FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1995
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NEWS 864-4810
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
ADVERTISING 864-4358
SECTION A VOL.102, NO.63
SPORTS
'Hawks ready for shootout
The Kansas football team will play its final regular-season game against Oklahoma State tomorrow. Page 1B
CAMPUS
Cuisine and a cause
Amnesty International serves dinner and writes letters to support human rights. Page 3A
NATION
Attorney General diagnosed with Parkinson's
Janet Reno has begun treatment for the neurological disease and will stay in office. Page 5A
Scientists discover Maccabee cave
WORLD
Archaeologists believe the find is the first confirmation of ancient warriors' existence. Page 5A
WEATHER PARTLY CLOUDY
High 55° Low 45°
Weather: Page 2A
INDEX
National News . . . 5A
World News. . . . 5A
Features . . . . 6A
Sports . . . . 1B
Scoreboard. . . 2B
Horoscopes . . . 4B
James Grau / KANSAN
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.
Hail to old KU
Sunlight illuminated Fraser Hall after yesterday's unseasonably warm temperatures.The warm weather trend is expected to continue today with temperatures reaching the mid-50s.
Student Senate: Who needs it?
It affects your life more than you think
By Sarah Wlese
Kansan staff writer
Some students think it is nothing more than a glorified high school student council. Others call it the token voice for students in University governance. Many view it as simply a funding organization, begrudgingly doling out student activity fee money.
Unbeknownst to many, Student Senate affects KU students' lives on a regular basis.
While finance isn't Senate's main focus, those results are the most tangible. Each semester, students pay about $200 in campus fees as part of their tuition.
Some of the money goes to campus groups. The rest goes to services that students use.
Getting free legal advice from Legal Services for Students, seeing a doctor at Watkins Memorial Health Center and exercising at Robinson Center are things some students take for granted.
"Students don't know that these services are at their disposal in part because of Student Senate," said Dan Hare, student body vice president.
(USPS 650-640)
Stevie Case, Olate sophomore, is a member of the parking board and University Council. She is also the vice chairwoman of the University Senate Executive Committee, a powerful decision-making body.
"Without student representation, you wouldn't be able to appeal your grade outside the department," she said.
Senators serve on about 60 policy-making boards and committees at the University, ensuring that even in the highest of ivory towers, the student voice is heard.
Recently, student representatives pushed for new grievance procedures for students.
Working so closely with faculty and staff members, senators are in a good position to act as liaisons between students and the University administration, Case said.
Senate as a whole also is working or issues affecting all students, such as improving campus lighting and the academic advising process and expressing students' views on linear tuition and the campus master plan.
"I feel so strongly that students have the power to create change through University governance," she said.
Senate, which consists of about 70 senators and five executives, exists expressly to represent students and their thoughts, views and concerns, said Kim Cocks, student body president.
Kenyon Charity
Lawrence freshman
"It's not something that you really get to know about unless you research what's going on and what they do."
senior
At election time, they make their presence known for sure,
but I don't know anything about it, so I don't vote.
Ryan McNeel Overland Park sophomore 66 The elections are really hyped, but I don't hear much about what goes on after that. 99
Aaron Kramer Kansas City, Kan
"We can't solve every problem at the University, but we can prioritize those problems and work on them." Cocks said.
Kristen White
Lenexa senior
"I think they should improve ways to get in touch with people not in the Greek system."
Senate's attempts to get ideas from students haven't been too successful.
At a town hall meeting at Ellsworth Hall a few weeks ago, two students showed up to ask questions to a panel of 11 Senate representatives. Senate executives also have sent out about 300 letters to student organizations, offering to speak at the organizations' convenience. They've gotten only two responses.
The cycle of student disinterest is hard to break. Hare said. Students who don't know don't care. Because they feel it doesn't affect them, they aren't compelled to find out what Senate can do for them.
"Our door is open, and we want people to come and let us know how they feel," Cocks said.
The Senate office is located inside the Organizations and Activities Center on the fourth floor of the Kansas Union. Any student wishing to voice a concern or complaint about anything on campus should come by the office or call 864-3710.
Duties puzzle some students
By Craig Lang Kansan staff writer
Mary Harris was surprised to learn that the University of Kansas actually had a Student Senate.
"I've never ever heard anything at all about it," said Harris, St. Louis freshman.
Harris is one of many students who know little or nothing about the University's representative body. While most students are familiar with the concept of Student Senate, some students feel that they really do not know about what goes on inside the Senate office in the Kansas Union.
