SPORTS: Will Kansas be ready for Colorado after its crushing defeat against Nebraska? Page 11.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VOL. 103, NO.59
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
ADVERTISING: 864-4358
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1993
(USPS 650-640)
NEWS: 864-4810
Sticky issues
Relationships policy poses tough questions to KU
By Christoph Fuhrmans and KC Trauer
Kansan staff writers
After a hectic week, a student goes to a bar on a Friday night with the professor of one of her classes.
A professor invites a student to eat lunch with her at the Union after a class.
A graduate teaching assistant meets a student at his home to review a test.
Are these consensual relationships? Are they conflicts of interest in violation of the University of Kansas' consensual relationships policy?
"It's not a very simple question," said Kim Wilcox, associate professor of speech, language and hearing and head of the task force on consensual relationships, a term roughly defined as mutually agreed-to relationships.
Where to draw the boundaries of acceptable consensual relationships is one of several issues that concern the members of the task force and others at KU.
It is the difficult task of defining those boundaries that fell to Wilcox's committee, which is gathering feedback from the University community in preparing its recommendations for clarifying the policy.
So what is not acceptable under the existing policy? It's not always clear when interpreting it.
The policy states that a faculty member cannot initiate or accept a romantic or sexual relationship with a student over whom the faculty member has academic power, such as assigning grades or evaluating dissertations.
ANALYSIS
I TOMORROW: The University Daily Kansan looks at how similar policies have been received at other universities.
FORUM INFO: Instructions on how to use the UseD Forum, Page 6.
But an instructor and a student can have a romantic or sexual relationship if that academic power does not exist — for example, if an economics instructor dates an engineering student who is not in her class.
But what if that student is scheduled to take a class from that instructor next semester? The current policy says that such pre-existing relationships may continue as long as the conflict of interest is made known to department officials and is removed. If a professor has a relationship with a student in his or her class, then assigning a grade to the student must be delegated to another faculty member in the department.
The goal of the policy, which went into effect Aug. 20, is to remove conflicts of interest that invite abuses of power, such as harassment.
What Wilcox's committee has found is that other types of relationships also create conflicts of interest, such as when a professor and a relative find themselves in the same class.
Wilcox said that he thought the policy should set certain guidelines as to what types of relationships were conflicts of interest, including what types of conduct were acceptable.
But the stickiness of defining unacceptable conduct, Wilcox concedes, is that everybody's perception of what's unacceptable differs.
Enforcing the policy
Creating a policy prohibiting sexual and romantic relationships is one thing, enforcing that policy creates another problem.
Students and University officials have joked about having a "sex police force." But for now, the policy relies on the honor system of having both the student and professor inform the head of the respective academic department about the relationship.
David Shulenburger, vice chancellor for academic affairs, says that the consensual relationships policy is no different than any other University policy and does not need to be enforced in any special way.
8 6 4 - 9 0 4 0
In Today's Forum
See POLICY. Page 6
The University Daily Kansan wants to know what you think about the University's policy on faculty-student relationships. Some of the issues are:
What types of conduct outside the classroom between an instructor and his or her student should be considered acceptable or unacceptable?
Should conduct considered unacceptable be banned or merely discouraged? Why? Should there be any policy on consensual relationships at all? Why?
What would be the best way to publicize what is considered acceptable conduct so that everybody knows the ground rules?
- See Page 6 for Instructions on using Oread Forum.
Kansan opens forum for exchange of ideas
Kim Wilcox did not know what to expect from the open forum last week on the University's consensual relationships policy.
Three people showed up, if you don't count reporters and the students, faculty and staff on the committee. One person spoke on the policy, and it's the only response, spoken or written, the committee has received.
It's good that Wilcox, chair of a University committee that sponsored the meeting and examined the policy, didn't have his hopes too high.
In essence, the University, a place exalted for a free flow of ideas, failed to live up to that image.
Who knows why so few people showed up that day? Perhaps people just didn't care. It seems the issue has not resonated in this University community as it has at other big universities.
Perhaps that particular forum was not publicized adequately. Or maybe people aren't interested in attending forums — especially on policies.
A new Forum
Despite the apparent lack of interest, I'm not so sure a lot of us don't have opinions about the issue of faculty-student relationships. There must be a better way to invite discussion on the issue.
Today, the University Daily Kansan introduces a new feature, the Oread Forum. The Forum is a
meeting place of ideas, the door to which is a phone call or a letter.
Through a special phone line on which you can record your opinions, we hope to bring the forum of discussion closer to you.
The Oread Forum is not a poll.
We're not interested in upinning up opinions. We're interested in the content of your opinions.
All this, of course, requires your participation. We've taken a step closer to you, and we hope you take a step closer to the Kansan and the University community to resolve issues that affect us all.
Today, we've laid out some of the issues to be resolved on the faculty-student relationships policy. Next week, we'll report back to you on what has been discussed in the Forum. We'll also pass along all the responses to the faculty and student committee looking at the policy.
Who knows? All of this may make Kim Wilcox's job — working to make KU a better place — a little bit easier.
Robert Foster, director of KU bands, conducts the Marching Jayhawks at the practice field behind Oliver Hall. The band has been invited to participate in the 1995 St. Patrick's Day Parade in Dublin, Ireland.
