CAMPUS/AREA UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Monday, November 8, 1993
3
Views vary about losing degrees
By Christoph Fuhrmans
Kansanstaffwriter
Robyn Weeks, Overland Park senior, plans to graduate from the University of Kansas in Spring 1995 with a bachelor of science degree in atmospheric science.
She said that she wanted to stay at KU and get a master's. But after the Academic Policies and Procedures Committee officially recommended Thursday the elimination of the B.A. and M.S. degrees in atmospheric science, Weeks said she had no reason to stay at KU.
Weeks is one of the students who is being affected by the committee's recommendation that six degrees be eliminated. The proposals, part of the University's ongoing program review, must be approved by Chancellor Gene Budig before they are enacted.
The atmospheric science degrees
were two of six degrees the committee recommended for elimination to the University Senate Executive Committee. The committee also recommended eliminating the B.A. in comparative literature, B.A. in Italian and B.A. and B.G.S. in computer science. The committee recommended that the University keep the B.A. in humanities.
Some students were not as upset with the committee's recommendations.
"They're not going to stay here unless they have graduate students to help with research," she said.
Weeks said that not having a graduate program would drive quality professors from KU.
Nicolas Shump, Lawrence senior, said he was pleased with the committee's choice of saving the humanities degree but disappointed that the comparative literature degree was recommended to be a concentration in the English degree.
"Hope it is still of the same caliber," he said.
Elizabeth Schultz, professor of humanities and comparative literature, said she was disappointed with the committee's recommendation to cut the comparative literature degree, but she was pleased that the humanities degree was spared.
"I think the committee acted very responsibly, courageously and thoughtfully," she said.
Jan Kozma, head of the department of French and Italian, said she was
satisfied with the committee's recommendation just to rename the Italian degree the French and Italian degree.
"Essentially, I think the committee made a sensible decision to make the degrees cohere," she said. "The committee recognized correctly that we need help in the Italian department."
Earl Schweppe, professor of computer science, said losing the B.A. in computer science would hurt students' interest in computer science degrees. He said students with double majors usually took the B.A. degree because it was more flexible than the B.S.
Elizabeth Banks, associate professor of classics, said she thought the administration only chose the degrees for elimination for cosmetic reasons.
"It just seemed to me they were apparently charged with the task of getting rid of things," she said.
William Alix/ KANSAN
Alyssia Parris, representative for the National Consortium for Graduate Degrees for Minorities in Engineering and Science, spoke to a crowd of 40 about the importance of going to graduate school. The National Society of Black Engineers national fall conference was Saturday at the Kansas Union.
Black engineers face challenging future
By Carlos Tejada
Kansan staff writer
Alyssia Parris told the crowd of young engineers that the road ahead would not be easy.
"You're going to have to be the rookie, and you're going to have to pay the price," said Parris, a representative of the National Consortium for Graduate Degrees for Minorities in Engineering and Science.
Parris was one of many speakers at this weekend's fall regional conference of the National Society of Black Engineers. About 300 undergraduate African-American students from 10 states attended workshops and speeches in the Kansas and Burge Unions aimed at motivating them for a future in engineering.
Alicia Young, Kansas City, Mo., senior and registration chairwoman, said times had changed since the 1970s, when aggressive recruiting programs in the engineering field allowed easier access for minorities.
"If you were Black and had an engineering degree, you could get in," said Young, a member of the KU chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers, or NSBE. "But being Black and having an engineering degree isn't enough. You have to be more prepared to enter the workplace."
The conference, which also was attended by representatives from companies such as Amoco and 3M, stressed career goals, study habits and graduate school. Company representatives also held a career fair in the Burge Intended to give students a chance to make contacts within the field.
"Their main mission is to make us better people, to make us better in the workplace," said TyWaunne Hill, a freshman from Iowa State University. "We have connections instead of being left out in the cold."
science fields.
Ali McHenry, adjunior from Prairie View A&M University in Texas, said NSB served a larger function. He said the conference gave African Americans the chance to increase their presence in
"The numbers are very low," McHenry said. "This can give African Americans awareness of the problem. It can also give the opportunity to alleviate the problem."
