6A
Friday, February 14, 1997
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Students lead drive against South Lawrence Trafficway
By Paul Eakins
Kansan staff writer
At noon today, KU Environs members are scheduled to march from the Kansas Union to Wescoe Hall, seeking support from the University of Kansas in opposition to the South Lawrence Trafficway.
"We are continuing the effort to educate people and bring attention to this issue," said Jason Daniels, Colby sophomore and Environs member.
The march is the first event in a weekend-long gathering of the Wetlands Preservation Organization and other opponents of the trafficway.
Haskell Indian Nations University is having an opening prayer at 6 tonight at the Medicine Wheel with a reception after at Sequoyah Hall and an informational meeting 9 a.m. tomorrow at Sequoyah Hall.
The events are open to the public.
Tomorrow's meeting is an organizational meeting to update
the opponents of the trafficway on the current situation and to broaden the base of support, said Michael Yellow Bird, KU assistant professor of social welfare.
"We're meeting to find out who is in support of the native people's position and to more effectively address the issues," he said.
The events will end on Sunday with a protest at 31st and Louisiana streets.
The trafficway has been an ongoing controversy for several years. Although the west leg was completed in November 1996, the east leg has yet to begin construction.
This leg, which is to run along 31st Street, would go through the Haskell Wetlands and would affect both these and the Baker Wetlands further to the south, Daniels said.
"It is a simple, but complicated problem," he said. "The simple part is that there's a road going through the wetlands that we don't want there."
The complicated part, he said, is the many reasons that the traf-
ficway should not be there. Opponents of the trafficway have cited many reasons to move the location of the trafficway further south, beyond the Wakarusa River where the trafficway could not affect any of the wetlands.
Aside from the environmental reasons for opposing the trafficway, opponents also say the county has violated federal laws in the trafficway process.
They also say the trafficway would violate the rights of Native Americans to practice their religion, which they do in sweat lodges in the wetlands.
The city and county commissions have both voted to support the 31st Street alignment of the trafficway. Their line of reasoning was that one part of it has already been completed, so this route is the most cost-efficient and well-located place for the trafficway.
Yellow Bird said the county and city have ignored the requests of trafficway opponents to move the proposed location further south.
"It's an issue of environmental racism, directed at Haskell," he
said.
Yellow Bird also said the University needs to be involved.
Wetlands Preservation Gathering
Noon today-March from the Kansas Union to Wescoe Hall.
Daniels said a Senate resolution had been passed in 1993 to oppose the trafficway, but that little had been done to show that opposition.
6 tonight - Prayer at the Medicine Wheel on the Haskell Indian Nations University Campus. Reception following in 103 Sequoyah Hall.
9 a.m. tomorrow - Organizational and informational meeting, 103 Sequoyah Hall.
Noon Sunday-Protest at 31st and Louisiana streets.
Architects solve noise problems at Hashinger
Complaints amplify need for insulation in old practice rooms
By Harumi Kogarimal
Kansan staff writer
Noise from amplified guitars and other instruments may not irritate residents of Hashinger Hall in the future.
An amplified instrument practice room in Hashinger's basement will be completed soon, and residents can use it by the end of this semester, said Carol von Tersch, assistant director for the Department of Student Housing.
This new practice room was designed by KU architecture students to prevent the noise of amplified instruments from traveling to the upper floors, von Tersch said. Two existing piano practice rooms will be lined with soundproof materials and converted into one large room.
Von Tersch said the room had been designed in response to complaints of noise from Hashinger residents.
Funding for the construction will be supplied by the creative arts fee that Hashinger residents pay, von Tersch said.
Bob Coffee, a KU lecturer of architectural engineering, said KU architecture students designed the room as a part of their class project. A student in the class Architecture 681 condensed the report and submitted it to the housing department in Spring 1996.
Coffeen said his students discovered that noise could be easily transmitted through the holes in pipes and other openings. They also found that the study area above the practice room was particularly noisy.
"Previously it was just a room in the basement," Coffeen said. "From acoustic viewpoint, it was not an appropriate room for amplified instruments."
Coffeen said new walls covered with wallboards and insulation will be built inside of the current concrete walls. The ceiling will also be hung by resilient isolators so that the sound would not be transmitted to the upper floors.
"We are not making a soundproof room," Coffeen said. "It is impossible. Students studied how they could reduce the noise to a suitable level."
Right now, residents can play amplified instruments for restricted hours only in the practice room after checking with an academic program coordinator.
Tony Verzura, Newton freshman,
said he played instruments for two
hours every day, but he always
wished he could play longer.
Some residents have complained that the hours they were allowed to play instruments were too short.
