Basketball: Kansas squeaks by San Diego 79-72 in home opener. Page 7
Burroughs: Writers comment on Tuesday's Nova Convention Revisited Page 3
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
NEWS 864-4810
ADVERTISING 864-4358
MONDAY. DECEMBER 2. 1996
SECTION A VOL.103.NO.68
(USPS 650-640)
McCollum Hall resident faces criminal charges
KU police arrested a KU student after he allegedly held his girlfriend in his room at McColum Hall and sexually assaulted her.
Jail officials said Thomas Sun,
Olathe sophomore, was arrested
about 1 a.m. Tuesday morning.
At his first appearance in court, Sun was charged with kidnapping, rape, aggravated criminal sodomy and domestic battery. His bond was set at $75,000. Yesterday afternoon, Sun remained in the Douglas County Jail.
In a statement released by University Relations, David Amber, vice chancellor for student affairs, said the arrest came less than an hour after the victim called authorities. According to the release, the victim is also a KU student.
Ambler also said in the release that Sun had been barred from returning to the residence hall and that additional disciplinary actions were pending following court proceedings.
Sun's preliminary hearing will be held at 1:45 p.m. tomorrow. That hearing will determine whether the case will go to trial.
—Kansan staff report
Students in Iran call for free speech and elections
TEHRAN, IRAN — In a sign of Iran's increasingly outspoken opposition, a powerful students' association has called on the president to guarantee free speech and free elections before next year.
The Islamic Students Society asked President Hashemi Rafsanjani to ensure that journalists and writers are not imprisoned or punished for their ideas, the newspaper Iran reported yesterday.
It said the group hoped that writers would be allowed to work freely without having to live in exile or fear persecution at home.
Earlier this year, the Islamic Students Society's own newspaper was temporarily banned by authorities for criticism of officials.
Supreme Court to hear Minnesota ballot case
ST. PAUL, MINN. — When state legislator Andy Dawkins sought reelection in 1994, he sought the nominations of two parties.
Dewkins was nominated by the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, the state's version of the Democratic Party.
The procedure is legal in 10 states, but Minnesota isn't one of them. The Supreme Court will hear the case Wednesday, with the outcome likely to determine whether states may prohibit candidates from running with multiple candidates.
Trouble arose when the New Party, which Dawkins described as a left-wing version of Ross Perot's Reform Party, also tried to nominate him. Election officials rejected the third-party candidacy.
Congress won't change welfare law, senator says
WASHINGTON — Sen. Don Nickles, the Senate's second-ranking Republican, ruled out fundamentally changing the new welfare law, something the White House wanted to happen. Even Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the Democrats' leading expert on welfare, reluctantly agreed yesterday that it won't happen in the coming Congress.
Nickles, appearing with Moynihan on NBC's Meet the Press, also said the GOP didn't want first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton actively involved in the welfare debate.
Clinton pledged when he signed the Republican-crafted welfare overhaul bill last August to fix aspects he said were too severe.
The Associated Press
The town now is silent except for the constant Western Kansas wind that blows through the surrounding wheat and milo fields.
Outside of the old Bapist church, the deep dust, like history, settles. When stirred by the wind, it seems to speak. If you listen carefully, those winds and that dust will tell the story.
"We've got plenty of history around here," said Ora Switzer, 93-year-old lifetime resident of the town. "So many important things have happened right here. People came here from the South huntin' for freedom.
We need to keep that spirit."
Edmée Rodriguez / KANSAN
The town residents have been fighting for years to do just that: preserve the spirit, the history and the place that is Nicodemus. Kansas.
Much of that history already has been lost. Only 26 residents and a few artifacts remain from the town's early years. Mostly, just the memories of the elders are left.
But the University of Kansas and the U.S. government are trying to keep Nicodemus from fading into the history books.
The Kansas Collection, housed in the Spencer Research Library, retains and preserves most of the written documents from and more than 1,000 photographs of Nicodemus and its early history.
The reason its history has been put in the University's hands dates back to 1986.
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
"At that time, KU took up the mission of systematically preserving African-American history in Kansas," said Deborah Dandridge, field archivist for the Kansas Collection. "KU did that by hiring someone to address that focus: me. I focus solely on Black history."
And Dandridge knows Nicodemus'history well.
Founded in 1877, this tiny town that sits high on the northern bank of the South Solomon River in eastern Graham County was a haven for slaves freed after the Civil War.
"The founding was an expression of Black nationalism and, at the same time, a hope to explore freedom from racial segregation." Dandridge said.
W. R. Hill, a White man, and W.H. Smith, a Black man, spoke in churches, town meetings and other gatherings. They painted Nicodemus as a promised land where former slaves could begin a new, prosperous life.
To entice former slaves to move to this arid, little-known country, two men joined forces to tour the South and promote Ncodemus to African Americans.
TOP: Angela Bates-Tompkins, president of the Nicodemus Historical Society, often portrays African-American frontier characters to promote Nicodemus and Black heritage in the West. LEFT: Bates-Tompkins' great-great-great grandmother America Bates, seated on the left, and her daughters were original settlers of Nicodemus.
See NICODEMUS. Page 10
House burns, leaves students without a home
By Andrea Albright Kansan staff writer
Ten residents, including at least five KU students, lost their home and belongings in a fire that destroyed a house near campus Wednesday.
Karr said that the fire had spread throughout most of the structure before the fire department was called.
Fire Battalion Chief Jerry Karr said a resident who lived on the second floor of the building at 940 Indiana St., called the Lawrence Fire Department at 10:48 a.m. when he saw smoke coming through the heating vents in his apartment.
Jamie Katz, Overland Park sophomore, lived in the first-floor apartment where fire fighters believe the fire began.
"Alarms did sound," Karr said. "But when we arrived they were at a very low level because the fire in the walls was destroying the system."
Katz said his roommate awoke just before 7 a.m. to find his mattress on fire.
Karr said fire fighters determined that a candle was the original source of the fire.
Katz said that Jess Black, Kansas City, Mo., junior, burned his hands trying to extinguish the flames coming from the mattress.
Thinking the fire was out, Katz said he and Black went to the hospital.
Karr said while Black was being treated for second-degree burns on his hands, Katz returned to the apartment where he doused the mattress
Fire Facts
Where: 940 Indiana St
When: Wednesday morning
Cause:A candle near a mattress
Damages: Estimated at $150,000
Injuries: One resident and one firefighter received minor injuries
want water, took it off of its frame, and leaned it against the wall. Katz then left the room.
Karr said that sometime between 9 and 10:48 a.m., the mattress, which had been smoldering, caught fire again and began to burn the house.
Karr said that the structure of the house made extinguishing the fire difficult.
"Mattresses are famous for reigniting," Karr said. "They can explode when they get oxygen."
"We didn't see open flame until late in the fire," Karr said. "In a balloon structure, there are spaces in the walls and the floors where the fire travels and spreads through the entire structure."
Twenty-nine fire fighters had the blaze under control in about two hours, Karr said. All four Lawrence fire stations responded to the call bringing five fire trucks to the house.
Karr said the damage to the house, which was divided into six apartments, was estimated at $150,000.
"It is a total loss for contents and structure," Karr said. Katz said that he may commute to school from his parents house in Overland Park for the rest of the semester.
The other occupants of the house will receive assistance from the Red Cross to help pay rent and security deposits on new apartments, Katz said. But he was unsure whether insurance would pay to replace their belongings.
"We don't know yet what the landlord can do," Katz said. "There's a limit to how much you can insure student housing for."
Karr said that besides the injuries to Black's hands, a firefighter suffered a minor injury from falling debris.
Although injuries from the fire were relatively minor, Karr said that it was sad to see this kind of incident around the holidays.
"it's too bad," Karr said. "Had we been called at the initial incident, that structure would still be there today and there would be a wet mattress by the dumpster."
Graduation fee a possibility for students
By Cameron Heeg
Kansan staff writer
Coming to the University of Kansas for an education costs money. In the future, leaving with a diploma might cost money as well.
For the past 124 years, commencement ceremonies have been free of charge for graduating students. But budget constraints within the University have prompted the commencement committee to consider various options to fund the ceremony. One option is charging graduates a commencement fee, said George McCleary, chairman of the commencement committee.
"Most schools have been charging students a graduation fee for some time now, but I know there isn't much enthusiasm to implement that policy here at the University," McCleary said. "We have never had to charge students here before, and
we are looking at all the options."
In 1996, the University spent $59,343 on spring commencement ceremonies. The committee has budgeted $60,458 for the 1997 commencement. The University has asked the committee to cut that figure down 5 to 6 percent.
The committee would like to reduce the cost of printing diplomas and commencement programs, McCleary said.
Printing of programs and diplomas accounts for more than half of the commencement budget at $20,000 and $11,936 respectively.
"It gets to be an expensive mess when the University has to print up diplomas and not all of them get awarded," said Grey Montgomery, student body president and committee member. "There are those people who don't graduate for one reason or another and those diplomas go to waste."
Graduation costs
These are some of the costs involved in organizing graduation:
Musicians: $5,425
Portable toilets: $730
Flowers: $2,956
Ambulance: $669
Faculty caps and gowns:
Printing copies of scheduled events: $1.076
1
Printing and mailing diplomas out after commencement is a good way to cut back on what turns out to be a waste of money each year, Montgomery said. But the printing cost is only one of the areas committee members are looking at to meet the necessary budget cuts.
enter, centralizing busing efforts
Eliminating Allen Field House as an alternative site in case of bad weather, centralizing busing efforts
to the commencement activities and cutting back on flowers are some suggestions.
"It is a difficult position we are in because we don't have much budgetary flexibility," McCleary said. "The current budget doesn't need much cutting, it needs to be fine tuned. Hopefully it can be done without causing any major problems."
The committee is scheduled to meet this month to determine budget cuts and the amount graduating students could be charged in the way of a commencement fee.
The plans for a fee are still in the preliminary stages, said Jeanneette Johnson, assistant to the provost and a committee member. Because many of the committee members are reluctant to implement a fee, they have not decided if students who choose not to walk down the hill would be charged.
TODAY
Weather: Page 2
INDEX
TV ... 2
Lottery ... 2
Opinion ... 4
Sports ... 7
Scoreboard ... 8
Classifieds ... 9