Campus/Area
University Daily Kansan / Monday, November 27, 1989
3
KU recruiters working more despite record
By Doug Fishback
Kansan staff writer
Despite a record high enrollment this fall, University of Kansas admissions officials are keeping recruiting efforts high in a state with a dwindling pool of high school seniors.
"We've still got to go out and work, I think, as hard as anybody," he said.
Bruce Lindvall, director of admissions, said that strong KU enrollments during the past few years had not diminished the drive of recruiting staff in his office.
For the past two years, KU representatives have visited every high school in Kansas, Lindvall said. Recruiters this year already have visited 90 percent of Kansas' nearly 350 high schools, and they hope to have visited each of them by Christmas.
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High schools that show student interest will be put on the docket for revisitation during the spring. Lindvall said the admissions staff would be doing more spring visitation in 1990 than in the past.
These efforts come as the number of high school seniors in the state continues to drop. There are about 24,000 seniors in Kansas this year, compared with 33,000 in 1977, Lindvall said, and competition for these students is strong among the state's universities.
"The pie is shrinking, and everybody wants the same amount of pie," he said.
In their recruiting process, admissions staff estimate that they spend from 15 to 75 percent of their time on the road, traveling from school to school.
In addition to attending individual "college nights" around the state, admissions staff attend area college conferences sponsored by the Kansas Association of College Registrars and Admissions Officers, Lindvall said. One recruiter said she had
attended about 20 such conferences in Western Kansas.
KU recruiters visit more than 180 out-of-state high schools as well. Lindvall said.
A new staff member further extends KU's reach by working with alumni, who recruit students from as far as Atlanta, Bakersfield, Calf, be said.
hedo, Cain. 'be said'
Another new addition to the KU
recruiting arsenal is a computerized
tracking system, which will keep
records about the decisions of students
who were contacted by University staff, Lindvall said. By collecting admission statistics, recruiters hope to learn more about which methods are effective.
are effective. The staff's recruiting hours add up to the equivalent of 10 full-time workers, Lindvall said. This number has increased from four years ago, when the equivalent of six full-time workers spent their days visiting schools.
school in the week before Thanksgiving,
in Lindvall drove 1,100 miles during a visitation tour of Kansas schools, he said. He visited four schools a day.
safely Laurie Welch, KU recruiter, said that she spent nearly every other week from October through January driving from town to town but that she enjoyed her job.
"i bleed red and blue," she said. "I even like being on the road."
Welch is on the road quite a bit when making her rounds in Western Kansas. She is responsible for maintaining a presence at more than 100 schools there.
Even with small conferences, Welch visits about 300 students each month during the peak recruiting season, she said.
Despite all her work and the work of her fellow recruiters, Welch is quick to give credit for KU's drawing power to the institution itself.
"KU's really easy to sell," she said. "It sells itself."
Professor pulls play from local murder
William conviction prompts creative urge in KU prof
Professor Paul Lim plans to tell about the Settlemyre murder from John William's perspective.
By Jim Petterson Kansan staff writer
Lim plans to write a play based on the William case.
On Nov. 17, Paul Lum, assistant professor of English, watched intently as a jury convicted John William of first-degree murder for the July 1988 slaying of a 9-year-old Lawrence boy.
he rowed the investigation and sat in on many of the legal proceedings involving the death of Richard D. Settlemire after news of the death first was reported.
"I've followed the case since July 1988 and had already thought there was material for a play in it." Lim said. "The more I sat in on the trial, the more convinced I was it would make an excellent play."
pay. William's conviction of first-degree murder stems from the July 1988 murder and mutilation of Settlemrey's body along a bank of the Kansas River.
Lim has taught at the University of Kansas since 1972 and has written several plays, short stories and other literary works.
He is on a semester's developmental leave from the English department to work on the William project and another play he is keening "on the back-burner."
Lim said his interest in the William case grew as he learned more about the facts surrounding the case.
I plan to take a sympathizer look at John William in the sense of what it is about our society that
the play will be written from William's point of view, Lim said.
"When the story first broke, I was much taken with the mythic quality of the story," he said. "Two young kids go fishing along and meet a stranger, not exactly Friendly Jim. He turns out to be a homeless man. Quite a contrast to Mark Twain's 'Huckleberry Finn.' It's dramatically interesting."
produces such a person," he said. "It was a horrible, grotesque and heinous crime.
"I don't condone the crime. He needs help, and he won't get as much help in prison as he would in a state security hospital. He's a victim just as he is a victimizer."
Lim said he was waiting for a response to inquiries he made regarding permeability to interview persons being held in the Douglas County jail.
"I'm going to try and talk with him," he said. "I want to do a series of interviews to see if I want the voice of the character to be his voice.
"I want to see what the person is like. During the trial, he was holding a Bible. What about the Bible appeals to him? I want to know what TV shows he watches, what music he listens to, his general background.
road since he was 18 years old. I want to know what life on the road is like."
is like. Lim said he expected to have the first draft of the play completed in early 1990.
"I understand he's been on the
Ron Willis, professor of theater and film, said he was impressed with Lim's work and thought the William trial could make an interesting play.
"Right now, I'm waiting to interview him," he said. "The first draft should be done by the end of January because I've been thinking about this for quite some time."
