CAMPUS/AREA
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Thursday, January 23, 1997
3A
Biology department plans merger
Combination will change faculty little
By Mark McMaster
Kansan staff writer
Two departments in the division of biological sciences plan to merge.
The department of biochemistry and the department of physiology and cell biology
may soon combine to form one department, to be named the department of biochemistry, cell and molecular biology.
Robert Weaver, associate dean of liberal arts and sciences, said that both departments approved the merger, which was later passed by the college office. Now, the proposal is awaiting approval from the Office of the Provost.
If it is approved, Weaver said the two departments should be operating as one by Fall 1998.
"The original impetus for the merger was from the college office." Weaver said. "Sally
Frost-Mason and I thought that there are several departments within the biology division that could merge. These two departments were the only ones that really showed an interest in it."
William Dentler Jr., professor of biological sciences, said that the merger would primarily affect graduate students.
"For the most part, department affiliations have more impact on graduate programs," he said. "I think it could strengthen the graduate program quite a bit. On the whole,
both graduate and undergraduate students should be better off"
Brad Schnackenburg, president of the graduate student organization for physiology and cell biology and Lawrence graduate student, said the merger may help the program get new resources.
"Through the merger, we can get more new faculty positions in," he said. "I think that was a decisive factor. It's a good way to improve the face of the department and get some younger researchers in here."
Weaver said no staff positions would be lost in the transition, except for the two current department chairs.
He said the college was beginning a search for a single chairperson, which would replace their positions.
"We hope to attract a dynamic new chairperson who will catalyze the hiring of some excellent new people," he said. "The offices are already consolidated because we have a division of biological sciences incorporating the six different departments. So all the office support staff were already consolidated."
Chris Hamilton / KANSAN
Brad Logan, associate curator of the Museum of Anthropology, will soon publish the results of his study of prehistoric peoples who lived near Fort Leavenworth around 1.000 years ago.
Artifacts found at Ft. Leavenworth
A part of history almost destroyed
Bv Mark McMaster
Kansan staff writer
If you ask Brad Logan about his time spent at the Ft. Leavenworth disciplinary barracks, he is more likely to tell you about the Paleo-Indian period than military punishment.
Logan, associate curator of the Museum of Anthropology in Spooner Hall, spent months working on an excavation at Ft. Leavenworth where he gathered evidence about the prehistoric peoples of Kansas. He and his colleagues will present a comprehensive report to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in March.
Logan was surveying a wooded area of the base when he took special interest in a nearby cattle pasture overlooking the Missouri River valley.
Logan said the area was interesting because anthropologists had little knowledge about the people who lived on higher ground.
Logan discovered ample evidence of archeological remains a few feet underneath the top soil, but later learned that the fort planned to build on the site.
"The fort informed me that is the site they intend to build the new disciplinary barracks at," he said. "The current facility is structurally unsound, and the only site suitable for building a new barracks is right smack on the site we found."
Ft. Leavenworth and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ordered the site to be excavated for archaeological evidence before the barracks was built. The Burns-McDonald engineering firm
in Kansas City received the contract and subcontracted the work to the anthropology museum.
The excavation was done in July and in October of 1995, with the help of a 25-to 30-person crew that was composed of many KU students and volunteers. The site became known as the DB ridge, named after the disciplinary barracks that would later be built there.
As the site was methodically explored, Logan found that the artifacts were neatly arranged in layers that revealed their ages.
"It's significant because we have not one, but at least two cultures stratified into layers," he said. "We can do a lot of interesting analyses by seeing how they are distributed."
The team found evidence that a farming culture had lived near the top of the ridge about 1,000 years ago.
"These were peoples who came to the DB ridge to harvest nut meats," Logan said. "Down a foot, though, we found charred corn kernels, which indicates that these were a farming people."
Dart points found further underground led Logan to conclude they were from an earlier era.
He said these deposits were between 5,000 and 5,500 years old. Most of the evidence found at the site dates to that period.
The team collected a variety of different types of artifacts from the site, including axes used to chop timber, drills used to manufacture clothing, knives for cutting carcasses and a wide variety of dart points.
Now that the excavation is finished, Logan and other researchers will examine the recovered items and try to establish what life was like for the natives who lived in Kansas thousands of years ago.
"What we'll be looking at is the projector points, the scrapers, the knives and the drills, studying their attributes and doing a typography," he said. "The way they are shaped and formed tells us something about the people."
Logan also will examine maps that show where different items were found. Examining the different locations will enable him to conclude where and when different activities occurred at the site, and which ones occurred together.
Other KU faculty will also research the results of the excavation.
William Johnson, professor of geography, will study soil samples collected at the site to understand what the environment was like in prehistoric times.
"My goal was to reconstruct the conditions of the past when the people were living there — from before 10,000 years ago to the present," Johnson said. "This site will be very important in giving us that information."
The researchers will soon receive the artifacts' radiocarbon dating results. Radiocarbon dating is a test that determines the age of an artifact within 50 years of its existence.
After research is finished, Logan plans to publish multiple papers on his findings, including a report he will present to the Society for American Archaeology in April.
Logan said the wide variety of data and artifacts would provide abundant material for students to study in coming years. Many of the artifacts will be stored in the basement of Spooner Hall.
Residence halls to recycle again
By Harumi Kogarimal
Kansan staff writer
Finally, all residence halls will have recycling bins for newspapers and magazines.
"I am sorry that it has taken so long for this new program to start," Brandt said. "But it will last for years. That's the beauty of it."
The Association of University Residence Halls will start setting out bins for both paper and aluminum on Feb. 1, said Heidi Brandt, AURH environmental issue committee chairwoman. Residence halls have been waiting for a recycling program for more than three months.
Brandt said resident assistants were responsible for collecting newspapers, magazines, white paper, colored paper, computer paper and aluminum cans, as well as taking them to the central recycling station in each hall.
Custodial staffs from the department of student housing will take the materials to Wal-Mart every week.
Brandt said if the housing department saw a high level of involvement in recycling, AURH would also start recycling plastic and glass after a few months.
The AURH stopped the former recycling program in October, and since then, it has been each residence hall's decision whether to have staff members collect recycling.
Brandt said that while some residence halls were still recycling items independently, others had asked individuals to take care of recycling.
Michelle Kohns, environmental chairwoman for Ellsworth Hall, said some resident assistants collected trash independently in her hall, but that residents were basically responsible for recycling on their own.
"Students do not really recycle by themselves," she said. "Recycling is not working now."
Students of residence halls are having problems with recycling papers because the old program stopped.
Jennifer Williams, Derby freshman, said that she and other residents in her floor of Hashinger Hall had taken trips to Wal-Mart because there had been no newspaper recycling box.
"All we have are bins for aluminum cans," she said. "We need to have bins for newspapers."
Brandt said a recycling company used to pick up trash from all residence halls, but that the company went bankrupt. AURH could not find another company that would agree to pick up recycling.
"We are very excited about this new program," she said. "But it takes a very high level of involvement by hall staffs."
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