William Hogan, former associate executive vice chancellor and electrical engineering professor at KU, was the keynote speaker. Before his speech, he said the conference would give students a foot in the door when they left school to look for employment.
"This is a fairly important function," said Hogan, who worked for Honeywell and now owns a business in Minnesota. "They need a support base they can go to over the years that they can trust."
Then Hogan smiled and indicated the crowd waiting for his speech.
"The next president of Westinghouse may be here," he said.
College Assembly votes to keep limit on principal courses
By Kathleen Stolle Kansan staff writer
The number of principal courses a department can offer will remain the same, a count of College Assembly votes determined Friday.
At issue was whether departments in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences were restricted by a rule limiting principal courses to four.
Principal courses are introductory courses that provide basic knowledge in an academic area. Students in the college choose from among principal courses to help fulfill basic requirements for bachelor of arts and bachelor of general science degrees.
For example, a student who wants to take a philosophy course to help fulfill a humanities requirement has only four from which to choose.
The vote to lift the limit failed, 159 to 208, said Jim Carothers, associate dean, speaking for James Muyskens, dean of the college and chair of College Assembly.
"It would appear that many people believe that the present system is working effectively." Carothers said.
The assembly, which includes elected students and tenured faculty in the college, votes on suggested policy and curricular changes in the college.
The College Assembly decided at its Oct. 4 meeting to settle the issue by mail ballots, which were due Oct. 29.
Don Marquis, professor of philosophy, was a key supporter of lifting the limit.
He first introduced the issue at last December's assembly meeting, then again in May. At the October meeting he argued that some departments could not adequately tap their faculty
resources under the four-course limit. In turn, underclassmen had fewer opportunities for exposure to professors.
On Friday, Marquis said the issue would have had a better chance of passing last spring. The vote was delayed because the assembly did not have a quorum.
"Last spring it seemed like most everybody there was speaking in favor of it; only one person was opposed," he said.
At the October meeting, Richard DeGeorge, professor of philosophy and Russian and East European studies, expressed opposition to the change. He said that before the limit was imposed in 1986, advising had been difficult because of an overwhelming number of principal courses offered. Lifting the limit also would result in upper-level students with widely-varied educational backgrounds, he said.
After the final tally on Friday, DeGeorge said he thought that the issue might have received more support if a ceiling had been suggested, rather than the total elimination of the four-course limit.
"I thought the opening up of the number of principal courses without restriction was excessive," he said.
DeGeorge suggested the mail ballot at the October meeting because not all members of the assembly were present and because many members were new to the college or unfamiliar with both sides of the issue.
"My biggest concern was that the College Assembly vote on it and it not be decided on by a small number of people," he said.
CAMPUS BRIEFS
Exhibit on Garden City opens today
The traveling exhibition "I Born Again in America: Observations on a More Diverse Nation" opens today at KU's anthropology museum.
The exhibition is the result of a study on relationships among recent immigrants and long-term residents in six U.S. communities.
Garden City, Kansas' fastest-growing community in the past decade, is the focus of the exhibition. Garden City's population grew more than 30 percent from 1980 to 1985, said Donald Stull, KU professor of anthropology and principal investigator of the study.
Photographs and oral histories of Southeast Asians, Hispanics and longtime residents of Garden City are included in the exhibit.
Other cities examined in the study but not included in the
exhibit are: Houston, Miami Chicago, Philadelphia and Monterey Park, Calif. A multidisciplinary team of scholars conducted the study through a 1987 Ford Foundation grant.
The exhibition will be on display until Dec. 8. Museum hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday.
Water to be shut off in 3 campus buildings
The water will be turned off from 6:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. tomorrow in the Military Science building, the Military Science annex, Summerfield and Murphy halls.
The water also will be turned off from 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the Parking Facility.
Bob Porter, facilities operations, said the water would be shut off to clean the water lines.
The buildings will remain open and classes will not be canceled.
Compiled from Kansan staff reports.
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