Lawrence homeless shelters struggle during the winter
Lawrence – The cold-winter weather makes it harder for local shelters to support the Lawrence homeless community.
Although the national Department of Housing and Urban Development reported last month that homelessness had dropped by 12 percent nationally from last year, Lawrence has not seen a decrease in its homeless population.
“We are starting to have to turn away 15 people a night because of the cold weather,” said Loring Henderson, director of Lawrence Community Shelter. “Last night it was 15 degrees and there is supposed to be an ice storm tonight. We try to bend the rules and let more stay, but there are still some out there at night.”
The Lawrence Community Shelter can house only 31 people at night. Those who do stay the night sleep on the floor with only blankets or sleeping bags. The Lawrence Salvation Army can house 50. Both have sign-up lists.
A Lawrence census from earlier this year found almost 400 homeless adults and children in the city.
“I came out here this summer and have been going back and forth between the Lawrence Community Shelter and the Salvation Army,” said Daniel J. Smoley, a local homeless man. “It’s been hard to get a spot lately with the weather getting colder. There’s limited space and I don’t want to stay outside in my car with the weather this cold.”
Health risks increase for people living on the streets as the weather gets colder. Nearly 800 people die from hypothermia a year in the United States; half of those who die have consumed alcohol and are thought to be homeless, according to a study by the Illinois state government in 1994.
“People die outside in the winter if they’re drunk,” Henderson said. “That’s why at night we have an open shelter, which means if they’re on the list we still let them in if they’re drunk or high as long as they behave themselves.”
The Lawrence Community Shelter provides other services for the health of the homeless, such as intervention for drug and alcohol addiction and mental illnesses, food, blankets, coats, bathroom facilities and flu shots.
“We’re concerned about things like colds and flu and all that,” Henderson said. “The [night] monitors say sometimes it’s like an orchestra of coughing at different levels around the room.”
Lawrence Community Shelter Video
The shelter offers another health service monthly with a chiropractic visit from Phillip Hart, chiropractor and owner of Lawrence Community Chiropractics.
Hart performed spinal adjustments on 15 homeless patients during his last visit to the shelter.
“Most of the back problems I see with the homeless are with older people or ones who have been homeless for awhile,” Hart said. “A lot of them have muscular and chronic back problems from their poor sleeping conditions, without mattresses and because they work in manual labor jobs.”
Hart said many at the shelter express their appreciation for his free services when at the shelter.
Lewis “Lewegi” Gladue has been living homeless in Lawrence for four years and said Hart’s help has changed his life.
“I hurt the L-5 disk in my back when a desk fell on me while I was a worker for a moving company back in Minnesota,” Gladue said. “Phillip Hart put my back together again so I don’t have to have surgery. I’ve started seeing him twice a week since I first saw him here at the shelter.”
Hart has lived in Lawrence his whole life and seen first-hand the increasing homeless problem here.
“My biggest complaint about this city is the way it addresses homelessness because it goes unaddressed,” Hart said. “So this is my way of making a difference, helping through chiropractics. It may not make a big difference but even if just a day is easier for someone that’s better.”
Lawrence needs more space, coats and blankets to keep the growing homeless population warm this winter. To help contact the Lawrence Community Shelter on Tenth and Kentucky Streets.
Members of the Lawrence School Board approved changes to curriculum for next year at the junior high and high schools. A few of these changes include two new courses, P.E. Plus and Health 9 and an Intro to Work and Family course that replaces the Family and Consumer Science course.
The P.E. Plus is a year- long elective course for eighth and ninth graders. The proposal for the curriculum changes states one-third of America’s youth are at risk for obesity and recent studies show a correlation between academic success and physical fitness. Julie Miller, physical education teacher at West Junior High, said that the junior high age is when kids stop being as active and this course gives them an option for staying physically active throughout the school year.
Source: http://www.nap.edu
“For a lot of kids today, the only exercise they get each day is in their physical education class,” Miller said. “While it's important to get them moving and increase their level of physical fitness, it's equally important to make exercise fun and enjoyable so it's something the student will want to continue after they leave our class.”
Source: National Association for Sport and Physical Education & American Heart Association. (2006). 2006 Shape
of the nation report: Status of physical education in the USA. Reston, VA: National Association for Sport
and Physical Education.
Anne Hawks, Lawrence public schools science, health and p.e. specialist, said junior high students must take one semester of physical education each year, but the school’s concern with the rising percentage of students at risk for obesity caused the school to rethink its physical education programs. The pre-requisite for the P.E. Plus course is students must make a grade of a C or higher in their previous p.e. course.
Ann Bruemmer, Lawrence public schools division director of curriculum, said students need additional physical fitness opportunities.
“We know that healthy living is critical today and offering more opportunities to be physically active is a plus,” Bruemmer said.
Anne Hawks
Hawks said eighth grade students must fulfill a health requirement. The curriculum changes will require students Intro to Work and Family in eighth grade. The Health 9 course is an elective and if ninth grade students take the course it will fill the physical education credit students need in high school, Hawks said. Fulfilling the physical education credit in the ninth grade will free up scheduling in high school, which allows students to take other elective courses, Hawks said. The Intro to Work and Family course teaches the introductory material that is in the Health 9 course, Hawks said.
Patrick Kelly, Lawrence public schools career and technical education specialist, helped create the curriculum for the Intro to Work and Family course. The course will teach students how to develop a life plan for achieving individual, family and career goals and ways to make ethical decisions, Kelly said.
“The curriculum focuses on wellness goals and decision making,” Kelly said.
Bruemmer, Hawks and Kelly based the curriculum changes proposal on the Kansas Model Curricular Standards for Health Education. According to the model, by the end of eighth grade students should understand the basic concepts of health promotion and disease prevention. Some standards include nutrition, personal health, mental and emotional health, family life and sexuality.
Lawrence’s ever-growing assisted living population will be breaking ground next spring with a new addition: a sub-acute rehab unit.
A sub-acute rehab unit involves a short term stay for rehabilitating and monitoring patients who do not qualify for a stay in a hospital but aren’t ready to get back to their homes or assisted living environments. It’s a small step from a hospital because hospitals concentrate on intense care but a sub-acute focuses on intense rehabilitation.
Marie Vogel, administrator at Pioneer Ridge health care facility, said that the new sub-acute rehabilitation unit will be an alternative for patients who do not qualify for rehab centers, such as those in hospitals like Lawrence Memorial Hospital. People must qualify to stay in a sub-acute by having a qualifying Medicare stay at a hospital, which involves three midnights at a hospital and a qualifying diagnosis. A diagnosis could be one of hundreds of different diagnoses, Vogel said, but it typically involves having a new joint put in, or a hip put in, or just fall and need to get stronger.
When patients no longer qualify to stay at the hospital, they have limited options if needing to continue rehab for occupational, physical and speech therapy.
“The main goal is to get them back out into the community,” Vogel said. “The community can range from the nursing facility where they came from, or back out to their home.”
The new sub-acute unit will offer services that are more beneficial to patients than Medicare rehab programs, such as oxygen services and private rooms. The new rehab unit will have 18 beds and the stays can last from two days to 100 days, depending on the care needed. The new unit will also create a need for RNs, LPNs, CNAs and physical therapists for around the clock nursing care.
Donovan Lee, social worker for the acute rehab unit at Lawrence Memorial Hospital, said that the new sub-acute rehab unit at Pioneer Ridge will be a transition for patients making the move from the hospital to a home or assisted-living environment. At the rehab unit in Lawrence Memorial, patients need to go through three hours of physical therapy at a time. Pioneer Ridge will offer a physical therapy program that will not be as intense for patients making the transition.
Another aspect that sets the new sub-acute unit apart from other programs at assisted living homes across Lawrence is the physiatrist who will be available to patients, Lee said.
