Multimedia Reporting (Adler-Noland)

Expectations were high last year when in August the University of Kansas Parking and Transit Department bought four new buses and launched Park & Rise on west campus to help alleviate traffic woes.

The department has realized the change was good, with increased ridership and permit sales up nearly 40 percent, the first increase in permits since 2003

“We’re excited about the increases,” Donna Hultine, director of the parking and transit department. “It’s good to have it happen the first year our department took over the system.”

This year, 924 students purchased Park & Ride permits, compared to 663 last year when the shuttle lot was located at the Lied Center.

Hultine attributed the rise in riders to the perks of the updated system.

“The investment of the new buses themselves has been a big help,” Hultine said. “They’re newer, air-conditioned and cleaner running. And bus passes aren’t required for the system, so that’s a plus.”

The new system has helped relieve transit problems on campus, but not without some complaints. Park & Ride permit holders have always had the opportunity to email or call the department with their problems.

Danny Kaiser, assistant director of the parking and transit department, said the shuttle system could not have evolved without the complaints it had received all year. Early on, complaints were mostly centered on passengers arrived 30 minutes before class, but were left behind because the buses were full. The students then had to wait the full six to eight minutes until the next bus came along, which made them late for class.

The department responded with a slightly altered the original six to eight minute interval schedule, replacing it with a two-bus shuttle system at the parking lot stops on Becker Drive. These buses worked on a half-hourly schedule and arrived and left within a couple of minutes of each other. Kaiser said the concentration of buses at the peak times covered the demand.

Kaiser said some riders haven’t understood that Park & Ride needed to run strictly as a shuttle. He said that there could be a fixed schedule, but it would decrease the time intervals between buses and make it hard to serve all students during the peak times.

Other complaints included buses waiting too long and buses not picking up riders on the first stop. In the last case, buses would be ahead of schedule and would loop around Becker Drive twice before picking up new riders.

Kaiser noted that the new system changes made the frequency of complaints reduce from several per week to one or two a month.

Jennifer Tierney, Overland Park junior, did not have a Park & Ride permit until this year. She said that even though there were problems with the system, she got to class on time and never had to worry finding a parking spot.

“I’ve had a few bad experiences with Park & Ride,” Tierney said, “but I liked the idea of taking a shuttle and being close to home. It has its problems, but it’s definitely convenient.

Last December, results of a rider survey were published to a transit commission that involved the Lawrence Transit System, KU on Wheels and the Parking and Transit Department. The survey group, Dan Boyle & Associates, Inc., surveyed 294 Park & Ride riders.

The survey showed an overall positive experience among Park & Ride riders, indicating that riders use the shuttle to get to class or work, and they use it regularly.

Jessica Mortinger, KU on Wheels staff member, said that the KU on Wheels administration works closely with the parking and transit department on the system operations.

The parking and transit department and KU on Wheels initially created a joint Park and Ride program, but this year, the department began operation of its own system. Mortinger said even though KU on Wheels no longer helped operate Park & Ride, the two have attempted to boost ridership and create an efficient way to get on campus for off-campus students.

“KU on Wheels and Park & Ride work in conjunction with each other,” Mortinger said. “We provide every Park & Ride permit holder with a free bus pass, and the parking and transit department provides us with a financial contribution.”

The parking portal opened on May 4 last year and had sold 73 Park & Ride permits through June 1. So far this year, the parking and transit department has sold 70 permits. With enrollment getting underway, students are still selecting their transportation options. Hultine said that even though the numbers are low, expectations are high for an increased amount of riders.

“We just started selling them on-line when enrollment started so it's too soon to tell,” Hultine said. “Last year, around this time, we had 73. We ended up with 924.”

Pass the torch. It’s a mantra that describes the mission of Fadlullah Firman, the president of the Muslim Student Association of KU. Fiman is in his final days in office as president and he is optimistic about the success of the group when he steps down at the end of the year.

Over the year the executive board of the MSA meets every two weeks to discuss the direction of the group and to brainstorm ideas for events. Two of the main events the MSA sponsors are the “Fast-A-Thon” and Islam Awareness Week. Firman said that the group struggled when it came to lining up speakers to headline events and meetings.

