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By Josh Patterson

Dorothy “Dot” Nary, doctoral student in the Department of Applied Behavioral Science is a paraplegic. Each day she parks her car outside her office at the Dole Human Development Center. When she needs to go the Student Union or Frasier Hall she must drive, take a bus, or navigate her wheelchair along a complex route of ramps, pass through multiple buildings and take two elevators just to reach Jayhawk Blvd.

For many, catching a bus or finding parking spot is the biggest challenge they face getting to campus. But for wheelchair-bound faculty, staff and students the challenge can be navigating the campus itself.

“I found the campus really frustrating at first, there are so many pathways. I’d think I was following one that would lead to a ramp but find myself staring up or down a flight of stairs and have to backtrack,” said Nary. “The fact that KU sits on top of a hill exacerbates wheelchair access issues. Sometimes just making the campus compliant with ADA guidelines in not enough.”

The Americans with Disabilities Act passed in 1990 is a broad civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disabilities. The act defines discrimination as “failure to remove architectural barriers in existing facilities.” This means existing facilities also must be made accessible to those with disabilities. The act defines disability as “a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity.”
Under the act, individuals with disabilities have the same rights as non-disabled citizens and are entitled to the same access to public services, transit and commercial facilities.

ADA went into effect in 1992. Under Title III of the ADA all new construction, modifications and improvements must be fully compliant with the ADA accessibility guidelines. The law sets the standards that builders must follow when constructing businesses and public buildings. These design standards deal primarily with wheelchair accessibility. They cover things such as the maximum slope of ramps, the required width of doors and the maximum height of railings.

“The University’s campus has had to go through considerable renovations in order to make the entrances and interiors of the buildings wheelchair accessible,” said James Modig, director of the office of design and construction management. The office oversees all building repairs and renovations.

“It is an ongoing process to ensure we provide disabled students with access, it’s also a question of available funding,” said Modig.

The University requires at least one ADA compliant entrance to each building on campus. One entrance must have an automatic door opener. Many buildings have several. According to Modig, a door opener cost between $3,000 and $5,000 to install. Ramps are another required, and expensive, addition. The ramp leading to the main entrance of Watson Library cost the KU over $50,000 to construct.

Modig has worked as director for 20 years, during which time he has seen the University’s facilities go through many renovations to keep up with ADA requirements. “It’s an old campus, the average age of our buildings is 47 years. Six buildings are over one-hundred years, five of those are on the National Historic Registry,” said Modig.

Modig said that Strong Hall was an example of a challenging project. Strong Hall was completed in 1923. Like many buildings it’s age, it was built with the main floor one and a half floors above street level. This makes wheelchair access a challenge. Additionally, the building is on the historic registry, making renovations extremely difficult, and expensive.

Transportation to and from the University has also been an issue that for many years caused wheelchair-bound students significant problems. AbleHawks, a student organization dedicated to raising awareness of disability issues at KU was instrumental in getting the University to create KU on Wheels, the school’s disabled transport program.

“Transportation has been one of the biggest issues among AbleHawks members. KU didn't have an ADA compliant bus for more than 16 years since ADA was passed. AbleHawks worked hard and demanded equal access,” said Chaki Gonda, AbleHawks treasurer. “We testified for the need for accessible transportation at the student senate meeting last school year. Finally, KU on Wheels got new buses this year which makes us so proud and happy.”

Both Nary and Modig serve on the KU Architectural Barriers Committee. Modig has served as the interim chairman for the past four years. The committee includes faculty and students, its purpose is to troubleshoot campus access issues and make recommendations for improvement. Nary has worked and studied at KU for 10 years. In this time she has seen wheelchair access on campus increase but sees the need for improvement.

“Overall I think the University does a good job of listening to us and doing their best to meet our needs. But many times it is not clear who to contact if say, an automatic door is out of order, said Nary. “If I had to recommend one thing it would be more signage directing people to wheelchair-friendly routes.”

Nary said KU needs to raise awareness about disabled access issues. “Many times new students have a hard time getting around. Currently, there is no specific orientation through the Disabled Resource Center for new students on how to get around campus. It’s a big campus and can be daunting.”

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Design Department Expands

By Arthur Hur

In the past, some prospective University of Kansas students had to go elsewhere for their college education. The problem was not necessarily the distance from their families or high tuition but because the biggest school that offered the most majors in the state of Kansas did not offer their desired major.

Aspiring high school photographers can now put the University of Kansas on their list of prospective schools. Working professionals with design backgrounds won’t have to drive far enhance their business skills.

The KU design department is going to get a little bigger.

The department of design at KU will officially launch a new photography undergraduate major, along with two graduate degree programs in interaction design and design management, in the spring of 2008. However, students had the option of getting a head start and taking a few classes towards these new majors this semester. These new programs had been under development for some time. The undergraduate photography program was formulated last year while the graduate programs took longer, under development since the 2002-03 school year.

The new undergraduate photography major, photomedia, was created after the Kansas Board of Regents approval last spring. New courses in video and multimedia will be required in addition to the traditional film photography classes, giving the degree a unique dimension. Computer imaging, motion graphics and other digital media concepts are an important part of the curriculum.