“Having a physician who specializes in medicine and rehabilitation makes the new unit invaluable for the assisted-living community,” he said.
The new rehab unit will also benefit other parts of the medical community, such as outpatient care. Judy Bellome, CEO of Douglas County Visiting Nurses Rehabilitation and Hospice Unit, said that individuals who go to a sub-acute rehab unit will benefit more when they return to their home environments and in need of outpatient care.
“I like to think of it as a continuum of care,” Bellome said. “The mission is always to get them back into their homes.”
Katherine Stroute, registered physical therapist for Douglas County Visiting Nurses, said that she has seen patients who have left the hospitals too early because insurance or benefits have run out but still have serious medical problems.
“Some weren’t even able to get out of bed,” Stroute said. “I’ve seen some with gaping wounds who were in need of a doctor, not a nurse.”
She said that she has also sent patients back to the hospital if the problems became life-threatening. Stroute said that the new sub-acute unit would hopefully prevent this from happening and have more serious issues of patients be addressed in Lawrence.
“U.S. News and Politics” magazine recently named Lawrence as one of top 10 places in the United States to retire. Administrators at Pioneer Ridge, such as Debbie Walker, director of assisted living, were surprised at first but she said she can also see why Lawrence would be recognized above other cities.
"It has the slower pace of life, [and] has the high quality with people really taking the time to get to know each other," Walker said. "That can sometimes be missing in the larger cities and it is also supportive on the medical side, which seniors need."
Lawrence planning commissioners say Wal-Mart will start building a new superstore by the first of the year. Wal-Mart developers purchased the northwest corner of Sixth Street and Wakarusa for the project.
development plans for the new Wal-Mart location provided by the planning commission
During its Aug. 30, 2006 meeting, The Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission voted 5-5 to recommend approval of the Preliminary Development Plan for Wal-Mart. Commissioners denied the plan but since then Wal-Mart has revised the plan to meet the conditions of approval.
“The Wal-Mart final development plan should be approved on Dec. 17. So far they have met most of the development requirements,” said Sheila Stogsdill, director of the project.
Some citizens think another Wal-Mart store will benefit the Lawrence economy and add more jobs for the unemployed.
“Wal-Mart brings a lot of tax base for Lawrence whether people want to admit it or not. It will also brings in more jobs,” said Barbara Tucker, Wal-Mart customer.
According to the American Medical Informatics Association, Wal-Mart was associated with stingy health care polices for its employees for much of the last decade.
graph shows health care policies in 2004 provided by the Associated Press
All the criticism was hurting its reputation and its ability to expand.
According to Scott Matchell, store manager of Wal-Mart on 3300 Iowa St., improving health policies for employees took two years of seeking advice from Bill Clinton to executives at Starbucks.
“For my wife and I, the new health policies are great. I used to have to pay extra for my wife to be on my plan. Now, she can be on the insurance plan without having to pay extra money,” said Matchell
According to the company web site, Wal-Mart has pushed down the price of 2,400 generic prescription drugs to $4 a month for employees and customers.
“My mom and I both get discounts on prescription drugs from the Wal-Mart pharmacy,” said Matt Moore, Wal-Mart employee.
Hardware stores, grocery stores, variety shops, women’s stores and pharmacies are some of the locally owned businesses that are affected by Wal-Mart stores.
“Wal-Mart pharmacies produce a high volume of prescriptions and consumers can get them for cheaper prices. I’ve been in Lawrence for 22 years. I’m not ready for another Wal-Mart to take away business,” said Tom Wilcox, owner of Round Corner Pharmacy.
Wal-Mart executives send development engineers and company representatives into the smaller communities where stores are built.
“When we are building in smaller towns representatives are required to go into the community and inform the public,” said Angie Stoner, senior manager of public affairs at Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart architects and planners hold open houses for the neighbors surrounding the new development to ask questions. When commissioners review initial development plans Wal-Mart representatives go to city commission meetings to represent the company.
“When we built the Wal-Mart on Iowa Street many people in the community were concerned about what the exterior of the store would look like. We welcomed input from the community during that development process,” Stoner said.
Wal-Mart has met almost all of the development requirements and has already sent representatives to speak to the Lawrence community about the new project.
“There is nothing I can do about another Wal-Mart coming to Lawrence. Of course it will affect my business. I just hope we can retain our customers,” Wilcox said.
It did not surprise Naughty But Nice owner Richard Osburn when his landlord presented him with an eviction notice-––at this point nothing surprises him. The city has been threatening to shut down Osburn’s adult novelty store for the past seven years, so Osburn has learned to be thankful for each day his business is open and to take each day as it comes.
“Its funny because people who I do business with and customers seem to be more worried about this than me,” Osburn said. “I’m like a duck on a pond––I let it all roll off my back.”
Richard Osburn, owner of Naughty But Nice,1741 Massachusetts St., faces his landlord in court today. Osburn's landlord served Osburn with an eviction notice last month
Osburn opened Naughty But Nice, 1741 Massachusetts St., in December of 1999. After several of Osburn’s neighbors complained to the city about the nature and the location of Osburn’s store, the city commission passed an ordinance in July of 2000 that said adult novelty stores must be located along a highway, among other restrictions. The only other adult novelty store in town, Priscilla’s, 1206 W 23rd St., was allowed to remain in its location because 23rd St. is also Kansas Highway 10. Naughty But Nice was given five years to relocate. After an unsuccessful search for a relocation spot, Osburn decided to fight the city in court.
Osburn’s five-year grandfather clause expired in July of 2005, and Osburn has been to court with the city several times since. His trial has been extended beyond its original date to give Osburn time to retain a lawyer and is set to go to trial on Feb. 14.
Osburn said his landlord has been looking for a new tenant for the building since October of 2006. He said few businesses had been interested in the space until a month ago when the owners of Beat the Bookstore, 622 W. 12th St., and Big Burrito, 620 W. 12th St., visited the space several times. The stores are currently located at what could be the future site of the Oread Inn.
Osburn said his landlord asked him on Nov. 7 to vacate the premises by Nov. 30. When Osburn asked for at least a 30 days notice, his landlord served him with an eviction notice on Nov. 17. Osburn will face his landlord in court on Thursday in an eviction trial where Osburn hopes to receive a 60 days or 90 days eviction notice.
Osburn's landlord, Bruce Banning, put a for-lease-sign on the building last year in October. Banning gave Osburn the choice of having multiple signs on the building and paying a reduced rent or limited signs on the building and paying full rent.
Osburn's landlord, Bruce Banning, said he served Osburn an eviction notice more than a year ago. Banning said at that time, Osburn was given the option to either pay a reduced rent with multiple for-lease-signs on the building or pay full rent with limited signs on the building until he found a place to relocate his business. Osburn chose to pay full rent.
Banning said other leasing companies were interested in the building, but they did not want to take the building as a client because of the nature of Osburn's business. Bannnings said Osburn had been a good tenant up until recently. He said when it came time for Osburn to do what he had promised to do, Osburn did not follow through and that is why Osburn was being evicted.
Jerry Little, city prosecutor, said the city would probably drop all charges against Osburn if Osburn were evicted.
“Basically our only intention is to get him out of the premises,” Little said.
If Osburn is not evicted, Little said the city would either seek a fine or request jail time. Little said the fine would be about $10,000. He said he was unsure what the maximum amount of jail time was for this type of case, but it was probably less than a year.
If the city seeks jail time, Little said Osburn would be given 30 days to relocate or close down his business. If Osburn complies, he will not have to serve his sentence. Little also said Osburn could request a trial by jury at the district court level if the city requests jail time.
But Osburn said that his legal battle with the city is a case of elimination, not relocation.
“If there is a chance for me to move somewhere and still make money, they won’t approve it,” he said.
