THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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MONDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2009
NEWS
3A
DOWNTOWN (CONTINUED FROM 1A)
on the sidewalks and other entertainers performing on stage in front of the U.S. Bank at the corner of Ninth and Massachusetts streets. At 6 p.m., she said, the Salvation Army bell ringing holiday fundraiser would begin and a countdown ceremony, at roughly 6:10 p.m., for the first lighting of all the downtown Christmas lights would follow.
Flannery said after the holiday lights were illuminated, the crowd would discover Santa Claus stuck with his sleigh on top of Weaver's. A local fire truck would come to rescue him with a ladder.
"The idea is he lands up there from the North Pole and the fire department brings him down to Massachusetts Street so he can mingle with all the kids and families and kick off the holiday season," Flannery said.
Pennington said once the family oriented activities ended, the city
had a new event she hoped would draw students downtown. On Dec. 5, the day of the holiday parade, anyone who spends at least $5 at five different stores and submits their receipts will receive a $25 downtown gift certificate.
Pennington said he hoped these activities would encourage students to do their shopping in downtown Lawrence.
"We have such unique shops that they could get things here that they're not able to get anywhere else," Pennington said. "If they're looking for something unusual and not just the run-of-the-mill Walmart or Target sweater, downtown Lawrence is a great place to shop."
Etc, Shop, 928 Massachusetts St. She said she had already noticed the earliest droves of students arriving to pick out their gifts.
Flannery said he was hopeful students would show the same enthusiasm for downtown holiday shopping he expected from Lawrence families this Friday.
"We are absolutely having students come in," Spencer said. "We just had a girl come in looking for a jayhawk charm to go on her mother's bracelet for the holidays. It's amazing how early it is this year."
"We love the students," Flannery said. "Lawrence wouldn't be the community it is without KU and its students."
Follow Ray Segebrecht at twitter.com/rsegrebcht.
Edited by Abbey Strusz
Why did the turkey cross the road?
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Traffic backs up as a turkey makes its daily walk across a busy Rt 462 near Lancaster, Pa., on Nov. 10. A pair of turkeys , who live in the wild, travel back and forth early and late in the day in search of food that neighbors put out for the birds.
She said there was an easy comparison with how coaches recruited athletes.
RECRUITMENT (CONTINUED FROM 1A)
"If you think of what Bill Self might do, when there is a blue-chip player out there, he's going all out to recruit that player," Roney said.
Roney is the chairwoman of the chancellor's committee that will look at changing admissions standards. She said that right now some students viewed the University, which admitted 91.8 percent of applicants in the fall of 2008, as a backup plan for college. She said that because some students thought they wouldn't have to work as hard to get into the University, they weren't prepared for the rigors of college.
"There's not much in the way of bragging rights to say you got admitted to KU because you would have been admitted to any institution in the state," Roney said.
Roney said a change in admissions standards would redefine who the University targeted with its recruitment to focus on students who had a better academic profile. Higher admissions standards would also differentiate the University from other institutions across Kansas.
She said some of the recruitment events for honors students have focused on admissions standards and recruiters received a negative reaction after these presentations.
"You could just kind of see them disconnect with us. Kind of like, 'It's that easy to get in?' Roney said. "So we actually changed the program. Instead we talk about undergraduate research opportunities and the honors program and the co-curricular and help them understand the academic excellence that exists even though the admissions standards don't really reflect that."
officials hoped to change the attitudes of potential students as well. She referenced the School of Engineering and its freshman admission program, which has another standards.
Roney said by changing the focus of recruitment techniques to the opportunities available at the University, University
"When you compare opportunity at KU to opportunity at any research institution in the country, we are very, very competitive then," Roney said.
ENGINEERING RECRUITMENT
Alexis McKinley Jones, director of recruitment for the School of Engineering, said recruiters spoke at high-level math and science classes in high schools. They also launched engineering competitions to engage high school students. One of these programs, a competition called FIRST Robotics, challenges teams of high school students to build robots that can complete a certain task. McKinley Jones said the engineering program was also holding a Future City event in January, which would challenge seventh- and eighth-grade students — and potential Kansas engineers — to come up with their vision of a city.
She said it was important for the School of Engineering to reach students at a young age.
"Students are starting to form some pretty solid decisions about what they're interested in and what they want to do early on, so targeting some of those younger students is a direction we want to go in," she said.
McKinley Jones said the school didn't hire its first recruitment coordinator until 2003. It hired a second last year.
"That's really atypical of what you'd find for a professional program," McKinley Jones said. "It's unique that we have two."
jill Hummels, engineering public relations director, said the engineering program had always had a targeted approach to recruiting students because it dealt in a highly competitive
market for students of high ability.
