affairs Committee would have jurisdiction over allocations and budgets for all graduate student groups
By Michael Christie
Kansan staff writer
A proposed Student Senate bill that would move graduate student organizations from the control of Graduate Schools to take up thousands of Senate dollars.
The bill, submitted by Carl Damon, Senate treasurer, and Pat Warren, Senate Executive Committee chairperson, will go through the student rights and finance committees now before it can be voted on in Senate.
The bill would give control of graduate student organizations to the Senate Graduate Affairs Committee. It would create authority for the committee to review legislation that would allocate money to graduateizations and to review annual budget requests from those organizations.
Graduate Student Council now handles the budget requests of graduate organizations.
Damon said the bill also would eliminate duplication of several positions. For example, Graduate Student Council has a paid treasurer position that would be eliminated. Associated Students of Kansas also handles some of the same things that the graduate council does, such as lobbying for the Margin of Excel and adding to the budget, $6,000 could be cut from the graduate council's current budget.
The GNP, which is the graduate newspaper, would be a casualty of the proposed restructuring because of cuts in Senate financing, said Oscar Quiros, Graduate Student Council executive coordinator.
The graduate council presently is acting as an umbrella organization for all graduate groups. It makes sure the graduate for all the groups to be florists.
Damon said the Senate treasurer would handle the finances of graduate organizations, which is done similarly for other student groups.
Quios said he wanted to ensure that graduate students received fair treatment and had equal representation in Senate.
'We're losing some independence.
but hopefully we'll gain some influence and some voice and vote," he said.
Quiros said he wanted input from all graduate students concerning the restructuring. The Graduate Representative Assembly is scheduled to meet on Wednesday in the Walnut Room in the Kansas Union to discuss the proposed bill.
The graduate council will continue to exist. Quiros said.
The financing for the graduate council would be cut from more than $90,000 a year to $3,000, which would over the expenses of running the office, Quros said.
"We don't want to forfeit our positions on various committees on campus," he said.
Arlan Malby, graduate affairs committee chairperson, said the proposed bill could lead to increased graduate student involvement in college.
"It, in general, raises the stature of graduate students in Student Senate," he said.
Scott Joplin's innovative music style influenced by childhood experiences
African-American History Month
Rv Joe Gose
Kansan staff writer
Scott Joplin, "King of Ragtime," was an innovative musician who influenced the direction of popular music in the United States.
Joplin was born in Texarkana, Texas, about 1868. He inherited his musical talent from his father, who played the fiddle, and his mother, who sang and played humo. His music was filled with music as he grew up.
Although many facts about Jopin's early musical education are sketchy, it is thought that his mother fueled community's interest in her son's talent.
Jopin's mother would take him to houses where she worked as a maid and persuade the families she worked with to join her on their pianos while she worked.
When teachers in Texarkana heard of Joplin's talent, they offered to instruct him. He also received training in music theory and piano at the George R. Smith College for Negroes in Sedalia, Mo.
By the time he reached his teens, Joplin was playing in churches and for private social parties. In addition, he began to play in hoky-onkis to earn an income, which was almost the only professional activity permitted to an African-American musician in the late 19th century.
"There were only two places where a Negro musician could play in those days: in church or in a bordello," said Eubie Blake, an African-American composer who was born in 1883 and followed the same path as Joplin. "And you know you couldn't make a living in a church!"
Joplin roamed the Midwest and continued playing in honky-tonks from 1885 to 1884 before settling down in Sedalia. There he continued his Texas Medley Quarterette, a troupe that traveled around the country.
In 1897, Joplin composed "Original Rags." The work was published in Kansas City, Mo., and revealed Joplin as a full-fledged artist.
But the turning point of Joplin's life came when "Maple Leaf Rag" was published in 1899. More than one million copies of sheet music were sold, and it gave Joplin financial security.
Joplin turned his back on the honky-tonk life, married, and devoted his life to teaching, studying and composing.
About 1908 Joplin composed "Tree-
monshia," an opera about his mother's life. The opera conveyed a message that through education, African-Americans could find their own road to freedom.
The opera was ahead of its time because it portrayed women as lead characters.
Joplin was posthumously awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1975 when the opera eventually opened on Broadway.