"It takes a while to set up," Verzura said. "It takes at least half an hour. I need three hours."
Officials hope to eliminate crowding with renovations
By Mary Corcoran Special to the Kansan
After 18 years of increasingly crowded conditions caused by expanding enrollment, a $9 million expansion and renovation of Murphy Hall is set to begin.
The changes to the hall, the home of the KU School of Fine Arts, will include a 1,100 square-foot music library; three rehearsal areas, including a 4,800 square feet room twice the size of the current rehearsal room; and a technology center, said Stephen Anderson, chairman of music and dance.
"This will significantly improve virtually every phase of our academic and performance areas," Anderson said.
The school will use about $7.5 million for the addition to Murphy Hall. The remainder of money will go to remodeling and improving the existing structures, Anderson said.
The present rehearsal hall will be transformed into a practice area for KU Opera, which currently does not have an official rehearsal space.
provide space for clinics, teaching, rehearsal and offices, Anderson said.
The current music library will be renovated for the departments of music education and therapy. The newly remodeled area will
George Duerkens, director of the division of music education and therapy, said the department presently was scattered throughout the campus. "This will consolidate everything in our own space," he said.
The school received the funding for its expansion through the Board of Regents' Crumbling Classrooms program. The Regents allocated more than $40 million to the University. Murphy Hall's expansion was included in that allocation.
Anderson said the expansion was in the concept stage while the school worked out budgets and cost estimates. After the department finalizes the budget, it will begin the design and development stage and then hire contractors.
Construction could begin by the end of this year and be completed in the fall of 1999, Anderson said.
"We will finally be able to put ensembles and instruction involving sound in an appropriately designed acoustical environment," Anderson said. "It will make the students' lives more efficient."
Crew members prepare to launch The Family Channel blimp. The blimp has been brought back into the aeronautical spotlight through the help of KU alumnus Jim Thiele. Thiele, founder of American Blimp Corporation, will be presenting his Back To The Future With Blimps speech at 3:30 this afternoon in 3140 Wescoe in the aerospool colloquium class.
Blimp-making alumnus to visit
New ideas give new life to blimps
By Aaron Marvin Special to the Kansan
A KU alumnus who has revitalized the blimp industry with his technological innovations will visit the University of Kansas today.
"He started a business that everyone thought was dying and made it viable." Roskam said. "That's not easy."
Jim Thiele, founder of the American Blimp Corp., will speak to students and faculty in the aerospace colloquium class from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. in 3140 Wescoe. The title of his lecture is Back to the Future with Blims.
Jan Roskam, professor of aerospace engineering and founder of the colloquium, said Thiele had played a vital part in bringing blimps back into the aeronautical spotlight.
Thiele made selling blimps possible by making them simpler and cheaper. He was the first person to invent a transparent hull for his blims, said Rajat Sahi, New Delhi, India, senior and a former intern at Thiele's company.
Roskam said that when Thiele was an undergraduate at the University, he had shared his ideas about blimp revitalization.
"When he told me about his ideas as a student here, I about fell out of my chair." he said.
Advertisements are painted on the outside of the hull and then lit by two 1000-watt light bulbs, he said.
Thiele also cut the cost of blimps by removing fancy gadgets, tailoring the engine and simplifying the design of the airship.
These ideas have led Thiele's company to be the only successful seller of blumps in the United States, according to an airship database
Roskam said that before Thiele's idea was implemented, advertising was lighted with exterior lights, which are expensive and subject to environmental conditions, such as rain and snow.
that lists 28 blimp manufacturers.
Although Thiele's topic for the lecture remains unknown, Roskam, said to expect Thiele to give students some history behind blimps because most people have limited knowledge of them.
Sahi said that Thiele would probably discuss and present pictures of one of American Blimps' newest airships, a 10-passenger blimp. Sahi assisted with the completion of the blimp last semester while he was in Hillsboro, Ore., the home of Thiele's company.
After the blimp was finished, Sahi* was flown to the Tustin Marine. Base in Irvine, Calif., to witness the first flight test.
"When you see the finished product," he said, "you're amazed. When you go through the development phase, that's when you feel a part of it."
The first flight was enough for the 10-passenger blimp's buyer, Budweiser, and it joined another of the beer company's blims for its first commercial flight at Super Bowl XXXI. Budweiser's other blimp, a five-passenger model, was also built by Thiele's company.
Whatever Thiele discusses, Roskam said, it would be a treat to hear the lecture.
"Here's a student who just had these ideas and managed to parlay them into a raging success," he said.
While at the University, Thiele is expected to meet with several aerospace faculty members.
"Here's a
student who just had these ideas and managed to parlay them into a raging success."
Jan Roskam:
Professor of aerospace engineering
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