Campus/Area
University Daily Kansan / Friday, November 30, 1990
3
Jane Rudolph/KANSAN
Jill Moore, Wichita senior, winds thread onto a bobbin from an umbrella swift in the Art and Design building. Moore used the multi-colored thread to create the cross pattern for a double-woven project that she was working on for her Weaving 201 class.
KU's foreign enrollment is above national average
A study released this week states that foreign student enrollment at U.S. universities reached its highest point ever last year, and the percentage of foreign students at KU is higher than at the average university.
By Yvonne Guzman
The study, conducted by the Institute of International Education, found that foreign students constituted about 15% of the total student body.
Kansan staff writer
Spinning wheel
Marianthi Zikopoulos, research director for the institute, said there were 386,851 foreign students in U.S. institutions of higher education last year.
Gerald Harris, director of the KU Office of Foreign Student Services, said the University of Kansas was host to 2,007 foreign students from 98 countries, or about 7.4 percent of the student body.
KU has a higher than average percentage of foreign students because it is a major state school with low tuition.
The fact that it is not in a congested urban area also makes KU attractive to foreign students, he said.
"I think that over the years, KU has been especially accepting of foreign students." he said.
Mr. Said it was good for the University to have foreign students because they brought diversity to the student body and they tended to be good students.
Even though it set a record last year, 2.8 percent foreign student enrollment is less than that in any other industrialized nation, Zikopoulos said.
The top institutions strive to attract enough foreign students to comprise 10 to 25 percent of the student population.
From reading many of the news articles printed, "you would not expect that," she said. "It's not a lot."
Zikopoulos said she thought the public thought there were more foreign students in the United States because many reports concentrated on the numbers studying math and science and in graduate school.
The report also said that last year was the third year that more than half of all foreign students in the United States were Chinese.
Applied English Center policy confuses, upsets some students
By Tatsuya Shimizu
Kansan staff writer
The Applied English Center is the last hurdle that all foreign students must clear before they officially are admitted to the University of Kansas.
Some students easily pass English proficiency tests given by the AEC, are admitted formally to the University and start taking regular English classes at the University.
But others stumble at the AEC. These students, who already have been admitted provisionally to the University, must take English as a foreign-language class until they pass the proficiency test and are admitted formally to KU.
they do. Please refer to AEC classes.
I have had students who have enrolled in AEC classes complain because the think they are ready to take regular English classes at the University, but the AEC does not let them do so.
They do not receive credit for AEC classes
They feel they are wasting money and time.
Also, some foreign students are confused about the foreign-student admissions policies of the University.
Foreign students whose native language is not English are required to demonstrate their English proficiency on a test and during an interview with counselors in the AEC who arrive at KU, according to the Spring 1991 timetable.
Based on the result of the test and the interview, the AEC decides whether the foreign students have a strong
enough English proficiency to take regular classes at the University, or if they need to take AEC classes.
The AEC offers four levels of courses from the elementary through the advanced levels in four skills: reading, writing, math, and computer.
If a student fails all four, he can enroll only in AEC
and then students pass one section, he can enroll in
one more AEC class.
This semester, 264 students are enrolled only in AEC classes, and 156 students take AEC classes and a few regular classes, according to AEC records. But until they can return home, they cannot take English 101 and are ranked as freshmen.
Charles Seibel, assistant to the director of the AEC, said that the majority of students who started in the elementary levels took four semesters to prepare to take classes at the University as full-time students.
Unhappy students
Elizabeth Soppella, director of the AEC, said complaints from AEC students were common in all English courses.
Local seismologist considers earthquake prediction absurd
"While the students are in the English-language program, they don't know how tough it is outside." Soppelsa said. "They may be unhappy being in the program because they want to move on and do university
Kansan staff writer
By Mike Brasstfield
See ENGLISH, p. 9
The prediction of an imminent earthquake in southeastern Missouri is absurd and has caused unjustifiable hysteria, said Done Steele, a geologist in the Kansas Geological Survey based at KU.
Iden Browning, a New Mexico biologist and business consultant, has predicted a 50-percent chance of an earthquake measuring about 7.5 on the Richter scale in the bootheel area of Missouri between Saturday and Dec. 5.