Osburn said his only rental option is 10 Marketplace, 1800 23rd St., a strip mall immediately east of the last stoplight in Lawrence. Osburn said he did not want to rent the space in 10 Marketplace because it would cost $4000 a month to rent, which is a 40 percent increase above his current rent, $2,400.
The owners of the strip mall 10 Marketplace,1800 23rd St., have offered to lease Osburn this space. This space complies with the ordinance that Osburn is violating.
Osburn said tried to rent at other strip malls in Lawrence, however his application was either rejected by the owners of the buildings or by the city.
“There was a bait shop, liquor store and a laundry mat there, but they did not think my business was the kind they wanted over there?” Osburn said of one location. “It’s not like they were serving the cream of the crop to Lawrence."
Osburn said every other available location would make it impossible to meet the ordinance’s other clauses, which require adult novelty stores to be 600 ft from homes, the length of two football fields, 1000 from churches and schools and 1,500 from daycares or other sexually oriented business.
Osburn said he even tried to contest his case to the Board of Zoning Appeals. Osburn asked the board for a variance from the zoning requirements of the ordinance. However David Corliss, who was the assistant city manager at the time, told the board it did not have the authority to grant Osburn a variance.
Less Hannon, a former board member, said he was the only member to question the fairness of the ordinance and the extent of the board’s power. Hannon said Corliss told the board that the ordinance was passed by the city commission, so it was the law and the Board of Zoning Appeals had to abide by it.
Osburn said he believes the ordinance was the work of that one individual––David Corliss, who is now the city manager.
“This is his pet project,” Osburn said.
Osburn said that before the law was even made, Corliss told him, “It’s my job to get you out of there by any legal means.”
Robert Osburn, Richard’s brother, who works in the store part-time, agreed with his brother about the Corliss’ intentions.
“We spent 12,000 in remodeling and then they said we don’t care,” Robert said. “It showed the callousness of David Corliss.”
But Corliss disagreed with the Osburnses’ statements about his dislike of Richard.
“I wouldn’t know him if he walked down the street,” Corliss said.
Corliss said the city commission adopted the ordinance because the city wanted adult novelty stores to be along highways because of traffic volume and to get them away from a neighborhood setting. He also said that at this point, he is just seeking to enforce the law.
Former city commissioner Erv Hodges said because the city commission meeting took place so long ago, it was hard to remember what was specifically said. But he agreed with Corliss that the city’s intent was to eliminate the possibility of stores of Naughty But Nice’s nature from being placed in residential areas where there were young children.
Osburn said he did not understand why the city did not pass the ordinance before his store opened. He said he went to city hall on two occasions before he opened his store to make sure he met all the requirements, and he was told at that time that he did.
Key Dates in the Naughty But Nice Trial December 1999: Osburn opens Naughty But Nice.
July 2000: The city commission passes an ordinance requiring adult novelty stores to be located along highways, 600 ft from homes, 1000 from churches and schools and 1,500 from daycares or other sexually oriented business. Osburn is given a five-year grandfather clause.
July 2005: Osburn’s grandfather clause expires.
November 2005: The city notifies Osburn that he is in violation of the law and Osburn files an appeal to the city’s Board of Zoning Appeals.
March 2006: Osburn asks the Board of Zoning Appeals for a variance from the zoning restrictions of the ordinance. His request was not granted.
October 2006: Osburn attempts to come into compliance with the ordinance by increasing the amount of non-sexual products in his store. Osburn’s attempts fail.
October 2006: Osburn’s landlord places for-lease-signs on the building.
November 2007: Osburn is charged with operating an adult novelty store without a proper license in an illegal location.
January 2007: Osburn’s hearing is postponed until March to allow him time to find legal representation.
March 2007: Judge Randy McGrath appoints Osburn an attorney and Osburn’s hearing is postponed again.
May 2007: Judge McGrath sets Osburn’s trial date for October.
May 2007: The city takes Osburn’s court appointed attorney away because Osburn is not indigent.
October 2007: Osburn’s trial is postponed until February to allow Osburn time to find legal representation.
November 2007: Osburn’s landlord serves him with an eviction notice.
December 2007: Osburn faces his landlord in court in an eviction trial.
Vicki Topolewski, Robert’s girlfriend, said Richard and Robert first approached the city of Ottawa about opening the store there. She said the city passed an ordinance that said they could not open their business there, and that is what Lawrence should have done if it did not want Naughty But Nice either.
Gene Shaughnessy, who was the chief building inspector in Lawrence at the time, confirmed that Osburn was well within the city’s requirements, as far as going through the proper channeling. Shaughnessy also said that when Priscilla’s opened in 1989, the residents who lived near the store were more vocal about their discontent with its location than the residents who lived near Naughty But Nice were when it opened. The owner of Priscilla’s was unavailable for comment.
Hodges said the commission did not make an ordinance when Osburn applied for his permits because at the time, the commission was not concerned with Naughty But Nice’s location. He said the commission only made the ordinance at the request of Osburn’s neighbors, people, he said, who are normally very quiet.
“Unfortunately, in this day and age, it was not bothering us, so why worry about it,” Hodges said.
Osburn said he is not bothering anybody. Osburn said cities usually cite three reasons for disliking adult novelty stores: the stores drive down property values, increase crime and bring blight to the neighborhood, all of which Osburn said are untrue.
In fact, Osburn said he thinks he is a good neighbor. Before Osburn rented out the building Naughty But Nice is housed in, it was a vacant lot, which Osburn said was worse than having his business in the building.
“Blight is created by neglect,” he said. “An active tenant isn’t likely to be neglectful.”
Richard Osburn, Naughty But Nice owner, said he has tried to decrease the amount of sexually oriented products in his store. Osburn said that despire his efforts, the city always finds a way to label his products as adult-only.
Osburn’s current neighbors agreed. Kate Gonzales, a Lawrence resident who has lived on Vermont St. behind Naughty But Nice for two and a half years and has a daughter, said she would be more concerned if a strip club or a bar were located where Naughty But Nice is.
“Right against our back fence is the Dairy Queen drive-thru,” Gonzales said, “and having that against our backyard, for me, is more of a concern than Naughty But Nice.”
Gonzales also said that Family Video, 1818 Massachusetts St., rents pornography as well, and she did not see what the difference was between that and Osburn’s store.
Melissa Rempfer, who lives directly behind Naughty But Nice and has a son, agreed with Gonzales and said she is more concerned about the property value of her home decreasing because there is there is a Shell gas station on the block.
Rempfer did point out, though, that the neighbors who were concerned about Naughty But Nice’s location had since moved away. She also agreed with Osburn’s claim that a business that is run-down creates more blight than one like Osburn’s that is visually kept-up.
Sam Sangam, who owns Speedway Shell, which is next door to Naughty But Nice, said he has never had a problem with Osburn or his customers. He said Osburn’s business is much quieter than the other businesses downtown on Mass. St. Sangam has owned Speedway Shell, 1733 Massachusetts St., for five years.
Katie Brown, who has lived in the apartment complex next to Speedway Shell for five years and has two children, said she is not worried about the store affecting her children because she and her husband will teach their children it is an inappropriate store.
“I don’t agree with the business, but its like any other store I don’t go to,” Brown said. “We don’t eat at Dairy Queen, and that is down the street.”
Brown also pointed out that Osburn has his widows blacked out, so his products cannot be seen from the street. She said people can see more in the Victoria’s Secrets’ display windows at malls.
Osburn made a similar argument about television and the Internet.
“If you have cable TV with premium channels or the Internet, there are far more disturbing images on there than here because we don’t let children in,” he said.
Robert said they chose to make the customer base 18 and older–– by law they can let people in who are younger. He also said the city should encourage local business, especially their type of store, because Lawrence is supposed to be liberal. He also said not everyone involved with city government has a problem with his product.