Holly McQueen / KANSAN
Marching Jayhawks to parade in Ireland
By Kathleen Stolle Kansan staff writer
More than luck is taking the KU Marching Jayhawks band to Ireland.
The Marching Jayhawks received an invitation last spring to participate in the 1995 St. Patrick's Day parade in Dublin. Late last month, the invitation was announced publicly at the KU marching festival at Memorial Stadium. Patti Ann Schmidt, who coordinates U.S. band talent for the parade, made the announcement.
Schmidt said both Americans and university bands were popular with Irish people.
"When you bring a band like the Marching Jayhawks over, they're going to be treated like royalty," she said. "If the band members had egos before, watch out when they come home."
This will be the third time an American university band has been asked to appear in the parade. Parade coordinators have been inviting international bands for 30 years. Marching bands from the University of Nebraska and the University of Illinois will play in the 1995 parade as well, marking the first time three U.S. bands have performed in the same parade.
The band was invited based on a recommendation from another university band director, Schmidt said
Other bands in the parade will come from France, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Canada and Ireland, Schmidt said.
"It's definitely an international parade," she said.
This is the fourth time the Marching Jayhawks have gone to western Europe since Bob Foster, director of bands, came to KU in 1971. The band has never been to Ireland, he said.
The amount each student will have to pay has not been determined because travel and lodging details have not been confirmed. Students may sponsor fund-raisers to help pay for the week-long stay, Foster said.
Although such a trip is inherently demanding for its planners — getting passports, making reservations, estimating costs — Foster said the trouble was worth it.
"The payoff is the kids have a fabulous experience," he said.
Matt Smith, Lenexajunior, said he was excited about the chance to see the people and culture of Ireland. He said that he did not think the band's performance would be affected by the trip but that relations among the members might benefit.
"It's good to hang out with a lot of people you ordinarily wouldn't hang out together with," he said. "The band'll spend a lot of time together, so in that sense, it'll help."
Drum major Jason George said he thought the atmosphere would give the band members an edge.
"It more of an adrenaline rush when it's a new situation with new stimuli," he said. "It gets them all pumped up."
However, George said the band had a lot of other things on its mind right now, including Saturday's performance at the KU-Colorado University game in Boulder and an appearance at the Denver Broncos and Minnesota Vikings game on Sunday.
House approves handgun-control measure
A glaring spotlight
Student athletes face intense pressure and public scrutiny every day. For some it can be destructive. Others thrive on the hectic life.
Page 9.
The Brady bill would impose a five-day wait and a background check on would-be handgun buyers.
WASHINGTON — Responding to public fear of street crime, the House approved the Brady bill yesterday that would require a five-day wait and a background check on people who want to buy handguns.
The Associated Press
The House approved the bill last year only to see it fail after being attached to a larger crime bill blocked by Senate Republicans. This time, it is being kept separate in the hope that the Senate will send it to President Clinton, who has promised to sign it.
The House voted 238-199 for the bill and sent it to the Senate.
During the debate, Rep. Lucien Blackwell, D-Pa., noted that his West Philadelphia neighborhood had hundreds of deaths each year from pistols.
"We need to stop these thugs from getting these guns rapidly, and if we pass the Brady bill, we will do that." Blackwell said. "What is wrong with waiting five days to get a pistol? What is wrong with that?"
The Brady bill, named for press secretary James Brady, who was shot during a 1981 assassination attempt on President Reagan, would impose a five-day waiting period before a handgun purchase could be completed and would require a background check during that time on prospective buyers.
On the other side, Rep. Sanford Bishop, D-Ga., supporting a successful amendment that sets a deadline of five years for developing a computerized, nationwide system of instant background checks and a phaseout of the waiting period, said:
"If we can check credit card purchases instantaneously, if we can have our policemen check driving records instantaneously, then certainly we can check criminal histories instantaneously."
The amendment, backed by the National Rifle Association and proposed by Rep. George Gekas, R-Pa., was approved by a 235-198 vote. Gun control proponents characterized it as an attempt to gut the bill's effectiveness.
Rep. Mike Synar, D-Okla., said the amendment was a clever attempt to derail the five-day waiting period.
The House rejected by a 175-257 vote another NRA-backed amendment offered by Rep. Bill McCollum, R-Fla. It would have pre-empted all state or local laws that require waiting periods when the instant checks took effect.
The five-year deadline was imposed on a provision in this year's Brady bill that said that when background information was sufficiently computerized and instant checks were possible, the waiting period would end and instant checks would be required on purchases of both handguns and long guns.
"Using this amendment's common sense," Synar said, "one would quit giving CPR to a heart attack victim after five minutes."
The Brady bill has been separated from far-reaching crime bills in the House and Senate in an effort to get it to Clinton this year.
Last year, the Brady bill died with a larger crime bill of which it was only a small part. Then, Senate Republicans threatened to filibuster about changes in rules governing appeals to federal courts by state inmates, particularly those on death row.
The Senate, meanwhile, continued slogging through its crime bill — temporarily stalled on an amendment to ban assault-style weapons. Late Tuesday, Republicans threatened to filibuster the amendment.
The Senate planned to take up the Brady bill after completing work on the crime bill.
Brady, who with his wife, Sarah, has been pushing the bill for a decade, was in the House chamber during the debate.
The House overwhelmingly approved a Brady bill amendment that would require police to provide within 20 days the reason for a denial of a right to purchase a handgun, if the person denied seeks it.