In response to the prediction, some schools
The New Madrid fault in southeastern Missouri was the site of three earthquakes in 1811 and 1812 that are estimated to have measured 7.5 to 8.5 on the Richter scale and were recorded in the history. Last year's San Francisco-area earthquake measured 7.1 on the Richter scale.
and factories will close in the New Madrid area, about 150 miles southeast of St. Louis. Many families are planning to flee, and there is a growing need for policies in the area much faster than result.
Browning bases his prediction on tidal forces caused by the alignment of the earth.
moon and sun. The tidal forces will be at a 27-year peak in early December.
But Steeples said the reasoning behind Browning's prediction was faulty.
"The forces he is talking about are at least 10,000 times too small to cause an earthquake."
The forces required to cause an earthquake are thousands of pounds per square inch, but the tidal forces Browning used in his prediction are about 0.01 pounds per square inch at the depths where earthquakes occur in the Midwest. Steeples said.
"These tidal forces, which are far too small
to cause earthquakes, peak twice a day,
every day, at almost the same level as that
which will occur on Dec. 3," he said.
Steeple said several studies during the past 40 years by reputable geophysicists using sophisticated statistical techniques had failed to show a correlation between tidal forces and the occurrence of major earthquakes.
"Nobody anywhere has a successful track record of predicting earthquakes," he said.
Steeplees said the National Earthquake Prediction Evaluation Council, which comprises earthquake scientists representing the U.S. government, recently examined Browning's predictions made in the past five years.
The 11-member group concluded that Browning, who has a doctorate in biology, had a success rate no better than one could obtain by throwing darts at a calendar. Steeples said.
He said Browning's forecast had been taken seriously because news reports had credited him with a number of accurate predictions, including last year's Oct. 17 earthquake south of San Francisco.
Missouri agencies set for biennial earthquake-preparedness exercises
By Debbie Myers
Kansan staff writer
Agencies from across Missouri will participate in an earthquake exercise tomorrow and State Parks will participate.
But the routine biennial exercise had been planned long before a prediction by Iben Browning, a New Mexico biologist and business consultant, that a quake would occur in southeast Missouri along the New Madrid fault on or about Monday.
Tanya Allen, assistant public information officer for the State Emergency Management Agency in Jefferson City, said media attention surrounding this year's exercise
had increased state agencies' participate.
"It's just amazing the interest that we've got now," Allen said. "Before this, we had to do a lot of work."
Allen said the exercise would simulate how state, federal and volunteer agencies would work.
Saturday, representatives from agencies such as the Missouri Highway Patrol, American Red Cross, National Guard and state highway, transportation and health departments will come to SEMA for the exercise, Allen said.
As part of the exercise, they will be told that an earthquake measuring 7.6 on the
Richer scale hard hit, allen said. Then each agency will set up a work station, collectively
When the drill continues Sunday, agencies at SEMA will begin to receive hundreds of messages from district emergency operating personnel. At the state agencies of their needs, Allen said.
Earthquake exercises near the New Madrid fault will be downloaded so citizens will not think the drill is a real earthquake, Allen said.
"At that point, they will decide what state agencies are best prepared to fit that requirement."
"Citizens down there are so frightened that we are doing very little in that area," Allen said.
She said that during the year since Browning's prediction, SEMA had taken thousands of telephone calls from concerned citizens and sent out millions of pieces of earthquake literature. it also has revised the state agency's plan to develop local agencies plan for an earthquake
The enthusiastic participation in this year's exercise is good. Allen said.
When Dec. 3 comes and goes and is going to
decure, all this preparation is going to be
good.
Allen said. "We're due for one."
Brian Miller, coordinator at the emergency management agency in Jackson, Mo., said the agency would participate in this weekend's earthquake exercise.
The exercise is interesting and fun for the agency, he said.
"We kind of get a charge out of working in these things," Miller said. "It's a chance to deal with an emergency without anyone getting hit by charges everyone up for the potential."
Miller said the prediction had fueled rumors in the area about strange events involving the police.
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