“There’s a lot of important people who shop in that store, that want my product, but I’ll never give names,” Robert said.
Robert also said he was personally affected by the ordinance. Before the lawsuit, he worked at Naughty But Nice full-time. Now he works there only part-time.
“We had to spend thousands of dollars on legal fees. I wouldn’t be here [working as a janitor at the University of Kansas] if we didn’t spend all that money, because the store is out of money,” Osburn said. “I had to take a $10,000 pay cut because of the city. That is why I have three jobs now and today, I’m going to look for a fourth.”
Richard Osburn said even if people disagree with his business or have never stepped foot in it, they should be worried about how the city has unfairly treated him.
“People should be concerned with these kinds of grandfather clauses,” Osburn said. “Priscilla’s got one and it’s in town and there is a house behind it. At the same city commission meeting they gave Pricilla’s a grandfather clause, but not me.”
Osburn said that other business should be concerned with his situation. He said as silly as it may sound, the city could make a law in the future that places similar restrictions on fast-food restaurants because of the growing problem of child obesity in the U.S.
The Sabatini Multicultural Resource Center will open the doors of its new facility in January after seven years of planning.
Student Senate established the Multicultural Resource Center, a program of the Office of Multicultural Affairs, in 1991. The MRC works to promote diversity and acceptance on KU’s campus and through student organizations and academic programs.
The current center is in a 2,470-square-foot military annex behind Summerfield Hall. With 6,000 visitors a year, the MRC needed a new facility.
“We’ve clearly run out of space,” said Santos Nunez, program director for the Multicultural Resource Center.
Current Multicultural Resource Center behind Summerfield Hall.
The MRC presented the idea to build a new center to the University administration in 2001 and the following year Student Senate presidential candidates listed a new center on their platforms. In 2003, the University decided to move forward with its plans to build a new MRC and construction started in May 2006. The University provided funds for the $2.7 million building, along with a $1 million donation from the Sabatini family and $1.5 million in student fees. The Sabatini Family Foundation of Topeka has donated millions of dollars to the University, including donations for the School of Education’s Strategic Learning Center and professorships in Roman Catholic thought and modern Jewish studies for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Alex Porte, Great Falls, Va., sophomore and student body assistant treasurer, said that students currently pay $3.50 each semester to cover the construction fee. Student Senate introduced the fee in 2005 and will continue until 2012. Porte said students also pay $1.50 per semester for the Multicultural Education Fund.
The new 7,000-sqaure-foot center is attached to the northeast side of the Kansas Union. David Mucci, director of KU Memorial Unions, said that the new MRC will attract more people to the union and will provide diversity for students.
“MRC programming will extend the idea of cultural understanding and bring exciting activities to our part of the campus,” he said. “It will help bring the campus together.”
The new center’s amenities include updated technology, more resources for student groups, more study space for the MRC’s tutoring group, SOAR (Students Obtaining Academic Resources), and lounges for students. Student Senate also gave $20,000 for a digital screen that will hang in the hallway connecting the union and the MRC.
Along with the new building, the MRC will control Student Senate’s multicultural education fund. The two organizations will work together to decide what student groups will receive funds. The MRC co-sponsors several student groups, including the Black Student Union, Queers and Allies and the Hispanic Leadership Organization. The new center will provide resources for these groups.
“ It makes it easier to network with other student groups on campus,” said Ebony Howard, Fort Worth, Texas, senior and president of the Black Student Union. “The MRC will enrich any student’s college experience.”
Howard said the new center will give students groups like the BSU more space for meetings and social events. And because the Student Involvement Center’s offices are in the union, all organizations will benefit.
“Having the MRC next to the Student Involvement Center will create more of a partnership for all student groups on campus,” Porte said. “ Any multicultural group knows they can go and get some kind of benefit from the MRC.”
Howard said the MRC is a positive place for minority students to come and feel comfortable.
“ It’s just a good place to hang out and be where you feel like you belong,” she said.
Nunez said that the MRC focused on being environmentally friendly during the construction of the new center. All of the building materials and furniture came from local vendors and the framework is made of recycled steel. KU’s School of Architecture used the building plans for the center as a part of one its semester projects. The colors of the wall paint, furniture and fixtures are based on colors of skin tone. The architects for the center came up with the theme, “the colors of people” to represent the diversity the MRC hopes to promote.
“We felt it would fit in with our own theme of ‘We Are One Community’,” Nunez said. “Through the colors of people we could remember the different people who helped build this building.”
Nunez said a new MRC building is important because KU aims at providing students with multicultural opportunities.
“As our community changes into a global community, our students are demanding a multicultural education,” she said.
The MRC hopes that all students, not just minority groups, will take advantage of what the MRC has to offer KU.
The MRC will open its doors on Jan. 28 and student groups will hold grand opening activities.
KU Recreation Center expansion part of a growing trend
By Rustin Dodd
Tricia Sawtelle and Cara Sharpe stood together near a coat rack in the corner of the Student Recreation Fitness Center at 12:45 in the afternoon. Sawtelle and Sharp, Olathe, seniors, took off their coats and joined a smattering of students using the recreation center. The two girls, who said they use the Student Recreation Fitness Center four or five times a week, chose this time to work out for a reason. They know that in the next few hours the recreation center will become packed with weightlifters, runners, basketball players, and martial artists.
“The only way we come in the evening is if we have tests,” Sharpe said.
But students may not have to worry about the scarcity of treadmills or dumb bells during the peak hours of the recreation center for much longer. The Student Recreation and Fitness Center is in the midst of a 6.3 million dollar expansion. Mary Chappell, director of recreation services at the University of Kansas, said when construction crews finish the expansion in May 2008, students will have 45,000 square feet of new amenities and equipment.
The recreation center construction should be finished by May 2008.
The expansion, which will include four new multi-purpose courts, two new racquetball courts, a longer indoor track, a new martial arts room and a new golf simulator, is part of a growing trend of university recreation center development across the country. According to Steven Martini, the director of recreation services at Kansas State, more than 300 university recreation centers are under renovation or expansion.
The Kansas and Kansas State projects both came following a 49.2 million dollar expansion of the recreation center at the University of Missouri. The University of Missouri Recreation Center, or MizzouRec, opened in 2005. With 293,000 square feet of basketball courts, hot tubs, and flat-screen televisions, Sports Illustrated On Campus named MizzouRec the top university recreation center in the country in a September 2005 issue. Just like the Kansas and Kansas State recreation centers, students paid for MizzouRec with student fees.
But while university students pump more and more money into recreation centers, Chappell said her main goal was to give students what they need.
“We do see what’s going on around us,” Chappell said, about the recreation center developments at Missouri and Kansas State. “We know it’s a good retention and recruiting tool.”
Lisa Pinamonti-Kress, director of the Office of Admissions and Scholarships at the University of Kansas, said the Office of Admission sends prospective students information about the recreation center after the University accepts their application.
“It is something that we talk about, and students like to know what we have,” Pinamonti-Kress said.
Chappell agreed that the student recreation and fitness center was a positive for luring prospective students.
“They come into the rec center, and I think it paints a really good picture of something that they could utilize once they get here.”
The Student Recreation and Fitness center opened in 2003.
The University of Kansas didn’t always have a million-dollar recreation center. Until 2003, Robinson Gymnasium was the only recreation option for students. Robinson Gymnasium, which is home to the School of Education’s Health, Sport, and Exercise Science program, was open limited hours. Chappell said in 1998, Kevin Yoder, the student body president at the time, led a small task force of students to determine if students would pay for a new recreation center. That task force decided that students would pay $50 on top of the old $13 recreation fee. Student Senate charged students a $50 dollar recreation fee, and construction on the new recreation center began in 2002, with the grand opening coming in 2003.