"Then, maybe by February or March. I'll do some revisions and have a clean copy by April."
Lim said he planned to have some friends who were actors read the play nce the first draft was written.
"Paul is an energetic and prolific playwright," Willis said. "He
has good narrative flow from being a short-story writer. I think his ability to transmute fact into poetic art is pretty substantially proven."
"We're talking about something that's historically thematic." Johnson said. "Paul's ideas for it are crisp, relevant and well thought through. He'll probably make a good production out of it."
prince
Michael Johnson, chairman of the English department, said that he would count on the William play being well-written, based on Lim's previous work.
When the play is completed, Lim said, he plans to send it out to see if anyone would be interested in producing it.
"I doubt any venues in Lawrence would want to touch this," he said. "It shows that our town can be ugly and violent. I think its future life would be elsewhere, not in Lawrence."
KU graduates adjust to 'real world'
Pressures different from college environment, alumni say
By Tracy Wilkinson
Kansan staff writer
There is a world outside Lawrence and the University of Kansas, and it is not always as welcoming as some dreamy-eyed graduates imagine it to be.
Robyn Steffes graduated in May with a degree in psychology and said she had expected a lot more from the business world.
"When you're in college, you just take for granted that people are well-educated," she said. "And when you get out in the real world, you find out some aren't."
said.
Steffes said she re-evaluated what she wanted to do with her career during the summer and decided she wanted to go to law school.
one took the LSAT in October and now works at the law firm of Wallace Saunders Austin Brown & Enochs Chartered, Lenexa, as a paralegal assistant.
"Graduation is...making less money than you ever thought you would, doing something that isn't remotely related to your degree. ..and not caring." Steffes
Steffes said the structure of the workplace outside the college atmosphere was difficult to adjust to.
C
Graduation is. . making less money than you ever thought you would, doing something that isn't remotely related to your degree. . . and not caring.'
- Robyn Steffes
"It is a very weird structure, it's very interesting," she said. "It's losing your age identity. It used to be you were a freshman, sophomore, junior or senior. Now that's all gone. I could date a guy who's 30. That would be no big deal to me."
Steffes said one of the most difficult things for her to get used to was the emphasis placed on experience, rather than on a college degree.
"I work with a paralegal who has an associate's degree that is either three or four semesters," she said. "
get paid less than she because she has a paralegal certificate, and I don't. But I can go to law school next semester, and she can't. It is very interesting to think about."
Steffes said that almost any graduate would be behind others, even those without a degree, at the outset of his or her career.
"Later, you might pass them up," she said. "But it will be a while. It will take years to get experience."
Laura Clark also graduated last spring. She received a degree in business administration.
Clark said that at some point, the individual needed to make a decision between going with a degree-related job, if that was truly what he wanted
"But when you really get out here, you realize that almost everyone else is in your position," she said. "And sure, there are those super-success stories, but of those people, almost 80 percent hate what they are doing."
Clark said when she graduated, she was terrified because she had no job, and she had no offers.
to do, and having a job that he enjoyed.
"It's very different," she said. "You realize how easy you have it in college."
Clark lives in Overland Park and is applying and interviewing with Hallam, IBM, U.S. Sprint and AT&T.
Mark Thill, a 1983 KU graduate in business and accounting, said he loved being in the real world.
"KU got me a great job," he said. "I got a job at Cooper's and Lybrand, one of the so-called big-eight accounting firms, in their Tusla office. I miss KU a lot. I loved college, but I love being out."
Thill is now the chief financial officer/controller of Metro Productions, a Kansas City, Mo., based video production company.
Thill advised both recent and future graduates never to give up hope in the job market.
"Keep trying," he said. "If you're willing to work, there's always a job for you."
Prof says department being hurt by Willner
Angela Baughman Kansan staff writer
The Department of Anthropology is tainted because of Dorothy Willner and her actions, an anthropology professor told a Faculty Senate committee Wednesday during dismissal bearings for Willner.
Associate professor of anthropology Donald Stull testified for the University of Kansas before the Committee on Tenure and Related Problems that the department and University suffered because of problems caused by Willner.
"That department is tainted by charges that I believe are un.founded," Stull said. "It's a snake pit. I feel that the University belatedly but finally has chosen to deal with a problem that has been detrimental ... to the University community as a whole."
Willner, a tenured professor since 1970, is charged by the University with falling to carry out academic duties and violating professional ethics. She filed an unsuccessful discrimination lawsuit against Stull and
other University officials in 1982.
"Professor Willner has instilled in myself and, I believe, all the rest of the members of the department, a fear of retribution for any act, said, adding that the department'self would not be able to achieve the kind of collegiality, shared mission and identity that it should have.
Stull also testified that Willner did not provide "quality education" in her classes, and he had heard complaints from students that Willner demonstrated superiority, unfairness in grading, a lack of availability and lack of knowledge on the subject matter in her classes.
"Over the past 15 years I have heard enough comments to convince me that Professor Willner does not provide adequate instruction in her classes," Stull said. "I have heard that she intimidates students in her classes, that she lectures in rather unorthodox ways, things like that."
The hearings, the first of their kind in KU history, continue from 2 to 5 p.m. and 7 to 9 p.m. today at the English Room in the Kansas Union.
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