"We let general recruiting happen at the Office of Admissions level, but ours is always highly pinpointed," Hummels said.
"It made sense economically," Bell said.
Craig Bell, Olathe junior, said he made sure the University and the School of Engineering noticed his ACT scores. He said K-State also recruited him, but in the end it came down to scholarship money. He picked the University.
Even the little things, such as mailers, are important to the school. Hummels, who handles printed communications for the school, eliminated the multi-page engineering brochure for students a couple of years ago and instead brought in one sheet with information about the school on both sides. It's a quicker read, she said.
"We want to speak with those prospective students." Hummels said. "We also want to speak with their parents, too. We want them to find the information that they find valuable."
Jeremy Wall, Kansas City, Mo. sophomore, said he spent half as much in tuition by studying engineering at the University as opposed to Missouri. But he said the mailers made little difference in his decision.
"They go into my junk pile," Wall said.
WHAT IT TAKES
The Chancellor's task forces are expected to present proposals for goals such as retention and improved graduation rates in the spring. But recruiting is just one piece of that puzzle.
"We ought to be really clear about what it takes to succeed and try to encourage students to meet that goal so that we do have a much higher success rate," Gray-Little said.
Follow Jesse Rangel at twitter. com/igglephile.
LEGAL
Discrimination investigation continues at military institute
BY SUE LINDSEY Associated Press
LEXINGTON, Va. — Virginia Military Institute is defending itself against a lengthy investigation into accusations that the school's policies are sexist and hostile toward female cadets, a dozen years after women won the right to enroll.
The federal Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights has an ongoing investigation of a sex discrimination complaint at the small, state-supported school that so far has taken nearly a year and a half — three times longer than usual.
Defenders say VMI has worked hard to recruit women and make them comfortable since the U.S. Supreme Court ordered co-education in 1997, but women remain a small minority. Of the 1,500 cadets on the Shenandoah Valley campus this fall, 126 are women.
"The language and terminology that is used and considered acceptable by VMI in the barracks reflects a climate and culture that is derogatory and discriminatory toward the women that are required as cadets to live in the barracks", according to the Education Department's June 2008 complaint.
Federal authorities are also investigating whether sexism is prevalent in VMI's tenure and promotion policies; the handling of student and employee complaints; and the school's marriage and parenthood policy, which requires cadets resign once they marry or
Details of the federal complaint were first reported by The Roanoke Times.
conceive a child.
The list of specific policies authorities were asked to investigate was among large portions of the complaint that were redacted in the copy given to The Associated Press, as was any information about the complainant.
Department of Education spokesman Jim Bradshaw said 90 percent of investigations are completed within six months, but had no estimate of when the VMI probe might conclude. It is still ongoing after 16 months.
No similar complaint has been filed against The Citadel in Charleston, S.C., the nation's only other four-year state college with an all-military undergraduate program.
The complaint against VMI doesn't include accusations of sexual assault or other criminal acts, although a cadet was dismissed last spring after being charged with rape and sodomy of a female classmate. Stephen L. Lloyd of Mason Neck was convicted in October of a lesser charge, sexual battery.
Women are more likely to encounter discrimination including degrading comments and lack of advancement opportunities - if they comprise less than 25 percent of a group, said Nancy Duff Campbell, co-president of the National Women's Law Center in Washington.
The school has had seven sexual-offense complaints since women started enrolling in 1997, spokesman Stewart Maclmish said, but Lloyd was the first that resulted in a criminal charge.
"They don't necessarily want to rock the boat by complaining."
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Amber Blain waves to friends and family as she makes her way to the stage to get her diploma during graduation ceremonies at Virginia Military Institute May 16, 2006, in Lexington, Va. The federal Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights has an ongoing investigation of a sex discrimination complaint at VMI.
The Virginia military college founded in 1839 fought co-education, but since the court ruling has tried to recruit and welcome women, MacInnis said.
In June, VMI won a top award for its recruitment efforts from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education, a Washington-based association of educational institutions.
More women are looking at VMI as an option — applications by women nearly doubled, from 87 in 2003 to 169 for the current year. Of those, 50 women came to campus this semester.
she said. "It's not necessarily fear. It's just 'I want to go along to get along.'"
Still, the school has had only 159 female graduates since it began awarding degrees to women in
Female cadets hold special sessions at open houses for prospective students, and the school has dedicated an admissions counselor to recruiting women.
2001. During that time, 2,349 men have graduated. And far more women drop out after their first year: 29 percent in the class of 2011 did so, compared with 11
percent of men.
The experience has been similar at The Citadel, which went coed a year before VMI and has had 205 female graduates.
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