Chappell said Recreational Services was fortunate to be adding on to the recreation center this quickly. She said in 2004, then student body president Andy Knopp negotiated a deal with athletic director Lew Perkins. Knopp traded 1500 student basketball seats to the Kansas Athletics department for 6.3 million dollars. Construction crews started working on the expansion project in March 2007.
But will a nicer recreation center actually attract potential students? Martini, who has been at Kansas State since 1980, said he thinks recreation centers play a small part in attracting students.
“It’s not so much KU has this, so K-State has to have this, but enrollment at universities has become more and more competitive over the years,” Martini said.
“You want to get students to come to your University, so you have provide the best programs, the best instructors, the best facilities.”
During the afternoon hours, many students find it hard to find open exercise machines.
Chappell has another reason for the spike in university recreation centers. Students simply expect a nice fitness center.
“Those students that are coming to us now are saying, ‘we’re used to this. This is what we had in our high schools, or at our private gym,’” Chappell said.
Chappell said she doesn’t expect the trend of bigger and better recreation centers to stop. In fact, she said people might see a new trend popping up inside recreation centers.
“You are going to see a lot of schools going to the component of wellness. When you go into a rec center, you’re not only going to be playing basketball and racquetball, but you are going to be learning how to cook right.”
Diane Dahlmann, director of Recreation Services at the University of Missouri, said that reading, writing, and arithmetic are no longer the three “R’s. “Recreation is the fourth “R,” Dahlmann said.
Mary Chappell, KU director of Recreation Services, said the original architects designed the KU recreation center in three phases. Phase two is being added on to the north of the building. (Image courtesy of GoogleEarth)
The Student Recreation and Fitness center is not finished expanding. Chappell said that the initial architects designed the recreation center in three phases. This part of the project, an expansion to the north, is phase two. The third phase is an expansion to the south. Chappell said construction and completion of phase three would not be expanded until Recreation Services locates the necessary funding.
Earlier this week, red ribbons decorated campus. reminding students, faculty, and staff of the importance of World AIDS day. Celebrated annually on December 1, World AIDS Day focuses attention on the pandemic caused by the HIV infection. Globally, 33.2 million people live with HIV. Locally, various organizations work year-round to raise community awareness.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that one million people in the United States have HIV. Of these people a startling 25 percent are not aware of their infection and carry the risk of infecting others. Some university organizations, such as Douglas County Aids Project (DCAP), took this year’s World AIDS Day theme of “leadership” to heart.
“The biggest thing is peer education,” said Whitney Wilson, intern at DCAP. “A person can do this formally with DCAP or Hawks for Health or they can do it informally. Tell your friends and siblings about what you’ve learned about AIDS. Making people aware and educating yourself is the best thing you can do.”
DCAP educates people about AIDS by providing services all year. Some of the services include a free testing site, counseling, and case management. Wilson said DCAP wants to get people practicing safe sex and getting tested as common as they put on socks and shoes.
Student Health Services also provides services for those in need. Ken Sarber of Student Health Services said students can come into Watkins Memorial Health Center without an appointment and get tested for HIV.
“I think students get nervous if they have to make an appointment and they don’t do it,” Sarber said. “If we make it known that you don’t need an appointment, maybe students will be more apt to getting tested.”
Sarber and other Student Health Services representatives were available last week in the union handing out pamphlets and giving information about AIDS prevention. Sarber said students don’t always realize they should worry about AIDS and often disregard the issue when they should be paying attention.
“Even though the number of AIDS cases is down, the number of AIDS cases among young adults is not on the decline,” Sarber said. “We are trying to promote safer sex and help the students realize the procedures that they need to go through to avoid getting AIDS.”
Heather Sutter, university Peace Corps representative, spoke to students last week about how they can help fight AIDS. Sutter spoke of personal experiences of working with African villages and observing World AIDS Day with those suffering from the disease. She said she tells her experiences to motivate students to take action.
“People kind of feel like it’s a dead issue,” Sutter said. “They don’t realize it is something that is living with us. The amount of people with HIV/AIDS is growing every day in this country. So, I think that bringing it home to students is really important, making them see that it is still a reality that we’re living with, not just in places like Africa and Asia , but here in the U.S., here on campus.”
Sutter encourages students to get involved with their community outreach and help the fight against AIDS. Sutter and all the organizations encourage students to volunteer and take part in educating students on ways to prevent AIDS, not just on World AIDS Day, but all year round.
“I love helping with this cause,” said Sonya Navarro, KU junior and DCAP volunteer. “This is one of the most important volunteer opportunities for our generation. It’s something that can help nations world wide, but can bring us together as a local community.”
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Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Jennifer Kongs realizes how much Americans consume each year. For this reason, Kongs, Topeka junior, decided to become involved with the Lawrence Fair Trade Coalition.
“Everyone here, including myself, consumes so much without thinking where it came from,” Kongs said. This is a movement to realize what we consume and how it’s made.”
According to the Fair Trade Federation, “fair trade is a system of exchange that seeks to create greater equity and partnership in international trading system.” This occurs by paying vendors a fair price for the items they produce and ensuring they work in fair and safe conditions.
Fair trade is a booming industry. The Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International reported that from 2005 to 2006 the consumption of fair trade products increased by 45 percent in the United States and by an average of 42 percent worldwide. The trend is apparent in Lawrence as well as an increasing number of vendors are selling fair trade products locally.
Source: Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International
The Lawrence Fair Trade Coalition recently held an annual Fair Trade Holiday Market at the University of Kansas Ecumenical Christian Ministries. Merchandise included jewelry, coffee, Christmas ornaments and clothing from all over the world.
“The products aren’t more expensive than products you would otherwise buy. Many of them are even cheaper,” Kongs said.
Kongs said students at the University should especially care about fair trade.
“In the first place, most college aged people making the products do not receive an education at all. It’s an issue of human morality. If you know products are made in inhumane conditions and buy them anyway it’s saying you’re okay with child slave labor, toxic poison and people living in awful conditions,” she said.
Kongs also noted that students have to make only small changes to their lifestyle to support the fair trade movement.
“Some college students that don’t have time to get involved can buy products they would buy anyway and make a difference,” Kongs said. “Using our normal consumption as a means to make a difference is something everyone can do.”
Matt Gifford, Ottawa junior, saw advertisements about supporting fair trade and decided to volunteer at the holiday market after he found out his friend was helping organizing it.
“It sounded really cool and I wanted to participate. I learned a lot about how fair trade organizations work,” Gifford said.
After volunteering at the holiday market, Gifford said he would be more likely to buy fair trade items in the future.
“People don’t think about where there money goes and how people are disadvantaged and getting the shaft,” he said. “Sometimes the only voice we have is our dollar and how we spend it. It activates change.”
Alicia Erickson and Brady Swenson, a couple from Topeka, launched their Web Site, Two Hands Worldshop, a year ago, which features exclusively fair trade merchandise.
The couple was inspired to start their Web site after they returned from Guyana, South America, where Swenson was involved in the Peace Corps and Erickson developed an after-school art program.
Source: Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International
“We wanted to find a way to reconnect American consumers to producers,” Swenson said. “Americans are buying their shoes from Michael Jordan, not the real people who make them.”
Swenson and Erickson had hoped to open a store on Massachusetts Street this fall, but are still saving money to do so. Swenson said their goal was to open a store by the spring of 2009.
“This holiday season business has really picked up quite a bit. It was slow at first, but we are starting to make a profit,” he said.
Mary Klayder, Lawrence Fair Trade Coalition faculty advisor and a lecturer in English said she isn’t surprised about interest in fair trade in Lawrence.
“People are concerned about the earth,” Klayder said. “We have more exposure to other cultures than before. Students are the least sheltered. More than 25 percent of students study abroad, so they are aware of other cultures.”
