FRIDAY, DECEMBER 1. 1995
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NEWS 864-4810
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
SECTION A VOL.102, NO.70
ADVERTISING 864-4358
Jayhawk coach returns home
Renee Brown, a former Kansas women's basketball assistant, and the National Team come to Lawrence. Page 1B
CAMPUS
Minorities and AIDS
Rates are higher for socioeconomically disadvantaged groups. Page 3A
NATION
The price for peacekeeping
Defense Secretary William Perry has estimated the cost for sending troops to Bosnia to be $2 billion. Page 6A
WORLD
China prepared to invade
China has asserted its right to invade Taiwan if the island nation chooses independence. Page 6A
WEATHER
PARTLY CLOUDY
High 67° Low 43°
Weather: Page 2A
INDEX
Opinion . 4A
Nation/World . 6A
Features . 8A
Sports . 1B
Scoreboard. 2B
Horoscopes . 4B
The University Daily Kansan is the student newspaper of the University of Kansas. The first copy is free. Additional copies of the Kansan are 25 cents.
The WORLD is my HOME'
A KU graduate has turned the love of travel into a lifestyle.
Over the past six years, Paul Endacott's travels have led to faraway adventure:
Chichibu Tama Park in Japan (top left), the island of Gili Air, Indonesia (top right), and the Pacific Ocean off the coast of New Zealand. He now lives on the island of Pohnpei in Micronesia, a group of islands located about 3,000 miles southwest of
Paul Endacott has been close to death several times in the last two years. Being harnessed to a line that runs from the stern to the bow of his
26-foot Raven sailboat and riding out fierce storms on the open seas has left
At sea, he often has only minutes' warning that a storm is upon him. "You'll get this creepy feeling. Then the air pressure changes; the calm hits. At least," he says.
he slept about the challenges of a normal life. At sea, he often has only minutes' warning that a storm is upon him
And you know something is going to happen," Endacott says.
When the storms hit, he fights for his life.
(USPS 650-640)
He can't see anything. It is cold and dark, and the driving rain blasts him like a fire hose.
"Sometimes you can't tell if you're underwater or above water," Endacott says. "If you breathe in enough water, you can taste what it's going to feel like to drown. It tastes like death."
But living is what Paul Endacott is about. Living a life that’s more a travelogue than a career, the life that many a Midwestern kid has dreamed of.
Thirty-year-old Endacott left Lawrence Nov. 8 to return to his latest home, the island of Pohnpei in Micronesia, a group of islands that lies about 3,000 miles southwest of the Hawaiian islands.
There, he has taken a job as a state economic planner, only the second "normal" job he's held since he graduated from the University of Kansas in 1989.
He'll show up in a Hawaiian shirt, pants and thongs, much the same thing the island's president wears, and try to sort out Pohnpei's finances.
He found out about the job on the night he sailed into Pohnpei. Endacott met some fellow Westerners who worked for Pohnpei's government at a waterfront bar. He mentioned his economic degree and that he was headed for Guam to find a job. Shucks, they told him, Pohnpei needed economists. Here are some contact numbers, why don't you just stay?
Robert Goodwin is the chief technical advisor for a United Nations water resources project in Pohnpei. He says Endacott's informal road to employment isn't uncommon.
"There are a lot of people like Paul who happen to be passing through and end up getting a job here." Goodwin said.
Endacott will work on reports pertaining to a $100-million-a-year aid package from the United States to the Federated States of Micronesia that will help the islands establish an independent democracy.
See WORLD, Page 5A
AIDS day reminds that virus is looming
By Joann Birk
Kansan staff writer
Today's eighth annual World AIDS Day is one more reminder that AIDS is not going away.
Despite all the research, education and media attention that AIDS has received in the last decade, the number of Americans infected with the virus continues to rise.
"With all the research that has been done, it is very sobering to hear the statistics," said Tim DeBoer, marketing coordinator for Planned Parenthood. "World AIDS Day is all about information and prevention."