“We are still in the learning process when trying to book speakers,” Firman said.

But Firman has learned a lot over the last year about how to effectively run a student group. Especially when it comes to passing on the leadership responsibilities. The MSA nominates their leadership from a group of students who have been deeply involved in the clubs activities over the year.
“We’re able to involve more people and create more leadership with the freshman and sophomore members,” Firman said.

Part of passing the torch involves getting younger members involved in sub-committees for the events the MSA hosts. Firman said that this was the first year the MSA was able to utilize funds from student senate to help them get their message out to campus.

Firman said that this year about 200 people attended their flagship event, Islam Awareness Week. While that number is short of what the group had hoped for, Firman was still happy with the turnout.

“It could have gone better,” Firman said, “but we’re satisfied.”

Firman said that during weekly Halaqah meetings, or circle of Islamic knowledge meetings, Muslim students discuss their own faith and find ways to support each other when fasting or praying.

The group works closely with other organizations around campus and around Lawrence. Firman said over the past year they teamed up with KU Hillel and Amnesty International as well as the Lawrence Open Shelter. But Firman admitted MSA needs to change it’s routine to increase student participation.

“We’ve been doing the same things for the past three years,” Firman said. “We need people set in place; to get someone to sit on Student Senate and spice things up.”

Firman said that the group doesn’t exist to directly fight racism, but their strategy of educating people about their faith seems to be paying off. The Federal Bureau of Investigation reported 8,804 hate crimes nation wide in 2005. Religious communities suffered 1,405 times at the hands of hate; people of Islamic faith shared 10.7 percent of the cases. But, the University of Kansas department of Human Resouces and Equal Opportunity reported no incidences of anti-Islamic racism.

“If there is any racism we hope to tarnish it through education and information,” Firman said. “Hate grows because of ignorance and misconceptions. Most of the time people’s opinions can be altered.”

Firman’s group attempts to show the community that students who practice Islam are just normal people here at the University for an education. Giving educational seminars and exposing the community to what Islam means to Muslims is ultimately what MSA is all about.

“It’s important to give them a first-hand experience in what it means to be a Muslim,” Firman said.

And it would appear that their approach to sharing that experience is catching on around campus. Ola Faucher, director of the department of Human Resources and Equal Opportunity, has taken notice of the group on campus.

“I think their PR has been as successful as other groups on campus,” Faucher said.

The University’s Human Resources department is one of the offices that provide diversity training to faculty and staff. She thinks that for a Midwestern school the university is doing well in supporting diversity and encouraging multiculturalism.

“The University values diversity,” she said. “We can’t let our world be restricted by the borders of Kansas.”

The MSA also gets some help from the Multicultural Resource Center on campus. Santos Nunez, the program director, said that the MRC has worked closely with Firman’s group. The MRC has invited the Muslim Student Association to be a part of their diversity dialogues series and their brown bag discussions. The MRC also offers multicultural education training to help students and faculty understand a variety of cultural groups.

“Our goal is to promote cultural diversity and to promote cultural awareness,” Nunez said.

Nunez said that when she has worked with the MSA their leadership has been “excellent.”

When Firman steps aside as president he is confident that the group’s new leadership will be able to work hard to meet their goals of having monthly speakers at meetings, get a MSA member elected to Student senate and to increase attendance at events like Islam Awareness Week.

Lawrence Indoor Aquatic Center supervisor, Lori Madaus, sits at her desk continuously checking her email for incoming lifeguard applications. For now the pool she looks at from her office window has enough guards to safely watch the swimmers.

But with summer only a couple weeks away, Madaus worries that she will not have enough lifeguards to operate both the indoor and outdoor pools.

“Right now my staff is about 70 lifeguards, by summer I need atleast double that. It is only two weeks away from the outdoor pool opening and I would not say we are ready yet,” Madaus said.