Swenson and Erickson have worked closely with the Fair Trade Coalition. Swenson said it was important to build a base with the younger generation because that is where change starts.
“There are some very inspiring, informed students out there,” he said. “That’s where the real leadership for this movement begins.”
In the spring, the Fair Trade Coalition will host a conference called, “Fair Trade in the Heartland,” in the Kansas Union. Kongs said the conference will focus on fair trade education and how to advance fair trade in Lawrence.
“Globalization and the aftermath is such a huge thing; it’s overwhelming,” Kongs said. “The conference will concentrate on grassroots work and how to make a change in the community.”
The Fair Trade Coalition meets every Monday at 5:30 p.m. in the ECM.
’Tis the season for a more money-saving holiday shopping experience. The current state of the U.S. economy has consumers concerned this holiday. Gas prices, the worth of the U.S. dollar, and the state of the housing market are all factors in the U.S. economy and may cause holiday shoppers to spend less this year.
Wally Meyer, director of the University of Kansas Center for Entrepreneurship, said when it comes to gas prices, the demand is much higher than the supply. He said he wouldn’t be surprised if by 2008, gas prices reached $4 a gallon. Meyer said the housing market has a major effect on the economy because if people aren’t buying houses then they aren’t buying furniture and they aren’t remodeling.
“It’s a trickle down effect. Because the housing market suffers, so do other businesses,” Meyer said.
The media may also have an effect on consumer spending this season, Meyer said. The media plays an important role in consumers’ lives and can cause people to be more cautious in their holiday spending.
Inayat Noormohmad, the senior labor economist at the Kansas Department of Labor, said Kansas experienced a 1.5 percent increase in employment compared with the national average of 1.2 percent. The Kansas economy has grown over the years and has been doing better than the U.S. economy, Noormohmad said. He said this may suggest more people in Kansas are earning wages and that agriculture is doing well and producing a good yield.
“Kansas economy is still doing well, but we will just have to see if people will spend more or less this year. Consumer spending is very difficult to predict,” Noormohmad said.
Some store owners in downtown Lawrence feel optimistic when it comes to the state of the economy. Mark Swanson, the owner of Hobbs, said the store’s “traffic count” has been good so far and he anticipates it will go up from last year.
Swanson said he believes the experience for the customer is what matters the most. He said if you price it well, have an exciting product, and value the customer, then customers will come.
“We’ve already had enough doom and gloom this year, so this is a great time of the year and should be a fun experience for the consumer,” Swanson said.
Wes O’Neil, a store manager from Sunflower Outdoor, agrees that business seems to be up so far this year. O’Neil said he predicts the store will have more sales this year than last year. He believes part of its success may be because of a bigger emphasis on going outside, being healthier, and riding bikes more often.
Joe Flannery, the president of Weavers has a slightly different take on this holiday season. Flannery said he has already seen consumers being more careful in their spending. He believes the slow housing market and high gas prices will make business a bit more difficult. Flannery still predicts Weavers will do well this year and hopes to sell more than last year. Flannery isn’t sure there would be much he could do to get people to buy more.
“Customers have a set limit to spend and they only go to their favorite holiday stores,” Flannery said.
Hallmark is another store that sees more sales because of the holiday season. Jennifer Holmes, the store owner, said she has already seen a major increase in sales. Holmes said she believes this increase is because the only other Hallmark store, off in Lawrence closed down in October.
Holmes said if the economy does affect consumer spending, she believes people will take fewer trips to the store because of gas prices. People may be wary, but Holmes still predicts their store to do much better than last year.
Retailers aren’t the only ones concerned this year. According to the Conference Board, the Consumer Confidence Index shows a decrease in consumer confidence. The report is based off a representative sample of 5,000 people. Consumers were asked to assess the present conditions of the economy. From Oct. to Nov., those who said the present situation was bad increased from 16.6 percent to 19.1 percent.
Local consumers are beginning to feel the effects of the U.S. economy. Denise Johnson, a local consumer, said she will be spending less this year because they are trying to cut back. Johnson said it really had nothing to do with gas prices, but that they just wanted to cut back on clothes and things like that.
Linda Mullens, another local consumer, said she plans to spend about the same as she did last year. She said she has a planned budget each year and is pretty conservative in her spending. Mullens also said she shops only around downtown Lawrence and South Lawrence. She said she tries to get all her shopping done in Lawrence because shopping in Johnson County can get too expensive.
“In a nutshell, things don’t look good, but they actually may be better than they look,” Meyer said.
Economists have a hard time predicting consumer spending, but understanding where the economy stands can help consumers determine whether or not they need those money-saving tactics this holiday season.
Students Learn Solar Energy at Southwest Junior High
Students learn solar energy at Southwest Junior High
Sachiko Miyakawa
Elizabeth Schultz, a KU professor emerita of English, worries young people today know less and less about the natural world. She said more young people are raised in a city. They are afraid of insects, frogs and snakes. They have never grown their own vegetables. She said some young people depend on fast food and plastic bottles. They could not imagine a life without a heater or air conditioning.
“Though they may be aware of global environmental crises,” Schultz said. “They really, I think, have very little understanding of what it means to live a sustainable life.”
Schultz created the Elizabeth Schultz Environmental Fund. The fund supports environmental projects in Douglas County. She said she hoped a solar power project at Lawrence Southwest Junior High School would help students learn about alternative energy sources. She wanted students to recognize problems like future scarcities of water and fossil fuels. She also said students could think about using other means. They may carpool and ride a bicycle instead of just driving a car.
Southwest Junior High School recently installed a solar power generator on the roof of its building and had a ceremony last month. A kiosk in the school's hallway shows the amount of energy generated. It also has a presentation that explains the process of generating solar electricity. The solar installation teaches students in science classes about solar electricity.
Bonneville Environmental Foundation or BEF, paid for most of the solar installation cost, which was about $24,000. Seven thousand dollars came from the Douglas County Community Foundation's Elizabeth Schultz Environmental Fund.
BEF is a non-profit organization in Portland, Ore., supporting watershed restoration and development of renewable energy like solar and wind power in the United States. The foundation also started Zephyr Energy, partnering with Bowersock Mills and Power Company, hydroelectric energy producer in Lawrence. Zephyr Energy encourages the establishments of new renewable energy facilities.
Sarah Hill-Nelson, a representative of BEF and owner and operator of Bowersock, initiated the project at Southwest Junior High School in 2006 to encourage students to learn about electricity and raise awareness of clean energy. She also applied for the grant from the Elizabeth Schultz Environmental Fund to cover the rest of the cost.
“It’s only a 1.2 kilowatt,” Hill-Nelson said. “It’s not designed to be a big producer. It’s really designed for the educational aspect.”
The school’s science classes follows lessons provided by Solar 4R Schools, a division of BEF. Trish Bransky, the principal at Southwest Junior High School, said the school would use the solar project to teach physical science and environmental issues. She said students would also use the graphs and charts generated by the kiosk in a math class.
Bransky said one of the lessons asked students to read a electric meter at home so that they could know how much energy their home is using. Also some lessons encourage students to look at current energy-related events and global warming issues.
“This is the age when students start to make opinions about how they want to live their lives,” Bransky said. “They are becoming aware of all sorts of issues. They are very concerned about the environment. They don’t want to live in a polluted world. The more we help them see that there are some choices that can be made, the better they will become making choices.”
Hill-Nelson said her goal is to to promote more renewable energy and reduce coal-generated energy. But in the short run, she said she wanted to have another solar project in one or two years.
Hill-Nelson said 78 percent of Lawrence's electricity came from coal. Her goal is to promote more renewable energy and reduce coal-generated energy.
She also said she wanted have another solar project in one or two years at another junior high school in Lawrence or the University of Kansas.