Ryan McNeel, Overland Park sophomore, said he knew the structure of the Senate, such as the makeup of the general assembly and executive committees, from articles in newspapers. He said he also knew Senate dealt with the allocation of some funds. Beyond that, he said he was really not aware of what senators did on a day-to-day basis.
McNeel said the senators seemed to make themselves present around the time of the elections, but he never heard about what they did once they were elected.
Kenyon Charity, Lawrence freshman, said he knew only that Senate was something political, but that the only way of finding out what went on in Senate meetings meant doing research.
"It seems to involve me, but I don't know where I'd go to find out what they would do," he said.
Kristen White, Lenexa senior, said she felt that she was in the dark when it came to knowing why student senators held the offices they had.
"I don't know where you'd find out what issues they're for," she said.
White said she was aware that several fraternity and sorority members were in Senate. She said she thought more greeks were elected probably because they lived in such close quarters with other people. Therefore, a candidate's house brothers or sisters would be more familiar with the issues at hand and would be more likely to vote.
Mary Harris said that Senate needed to make itself more known to students, especially freshmen who had no idea that the University even had a representative body.
Regents face budget battle to keep funds
Schools will appeal to state to prevent $27 million in cuts
By Phillip Brownlee Kansas staff writer
"One would not describe these as good times for education," John Heibert, Board of Regents chairman, said in his opening remarks. "We are truly engaged in attacking an enormous task."
TOPEKA — The University of Kansas and the University of Kansas Medical Center could face nearly $14 million in budget cuts next year, according to state budget recommendations distributed at the Board of Regents' November meeting yesterday.
The reports prepared by Gloria Timmer, state budget director, recommended that $27 million be cut from the 1996-97 expenditure budgets of the state's six universities, of which $13.9 million, or 51 percent, would come from the University of Kansas and the Med Center.
"I believe the governor is our friend and is a supporter of higher education," Hiebert said. "We hope to restore the necessary funds to support our Regents institutions."
Prior to the meeting, Hiebert, fellow Regent Bob Talkington, Emporia State University President Robert Glennen and Stephen Jordan, Board of Regents executive director, met with the governor to appeal the budget cuts.
Mann said the University would request that its expenditure budget be kept at its current level of $176 million for the University and $222 million for the Med Center.
KU director of administration Dick Mann, who attended the Regents meeting, said that the University and the other state schools were preparing appeal letters that would be sent to the governor next week.
The University also is seeking some additional funding and is requesting that it have the right to retain control of any tuition income resulting from future increases in enrollment, Mann said.
Right now, any such increase in revenues is required to be returned to the state.
In other business, the Regents heard a request from Chancellor Robert Hemenway to approve non-tenure, renewable faculty positions at the Med Center.
Mann said that once the appeal process was completed, the governor would submit the official budget to the Legislature.
Hemenway said the positions were necessary to respond to the changing health-care environment and would apply to the Med Center only and not to any other part of the University or the Regents system.
However, other university presidents said they also would like new professional categories that recognized distinctions in faculty members, such as those that are primarily instructors or primarily researchers.
The Regents decided to study Hemenway's request further.
Regent Kenneth Havner said he had concerns about new categories that could give academic titles to instructors who were not true academicians.
They also received proposed increases for room and board rates at the state universities. The KU increase for a double-occupancy room would be $96 per year, or 2.7 percent.
The Regents will vote on the proposed increase at their December meeting.
Med Center has new acting dean
Kansan staff report
The University of Kansas Medical Center named Herbert Swick, senior associate dean for academic affairs, as the acting executive dean of the medical school yesterday.
Swick replaced Daniel Hollander, who announced his resignation on Monday.
"Dr. Swick brings the combination of academic medicine and clinical health care experience that is critical to academic medical centers," said Donald Hagen, executive vice chancellor of the Med Center.
Swick is the author of more than 100 articles, book chapters, abstracts, and book reviews. His book, "Teaching and Learning in Medicine," is being published.
Daniel Hollander was the second Med Center administrator to resign after news reports disclosed problems with the heart transplant program. The Med Center reportedly refused 45 donor hearts between July 1994 and March 1995 but continued to take heart transplant patients during this period. Officials would not comment on whether Hollander's resignation was related to problems with the transplant program.
Hagen said he was in the process of naming a search committee to select a new executive dean for the medical school.
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