According to the design department web site, the major most asked for by prospective students was a BA or BFA in photography.

“I would have definitely done it,” said Giao Pham, KU grad student. “I love photography and find it a shame that KU doesn’t offer the program.”

The move to include a photography major comes after every other Big 12 North school included it in their art or design curriculum except for Iowa State University, according to Big 12 school web sites. Now, the program is the only one in Kansas to offer a single photography and digital media major.

The working professional who graduated with a BFA long ago has not been left out of KU’s plan to expand its design program. An additional Master of Fine Arts degree will allow people who work full-time to learn again.

The new graduate degree will have two options. Students can choose to pursue a Master of Arts in Interaction Design or MA in Design Management. According to the department website, no other university in the area offers a similar program.

Both majors will offer courses at the Edwards Campus location in Kansas City to accommodate those who work during the day. Most of the students in the graduate program are expected to be professionals already working in their fields though anyone with an appropriate background is welcome, according to the design department web site.

No other Big 12 North school offers a master’s design degree centered around business management, according to school catalogs and web sites. Schools such as Kansas State, Nebraska, Colorado and Missouri all have programs offering an Master of Fine Arts or other graduate design degree specializing in ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture and visual communication. Iowa State offers a double degree program in architecture and business, but requires more credit hours than KU’s single-major design management degree.

The MA in Interaction Design will help students study how products, services and systems interface with users, while the MA in Design Management is designed to strengthen management skills, according to the design department web site.

There are only eight other schools that offer an MA, MFA or other graduate degree in Interaction Design, including Carnegie Mellon and the University of Baltimore, according to the Interaction Design Association web site. Of those eight, only six are in the United States.

To accommodate the anticipated growth of the department, a new photo area is planned. The old photo labs will be turned into multimedia classrooms and digital labs according to the design school web site. A senior professor in interaction design position had to be created, according to the design school web site.

Students entering the new programs this year will represent new growth that has been absent in the department for some time, according to the design department web site. In about three or four years, KU will finally be able to graduate its first photography majors.

By Jesse Temple

     When sirens pierced the air through Novi Sad, Serbia, one March afternoon eight years ago, Marija Zinic knew what it meant.

     NATO forces were preparing to bomb her hometown.

     She was 13 years old.

     Every day for two-and-a-half months, her routine was the same. With school cancelled, she spent six-and-seven-hour stretches in her family’s basement as sirens blared and bombs detonated around her. She and her family were often without electricity and water. Food prices skyrocketed. Novi Sad was ravaged, as all three bridges in the town were destroyed, isolating it from the entire southern portion of the country.

     But one element of life remained stable for Zinic amid all the chaos.

     Basketball.

     “We didn’t go to school,” Zinic said, “but we still went to practice.”

     Her harrowing tale is unique, but Zinic — now a junior on the Kansas University women’s basketball team — shares one commonality with 25 others on KU’s campus. They are all international students on athletic scholarships who may never have been exposed to KU if not for today’s modern technology and recruiting methods. Now, it is easier than ever for student-athletes to be recruited and feel comfortable committing to KU from anywhere in the world — some without even setting foot on campus.

     Phil Lowcock, KU director of the student-athlete life skills program, said technological advances have changed recruiting drastically.

     “The students now with the digital age that we’re in will send in a tape or e-mail of them at practice,” Lowcock said. “A coach can literally open it like a YouTube and see what their swing looks like. You’ll see quite a bit of that. So, (recruiting) internationally is becoming a bit more like domestic.”

      Egor Agafonov won an NCAA indoor track and field national championship in the weight throw last winter for KU after transferring from a Russian university.

     How did coaches find him?

     “I think it’s all results they have on the Internet,” Agafonov said. “They have all my results I had in Russia.”

     Agafonov said he chose KU without making an official visit. While being recruited, he kept in contact with coaches only through phone calls and e-mails.

     “That makes it a lot easier,” Agafonov said. “It doesn’t matter where you’re located. Through Internet, or e-mail and phone calls, you can connect almost every place in our world.”

     KU women’s basketball coach Bonnie Henrickson, who has three international players on her current roster including Zinic, said recruiting international athletes has become an integral part of the Division I college sports scene. She said that isn’t likely to change anytime soon.

     “We have contacts overseas, so we’ve got people that are familiar with our program and exclusively track talent,” Henrickson said. “In the last five years, in our July evaluation period, we have gone overseas to watch players play in either world championships or under-19 championships.”

     Henrickson said she resolved nearly a decade ago when she coached at Virginia Tech to shift her focus from recruiting exclusively in the U.S., and many coaches began doing the same thing in the mid-90s, according to Henrickson.

     “We just decided we’re going to take some time, it’s going to be expensive, but let’s give ourselves a five-year window to see if we have some success,” Henrickson said. “If we had not had players that were able to come over here and be difference makers, we probably would have stopped.”

     That seems to be the consensus among coaches and athletic administrators at KU. The appeal in pursuing international athletes lies in the results.