DeBoer cited a recent study in the journal Science that estimated that one in every 92 American men between the ages of 27 and 39 were infected with HIV. Last January, the Center for Disease Control named AIDS the primary cause of death of people between the ages of 25 and 44.
DeBoer said studies like these have inspired Planned Parenthood to offer free HIV testing on World AIDS Day. The anonymous testing will be available from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. today at all area Planned Parenthood centers, including the Lawrence center, 1420 Kasold Drive. Planned Parenthood usually charges $15 for HIV testing at its Lawrence office.
Amy Bolli, coordinator of the center for peer health promotion at Watkins Memorial Health Center, said World AIDS Day should remind students about the importance of safe sex and HIV testing.
Bollig said that Watkins and the Douglas County AIDS Project were providing information, red ribbons and condoms today from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Kansas Union.
Tim Furnish, Lawrence graduate student and chairman of the Douglass County AIDS Project, said that this year's theme for World AIDS Day, "Shared Rights-Shared Responsibilities," represented important issues.
"Everyone has a right to treatment, respect and equality, and a responsibility for protecting ourselves and educating others," he said. "So far, education is the only cure we've got."
Tamara Morris, director of marketing for Planned Parenthood, said AIDS awareness was crucial for college-age men and women because they were in the target age group for the disease.
"People still have the attitude that it can't happen to them," she said.
Teaching assistants protest for pay raise
Faculty and students march on Strong Hall to support GTA union
By Novelda Sommers Kansan staff writer
About 200 protesters crowded the sidewalk yesterday and marched from the Kansas Union to Strong Hall chanting for pay raises for graduate teaching assistants.
About 200 people marched on campus yesterday to try to convince University officials to grant graduate teaching assistants a pay increase in January. The rally started at the Kansas University and ended in front of Wescoe Hall.
the marchers, who were GTAs, faculty and undergraduates, stopped in front of Strong Hall to deliver their version of the "Rock Chalk Chant." The original chant is: "Rock Chalk, Jayhawk, KU!" The protesters' version was: "Rock Chalk, Pay Raise, KU!"
The crowd then moved across the street for a 30-minute rally in front of Wescoe Hall, where the lineup of speakers included KU professors, GTA union members and a representative from the Kansas Association of Public Employees.
GTA union members organized the protest because they said the University denied them a 3.5-percent raise. The 1995 Legislature approved money for a 3.5-percent raise for KU faculty to take effect
Jan. 1, 1996, but did not earmark funds for a GTA raise.
Tom Hutton, director of University Relations, said the University remained firm in its stance that the Legislature did not want the University to give GTAs raises.
Pam Dishman / KANBAN
The University employs about 1,000 GTAs, and their salaries vary from department to department. The University would have to come up with about $160,000 to cover the increase.
"We are here to protest the meanspirited treatment of GTAs by KU," Karen Hellekson, GTA union president, told the crowd. "The University works because we do."
Hellskean said she had received a list of about seven English faculty members who supported the union's efforts to garner a wage increase. Two professors spoke at the rally.
"It's a beautiful day for a protest," William Tuttle Jr., professor of history and American studies, told the crowd. "It would be even more beautiful if KU would do the right thing and award a pay raise to GTAs."
The union filed a complaint in August before the Public Employee Relations Board against the University for allegedly withholding the pay raise to retaliate against
the GTAs for unionizing. Union and KU officials went before a mediator to resolve the dispute Nov. 6, but the department of administration, which was also named in the complaint, moved to halt mediations.
A hearing with a relations board officer has been set for Dec. 7-8.
Tuttle and other speakers criticized Marc Adin, KU director of human resources and representative for the University in negotiations with the union, for having told The Laurence Journal-World that if the relations board did not side with the University in December, the University would appeal
until it won.
Adin said his comments were taken out of context.
"If the hearing officer were to order the 3.5-percent wage increase, we would have to examine our options," Adin said. "I can speculate all day long, but who knows what will happen?"
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