“We’re going to start making changes about the way we generate and use electricity,” Hill-Nelson said. “We have to start making students think about this stuff.”
Brian A. Rock, associate professor of civil, environmental and architectural engineering, said plenty of funding for solar energy research existed in the United States from the late 1970s to 1985. Also solar thermal energy, a technology which uses solar energy for heating, was popular during 1920s to 1930s in the United States and worldwide. He said large Industries in Florida and Southern California built solar collection systems for heating water.
However, he said, the introduction of cheap natural gas and electricity reduced the use of solar power in the United States.
“Whenever we talk about this issue, we have to talk about economics,” Rock said. “Economics always wins. Unfortunately no solar technologies are, currently or purely economically, competitive with conventional energy sources.”
Rock said producing a high-efficiency photovoltaic module required much natural gas, for instance.
He said conventional energy would eventually become scarce, and solar power technologies would develop. People will have to rely on other energy sources such as nuclear energy supplemented by solar electric and wind generation about a hundred years from now.
“Future is good for solar energy systems,” Rock said. “But it’s part of the future. It’s not the only thing in the future. We’re going to have to have other energy sources.”
U.S. News and World Report’s “Best Graduate Schools 2007” ranked KU’s pharmacy program as 16th in the nation. Pharmacy graduates take an exam called the North American Pharmacy Licensure Examination, or NAPLEX, when they graduate from college. KU pharmacy graduates rank 21st among the 89 pharmacy schools across the nation in passing the test. From 2002 to 2006, only 10 KU pharmacy graduates did not pass NAPLEX on the first try. In 2001 and 2002, every pharmacy graduate passed it on their first try.
Cara Morrell and Meghan Watson work on lab reports, calculate pharmaceutical problems and study together – a lot. Last fall, these two girls studied every weekend for the PCAT, or the Pharmacy College Admission Test. They could also take the PCAT again if they would like more time to study so that they can improve their grade. Every candidate also has to attend an interview. This process often stresses students out because it is a very competitive school. KU pharmacy school students are among the best in the nation.
According to Gene Hotchkiss, associate dean of pharmacy, KU students enter the pharmacy school after completing core curriculum requirements and, on average, have a grade point average of 3.6 on a 4.0 scale. These students are among the top in their class and only the highest are chosen for admission to the pharmacy school. If students do not get in on their first try, they are able to apply again the next spring. The admission process depends on their grades and interview.
Part of the mission statement for the School of Pharmacy is “through exemplary curricula and programs, the School encourages the advancement of pharmaceutical care so as to enhance health.” The School of Pharmacy strives to be one of the best by following their statement. Students and faculty in the School of Pharmacy are in the top of their class. The School of Pharmacy wants to produce pharmacists that will improve health by taking care of their clients with the proper and best medicine.
Today, Morrell and Watson are two of the only 420 students in the traditional pharmacy program. This number is significantly lower than those students who are in other professional schools at KU. Now that they have been admitted and started taking classes in the pharmacy school, it takes a little bit of stress off them, but they still have to get good grades to stay in the school.
Cara Morrell, Iola junior, said she is always studying but it will be worth it in a few years when she becomes a pharmacist. Pharmacy school is six years and most candidates get in their junior year so most students are in school for an extra two years. Graduates receive a professional degree, as opposed to a bachelor of arts or sciences. Once students graduate, they take the NAPLEX test and receive a license. These recent graduates then take a test for the state in which they wish to practice.
“I was so excited when I got into pharmacy, it was stressing me out,” Morrell said.
Meghan Watson, Overland Park junior, had other options as well. She interviewed and sent test scores to Creighton and UMKC pharmacy schools. The University of Kansas was her first choice, but she likes being prepared. She said she was thrilled when she found out about pharmacy school.
Kelli Shaw, Salina sophomore, is applying to KU’s pharmacy school this spring. Studying on the weekends for the PCAT was not unusual for her this semester.
“I hope I did well,” Shaw said, “I feel like I studied all the time.”
The School of Pharmacy has a lot to offer its students besides its great academics. There is a Pre-Pharmacy Club which is available to all students interested in the school. Once in the school, each new class has elections on whom their class president and vice president will be. Shannon Short, Salina junior, ran against four other people in his class to be president. He goes to meetings with the deans and other presidents of classes to discuss and solve any problems.
“I was the president of Pre-Pharmacy club so I knew I wanted a leadership position so I ran against four other people and won,” Short said.
The School of Pharmacy wants to continue its tradition as a leader in pharmaceutical education. The curriculum has made it possible to produce a highly competent practitioner in today’s world.
by Katherine Mulder
Every Monday a basket of homemade Biscotti is delivered to Audio-Reader. One of the volunteers makes them. She has 34 different recipes.
“We’ve had all of them,” Peg Sampson, outreach coordinator at Audio-Reader, said. “The day Bev doesn’t bring Biscotti is the day the world comes to an end.”
Bev Wilson has been volunteering and baking for Audio-Reader for eight years and has no plans to stop. Audio-Reader, the free public service offered by KU that reads all forms of printed material for individuals in need across Kansas and western Missouri, is a place that is hard to leave. Sampson said that the average time a volunteer stays with an organization is seven years. The average amount of time the 350 volunteers have stayed with Audio-Reader is 20 years. Audio-Reader began 36 years ago in 1971.
“I plan to be at Audio-Reader as long as I can drive up the hill and speak,” said Marlyin Bradt, who has been a volunteer since Audio-Readers beginning.
Audio-Reader announced that in 2007 they have never had so many volunteers. Jennifer Nigro, the coordinator of volunteers, said that she has made that announcement at the end of each year for the past few years. The reason for this increase is not only because of the continued loyalty of returning volunteers but mostly because of a boost in new student volunteers. Fifty students volunteer at Audio-Reader. While Nigro is one of the first coordinators to recruit students she said that many students came to volunteer by word-of-mouth.
It isn’t only volunteers who have the long time ties to Audio-Reader. Diana Frederick, the development director, is leaving after 26 years of being at Audio-Reader to peruse other opportunities in service. Her last day is December 14. She said the decision to leave was difficult and talking about it makes her emotional. Frederick was the mastermind behind Audio-Readers sensory garden. As the first director of develpment she pioneered the Audio-Reader development committee. She led the first five years of For Your Eyes Only, which is Audio-Readers annual sale of music and electronics.
“Her impact has been immeasurable,” Sampson said.
Fredrick said she plans continue to be involved with Audio-Reader as a volunteer of the sensory garden. Interviews for Fredrick’s replacement are being held but Sampson said the position would be filled by the end of the year. Sampson said that filling the seven employee positions at Audio-Reader has never been a problem; it is a matter of finding the right people.
Audio-Reader’s longest employee Art Hadley said he has no idea how long he will stay but he understands why it is hard to leave. He said he takes his job as engineer of Audio-Reader day by day until he no longer finds it rewarding. He has been working at Audio-Reader for 30 years.
“I did Kansas City radio for over 20 years and it was crap,” Hadley said. “There’s no real benefit to it, it’s just mindless entertainment and this isn’t mindless entertainment here. We’re transmitting real information.”
Audio-Readers staff of seven oversees 350 volunteers which reach approximately 5,000 registered clients all within a budget of about a $500,000. Most of the funding comes from two major mail campaigns called HEA-R (help expand Audio-Reader) and the Lions Club. Audio-Reader reads over 66 newspapers and has over 48 programs, which range from book readings to celebrity gossip.
Audio-Reader is the second program in the United States to offer this service. Audio-Reader is part of IAAIS which is a group which supports over 100 organizations like Audio-Reader world wide.
Audio-Reader was started by Marlyin Bradt’s longtime friend “Petey” Cerf. Bradt said her friend started Audio-Reader because she wanted to fill the enormous need of the community. Bradt said she has loved seeing how far Audio-Reader has come. She said she thought her friend would be equally impressed.