     “Sport is becoming global,” Lowcock said. “If that’s the best person I can find at that position, it doesn’t matter where they’re from.”

     KU’s international student-athlete numbers rank in the top half among Big 12 schools and compare favorably to other Big 12 North universities. According to each school’s athletic compliance office, the 26 athletes currently on KU’s rosters from outside the U.S. rank the Jayhawks second, behind Nebraska’s 44 in the Big 12 North, and sixth in the Big 12 overall. Kansas State, Missouri, Colorado, Iowa State, Texas and Oklahoma all have 25 or fewer international student-athletes.

     Yet for all KU does in recruiting, the biggest obstacle foreign-born players encounter also stems from what can’t be taught on informational DVDs or in e-mail correspondence with coaches — the language.

     Agafonov didn’t know any English when he arrived on campus a year ago, although he has learned quickly.

     KU sophomore Kunigunda Dorn, one of five international student-athletes on the women’s tennis team, found herself in the same predicament when she came to the United States for the first time from Hungary last year. Before that, her communication with KU had been aided by an English teacher in Hungary who e-mailed the coaching staff expressing Dorn’s interest. Dorn was Hungary’s women’s tennis champion in every age bracket she played.

     But Dorn never visited KU either, instead accepting her scholarship by relying on e-mails with coaches and text messages with Hungarian friend Edina Horvath who was already on the Kansas tennis team. That made the language barrier more difficult upon arriving.

     “When I came here, I was alone in the airport and I had to call Coach (Amy) Hall. It was the first time we had English,” Dorn said. “I didn’t even know what I should say.”

     Paul Buskirk, KU associate athletics director for student-athlete support services, said international athletes like Dorn have a distinct advantage over international non-athletes in making the transition to English so smoothly. He said that while non-athletes who don’t know English might engage with people of the same culture in their residence halls, international student-athletes are specifically roomed with athletes who speak English.

     “It is the key advantage for our student-athletes to move so quickly,” Buskirk said. “If you have nine people in a room speaking English and one who does not, they’re going to speak English. So the one who doesn’t is going to have to play catch-up, and they do. That is one key to success in quickly learning is the total immersion.”

     Buskirk said all international students take courses at KU’s Applied English Center,taught by tutors that specialize in teaching English as a second language. Once the student gains fluency, he said they exit the program and take regular classes.

     “It serves as a one stop shop for any international student, athlete or not,” Buskirk said.

     According to university statistics released in September, KU has seen an increase in its international student enrollment this year. The university currently has 1,754 international students, up 2.8 percent from a year ago. International students make up about six percent of the overall student body.

     Despite initial communication difficulties, international student-athletes say they are grateful for the diverse opportunities they have been afforded at KU.

     “I really enjoy that I’m here,” Agafonov said. “Beautiful campus and friendly people. It’s really quite the experience. It’s impossible to read this in books. It’s impossible to watch the TV shows or movies about the other cultures. It’s only from your personal experience.”

     Said Dorn, “I really like it. I think it was the best choice for me.”

     Dorn said she considered herself lucky to have the Internet’s assistance in finding KU because several older Hungarian athletes missed their chance at being recruited in America.

     “I heard from tennis players back in Hungary who are 28 years old, and they told me they had no chance without the Internet,” Dorn said. “They would send a letter, and then it was weeks before they got a response.”

     E-mail changed everything, particularly in countries that only recently latched on to the trend such as Hungary and Serbia.

     Zinic said she knows how much life has changed from just five years ago in Serbia when she had no computer or cell phone. In all likelihood, she admitted, she wouldn’t be at KU without the Internet — a service that became available to her just four years ago.

     “It made it easier,” said the 6-foot-2 Zinic, who was discovered by one of Henrickson’s scouts while playing for the Serbian National team at the European Championships in Slovakia. “Because they couldn’t call me everyday, and I had a lot of questions. We talked for a year before I signed. I got a lot of information from them through the Internet and I was able to go online and look at their Web site.”

     Zinic said 80 percent of her communication with KU’s coaching staff occurred by way of e-mail because cell phone calls to America were too expensive. She said her family also was lucky to have the rare privilege of owning a home computer.

     “Here, most of the people have laptops in high school and use the Internet,” Zinic said. “In Serbia, a lot of people don’t use Internet that much. So when I was using Internet, people thought it was so amazing.”

     Translated from Serbian, Novi Sad means “new planting.” These days, Zinic’s roots are firmly entrenched in the technology-savvy college town of Lawrence, where the loudest noise she hears emanates from Allen Fieldhouse on game days. It’s a stark contrast from her once pillaged, war-torn city at the center of the Kosovo War, where going to basketball practice meant dodging shrapnel during a lonely 15-minute bus ride across town, and the World Wide Web wasn’t even a passing thought in her mind.

     Like Agafonov and Dorn, Zinic never set foot on KU’s campus for an official visit. Her decision was based on cell phone calls and images and words scrolled across a multimedia platform from the relatively new comfort of her own home.

     For more and more international student-athletes, scholarships that once seemed unattainable and a world away are developing into a reality — one mouse click and keyboard stroke at a time.