Joplin unsuccessfully searched for a producer for the opera until his death in 1917.
New York rejected it.
Moving meditation
Charles Gruber, Lawrence resident, plays the dumbek and sings as participants circle around him at the "Dance of Universal Peace," a celebration of personal spiritual growth. Gruber and several others performed basic folk dance movements set to sacred phrases in the form of music. Thirteen people attended last night's event at Ecumenical Christian Ministries, 1204 Oread Ave.
Day-care center director not hired through state employee procedure
By Jonathan Plummer
Kansan staff writer
Though the day-care center at Stouffer Place Apartments has hired a full-time director, the organizers have not gone through the official process to hire a state employee. The present Senate treasurer said yesterday.
Carl Damon, Senate treasurer,
said Senate passed a bill to pay for a
director and an assistant director for
the Helping Hands Daycare Center.
But when the center hired a director, it did not follow proper procedure, he said.
To hire a state employee, Damon said, the applicant must be approved by the University comprieter and another person in the action, as well as other KU officials.
Those officials check what qualifications the position dictates, the
If the center's applicant does not pass the state's qualifications, it may have to begin the process of considering applicants again, he said.
process of how the applicants were screened and the qualifications of the chosen applicant, Damon said.
Because the center chose an applicant who was not a KU student, Senate must create a term-classified appointment for the position, meaning the position must be approved every semester, Damon said.
He said Senate should have investigated further before passing the bill.
"My concern is that we didn't know everything about this group before we started."
Melissa Gratton, Stouffer Neighborhood Association president, said the center chose Laurie Rosenstein as director because her ideas for
programs reflected the diversity of the children at the center.
"The children in the program come from so many different and diverse cultures," Gratton said. "Last Friday the children celebrated the Chinese New Year by making Chinese crafts, and a mother came in and made a Chinese snack."
Some of the applicants for the position did not speak English well, Gratton said, and another reason was that they did not communicate easily with parents.
"We wanted someone who spoke English," Gratton said. "We had some foreign students apply, and there is nothing wrong with that, but it is difficult to communicate. We found she communicated her wants and needs really well and she seemed really open to the parents."
Lawrence tax abatement policy raises questions about the value of luring new businesses
By Vanessa Fuhrmans
Kansan staff writer
The city's tax abatement policy has become one of the hottest topics in the city commission race, leaving many residents divided on just how far the city should go to attract businesses to Lawrence.
The debate over tax incentives became stormier last week when the commission agreed to grant a 50 percent tax abatement to GLt Plastics Limited Partnership, an Illinois plastics firm.
Galt Plastics is considering Lawrence as a possible plant site.
The commission's approval brought the number of tax abatements granted since 1989 to 12 — the first time that abatements between 1979 and 1988.
Allen Ford, professor of business, said that one reason for the recent surge in tax abatements was a 1986 state constitutional amendment that made tax abatements more accessible.
Another reason was the rapid
"Think about it from a business standpoint," he said. "Lawrence has a heck of a deal. We've got a lot of advantages."
Ford said that the quality of life in
reason businesses came to Lawrence.
growth rate in northeast Kansas, particularly in Lawrence, he said.
But giving too many tax incentives to lure businesses to Lawrence and increase growth could backfire on the city, Ford said.
However, Dave Evans, vice chairperson of economic development for the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce, said Lawrence needed to use tax incentives to compete with other communities.
'You may eventually take away a
part of your quality of life if you erode the tax base."
"we live in a competitive environment," he said. "Businesses don't just roll into communities. We think Lawrence is a great community, but a lot of other communities think they are great too. We need businesses in
our community or we will be a bedroom community of Kansas City."
Although critics have argued that the city has been lenient with tax abatements, Evans said the city and the chamber of commerce had recruited businesses that would benefit Lawrence the most.
Ford said, however, that the cost of the tax abatements would exceed the benefits created by new jobs and industry if too many tax abatements were granted. The abated taxes
eventually would be shifted to home owners.
"Politically, people want businesses to pay more taxes," he said. "Realistically, businesses don't pay them. They just pass it on to someone else."
According to present city policy, companies can receive a maximum 50 percent abatement in real estate and property taxes for a specified time if the city commission grants approval.