“She would be delighted” Bradt said.
John Brown and his men finally got the break they needed to make an advance on Henry Clay Pate and his band of pro-slavery guerillas. Anti-slavery guerillas captured six of Pate’s men as they rode into Prairie City, Kan. on June 1, 1856.
Pate and his men had come to Kansas from Missouri looking for Brown and his men. They had been terrorizing Kansas towns since their arrival. They had already captured two of Brown’s sons, John Brown, Jr. and Jason Brown. Brown wanted his sons back. Now, with the help of the six hostages, Brown knew for sure where to find Pate and his men.
“What followed was probably one of the most important events of American history,” said Brenda Day, head archivist at Baker University’s Old Castle Museum in Baldwin City. “This was the first time pro-slavery and anti-slavery groups armed themselves and battled.”
The site of the June 2, 1856 battle is known as Black Jack Battlefield. The battlefield sits about three miles east of Baldwin City. Cleanup efforts on the historic battlefield began recently to restore the park and encourage visitors. Day said she hopes the renovation of the park will help encourage people to learn more about the battle, and the history of the region.
Kerry Altenbernd, a member of the Black Jack Battlefield Trust, said Brown awoke at dawn and led his group of about 40 men to the campsite where they had learned Pate and his men were camping. Pate’s group numbered approximately 75.
Brown ordered one of his men to shoot all of Pate’s horses. This was a key to the victory for the anti-slavery forces. A signpost sits on the site of the battle showing visitors exactly where the horses stood when they were shot.
The skirmish lasted for three hours. Three were wounded during the battle and none were killed.
Altenbernd said a group of soldiers from Fort Leavenworth came down with orders to disarm the militia in the area. They ordered Brown and his men to let Pate and his men go. One of those men was J.E.B. “Jeb” Stuart, who went on to play a key role in the American Civil War. He would also be a key player in the incident at Harper’s Ferry that led to Brown’s death.
“This battle has significance because it happened before the start of the Civil War,” Altenbernd said. “But it was also marked the first time John Brown led a group into armed battle against pro-slavery forces. There had been other incidents in the area. But these were mostly either massacres or sackings. This time both sides were well-armed and came to fight over the issue of slavery.”
John Brown went on to become one of the icons of the Civil War era. He led numerous raids to free African American slaves and start them along the Underground Railroad to Canada. Pro-slavery fighters eventually caught and hanged Brown in Virginia in 1859 for attempting to put together a revolt led by an army of freed slaves. Altenbernd said Stuart, who knew Brown from their encounter at Black Jack, identified Brown at Harper’s Ferry, which exposed this seemingly minor incident as part of a larger scandal to sabotage the institution of slavery. Brown was a well-known abolitionist by this time, and his captors ordered him to be hung. Brown’s raids and execution played a significant role igniting the Civil War, Altenbernd said.
Scot Rogers is a senior studying history at Baker University and an archivist at the museum. Rogers said he thinks studying the local history is important because it puts things into context.
“There has always been a lot of focus on the metropolitan areas of the country,” Rogers said. “I think it is too easy to forget there is so much history that happened out here in the prairie. So much that had such a large impact on the shaping of this country into what we have today.”
Altenbernd said the Black Jack Battlefield Trust hopes fixing up the battle site would do just that by increasing the numbers of visitors to the park and providing educational resources at the site to teach visitors about the battle.
Signposts mark the spots where important events on the battlefield took place. The creek beds and ravines where the fighters took cover still meander through the field. Brochures and guided tours help bring the historic battle to life.
“It is really nothing more than an empty field with some signposts and an old house, there isn’t even a gate.” Rogers said. “But when you know the stories and the history, it becomes a completely different experience.”
Altenbernd said the old house on the site belonged to one of the fighters for John Brown, Robert Hall Pearson. Although he didn’t build the house until approximately 30 years after the battle, in the 1880s, the house is still an important part of the Black Jack Battlefield experience. It stayed in the Pearson family until 2003, when Friends of the Black Jack Battlefield and the Lawrence Preservation Alliance bought the house to preserve it.
“It really isn’t that there is something special about the house,” Altenbernd said. “It’s just that there aren’t many still standing.”
Rubbish and rusted farm machinery still occupy most of the house and the surrounding grounds. Volunteers have been giving their time to get the area cleaned up. Altenbernd said a lot of work remains before cleanup efforts on the site will be done. But with the help of the community, the site could become an important historical marker.
The Black Jack Battlefield is open for tours by appointment during the winter. Altenbernd said he is reluctant to guess how long it will take to get the battlefield finished.
“It will probably always be an ongoing thing,” Altenbernd said. “How fast it goes really depends on how much help we get from other sources.”
Altenbernd hopes a complete package for the site could be completed within five years or so. This package would include guided tours, nature trails, and interpreters to relate the story of the battle to visitors.
Environmental Stewardship Program has been working on new programs to reduce the waste on campus in addition to operating recycle services. The Surplus Property Recycling program will receive the disposed office furniture from University facilities and sell to any department and student organization on Kansas University campus with substantially reduced price.
Celeste Hoins, administrative manager of ESP, and its employees have planned the Surplus Property Recycling program since June. Although she has not started the program yet, Hoins said that a dozen of University departments showed interests to the new recycling system. Hoins accepted the surplus furniture from the University departments in summer. The furniture, including desks and chairs, already filled the 2,500 square-feet warehouse on the west campus.
“It’s been pretty successful,” Hoins said. “A lot of people are excited about it and want to know more.”
Hoins said KU Recycling used to collect surplus furniture and donate them to non-profit organizations from 2001 to 2004 until it lost the space for storage. Compared to the old program, the brand-new system allowed the bigger storage space and delivery services for the surplus furniture. The student fee, profit of selling the furniture and fund from grants and Provost will cover the cost of the Surplus Property Recycling program.
The program is still bound by state rules. ESP has not received the official approval of Surplus Property Recycling yet, but Hoins said that the program would start this semester. She expected ESP’s coordination would benefit both providers and receivers of the furniture on campus.
“They [people who want to get rid of furniture] would be able to free up the space in the office immediately as opposed to put in the property accounting services to maintain the website for the surplus trading,” Hoins said. “As far as resell on campus, we are cheap. People can get really nice staff for their offices and departments.”
ESP’s projects are not limited to the Surplus Property Recycling program. The grants from previous years allowed ESP to purchase equipments, including a bailer, and expand the recycling service on campus this year.
Hoins said that the new bailer could process recycle material faster. Because of its efficiency, The KU Recycling team can put more recycle containers on campus and increase some of their sizes so that it can collect more material with large volume such as cardboard. Hoins expected the amount of recycle would keep increasing this year following the growth of the last year.
“I’m hopeful that we will be able to really promote ourselves this semester,” Hoins said.
Margaret Tran, Derby sophomore, who is a coordinator of E.A.R.T.H. and regional director of 2020 Vision, has taken advantage of the KU recycling service.
She uses the recycling service almost everyday both on campus and residence hall, but she finds it inconvenient, too.
“They do a good job recovering basically newspapers, office papers, magazines, aluminum cans, plastics,” Tran said. “Newspapers and office papers, I don’t really see as many as other recycle bins.”
Hoins said that she would like to partner with environmental organizations on campus and promote recycling through performances along with the more supply of recycle containers to campus buildings and residence halls.
Hoins would also like to expand the awareness of recycling to students who live outside the campus. She is planning to provide recycle trailers around the parking lots of the Memorial Stadium or recreation center at least once a month so the students can have an easy access to the recycle service.
“The visibility of our containers encouraged recycling,” said Hoins. “It’s a habit. Once you start recycling, then you feel weird throwing a plastic bottle in a trash.”
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