Kristin Tirabassi, lifeguard instructor and Red Cross intern, said the aquatic center would face several hurdles in the next couple of weeks. The American Red Cross made changes to lifeguard certification in March according to Tirabassi. All current and future guards must complete 10 hours of training and testing to become certified under the new requirements.

Ashlynn Haynes, St. Louis Junior, said the training was demanding but she believes it will help her remember safety procedures.
“The most important part of the new training was in CPR. A lot of things changed, from the terminology used to the number of breaths. We also had timed swimming skills tests and new ways of rescuing conscious and unconscious victims,” Haynes said.

Tirabassi said she fears the new training and testing could slow down the hiring process before summer.

“After teaching the new certification classes in the last few weeks, it has become clear to me that this is a demanding job that not everybody is cut out to do,” Tirabassi said.

A shortage of lifeguards can lead to serious problems according to Tirabassi. She said without a fully staffed pool, guards are likely to become burned out and tired by the end of summer, hindering their job performance. Without a full staff Madaus said all of the features at the pool, including the waterslide and diving boards, couldn’t remain open for the amount of time they are supposed to. Madaus and Tirabassi agree giving the lifeguard’s ample time for breaks and days off helps prevent guards from leaving throughout the summer.

“If we do not have enough staff to give days off to everyone, especially when our guards are spending long days in the sun without breaks, that is when problems happen,” Tirabassi said.

For now, Tirabassi is not as worried about the future lifeguards in her class, she said she knows she can teach them what they need to know to pass the tests. Her concern is only that there will be new lifeguards there to teach.

The smell of bacon and hot biscuits rises from the kitchen at First United Methodist Church, and as the clock hits 7 a.m., the students are ready. One of them opens the adjoining room’s doors, and a stream of people noisily enters. The men and women of all ages and appearances who pile into the room represent Lawrence’s homeless community. The students send smiles to the faces of those now in line when they reveal a feast of eggs, pancakes, hash browns and just about every kind of breakfast food imaginable. The volunteers had been preparing the meal since 6 this morning, and as they take enthusiastic orders from their homeless customers, they forget about any exhaustion or sleepy bugs that may have set in. The customers talk with their student servers in between bites and fill the room with feelings of satisfaction. Jubilee Café is a success once again, but there’s a bittersweet smile on the face of Clark Keffer, who stands alone in the kitchen. The program’s director doesn’t know how many more mornings the café will last. They just aren’t getting the money that they used to.

“Any program like Jubilee Café, that is, one that’s fairly small and runs through volunteers, has a hard time maintaining funds,” Keffer said. “We do apply and get a grant or two each year, but the number of homeless people is consistently increasing. Therefore, our need for money keeps going up, too.”

Keffer said that the program receives about $3,500 in grants each year but that it costs almost $300 per week to run the café. He said that these grants simply weren’t enough.

Jubilee Café didn’t always have to rely on just grants for funding. In 1994, the Episcopal-Lutheran Campus Center at the University of Kansas founded the program. The Center and the Canterbury House, both religious ministries that are located on the KU campus, paid for Jubilee as its most important outreach service. Interns who worked in the ministries donated money to the program, and Father Joe, the priest who initiated Jubilee, paid whatever amount of money out of his salary that was necessary to keep it running. About a year and a half ago, though, Jubilee lost all these funds.

Father Joe, the head priest at the Canterbury House, left KU to start his own church in Tennessee, and the priest who took his place as the House’s director decided to drop Jubilee from the ministry’s budget. The Center for Community Outreach, located in the Kansas Union, has since run the program. But, students direct the Center through donations, and there is no continuous income for Jubilee like there used to be.

Keffer, who started as a volunteer when the café first opened, began directing the program when these changes took place. He said that it had been a huge struggle for the last year and a half to get enough money.

“Since Canterbury stopped supporting us, we’ve been fighting and scratching for money,” Keffer said. “There is no nonstop source of income anymore, so we’ve basically been surviving from fundraiser to fundraiser.”

Every Wednesday night, Jubilee Café puts on a fundraising program called “Breakfast for Dinner.” Any Lawrence resident can come and spend $5 for an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet, and Jubilee uses this money for the morning sessions every Tuesday and Friday. