UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Thursday, March 20, 1997
5
Next five years day at the Beach
Disability program awarded $150,000
By Ann Marchand Kansan staff writer
For the next five years, the Beach Center's Family Studies and Disability program in the department of special education will be $150,000 richer.
The program was recently named one of five recipients of funding from the Department of Education's Research Training Grants program. Fourteen applicants competed for the funding.
Ann Turnbull, co-director of the Beach Center, said that the program's receipt of the grant demonstrated its excellence at the national level.
The other recipients were the University of Pittsburgh, Virginia Commonwealth University, Boston University, and the New Jersey University of Medicine and Dentistry, said Richard Melia, associate director of the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research within the Department of Education
"The program really is known nationally as one which is among
the best of its kind." she said.
Turnbull founded the program in 1988 with her husband, Rud. Together they co-direct the center. Their son, J.T., 29, has mental retardation and autism, and he works at the center as a clerical aide, she said.
J. T. Turnbull is an inspiration for others who work and study at the center.
The Department of Education grant will finance the research of one postdoctoral fellow and will provide stipends for three doctoral candidates to study at the center. The program's goal is to attract diverse applicants.
"He serves as kind of an example of the possibilities," said Denise Poston, Santa Clara, Calif., doctoral student. "He is a wonderful example of what is possible when you have the support of friends and a supportive community."
Poston's son A.J., 9, also is autistic. She came to the center to learn more about relating to her son and improving his life through new research developments.
The program now has nine doctoral students and no postdoctoral fellows. The operating budget is about $100,000 a year, which the grant will supplement.
The department of special education was ranked first in the nation by U.S. News and World Report magazine. The family studies and disability program is the only one of its kind in the nation.
Fric B. Howell/KANSAN
Upon hearing of the grant, Sen Pat Roberts said that the award reflected the quality of work conducted at the center.
Rud Turnbull is co-director of the Beach Center, a division of the department of special education, which recently received a $150,000 grant.
"KU was one of only five institutes selected for this grant," Roberts said. "In our tight budget times, this grant is special recognition of the important work KU is doing in the field of disability research."
KU professor to study ancient Aleuts' culture
By Sean Demory Kansan staff reporter
A University of Kansas archaeologist has received a grant to research one of the least studied parts of the New World.
Dixie West, adjunct assistant archaeology professor, will leave in April to study the Western Aleutian Islands, off the coast of Alaska. She is part of an international expedition of scientists trying to determine living habits of ancient Aleuts, the hunter-gatherer culture which lived on the islands in historic and prehistoric times.
The team, consisting of paleobiologists and archaeologists from the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris, the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, will excavate on two islands to learn about the people and their environment. West hopes to find evidence of the Aleuts' hunting and housing practices, as well as their sociopolitical practices.
West, whose specialty is arctic and subarctic adaptation of hunter-gatherers, has worked in
Central Europe studying Ice Age cultures. She said that the Western Aleutians were particularly daunting to researchers.
"The key problem with working in the Western Aleutians is the expense and danger in getting there." West said.
West received $220,000 from the National Science Foundation for the expedition.
"Competition for the grants is very fierce," said David Nevin, a grant officer at the University Research Support and Grants Administration.
Nevin said that the University received 58 NSF grants last year, amounting to about $6.7 million.
Internet chain letters draw police probe
KU police questioned a student yesterday about committing fraud while using the University e-mail system at the computer center.
Sgt. Chris Keary said that the police had contacted the student after learning that he had been using e-mail to participate in a pyramid scheme, which is a chain letter devised to make money for those receiving it.
"A lot of people don't understand that this is illegal." Keary said.
In a pyramid scheme, the message receiver is told to send $1 to each person on the list, remove the top name and add his or her own name to the bottom of the list, Keary said. The list is then sent to other people.
"It's a new technological twist on an old game," Keary said. "The best thing to do is just ignore it."
Other users at the computer center told the administration that the student was sending the e-mail.
Richard Kershenbaum, manager of technical services at Computing Services, said that this was not the first time he had heard complaints, but he added that it was hard to prevent this kind of activity.
"It does happen on the Internet with some regularity," Kershenbaum said. "But we don't regulate or screen anything."
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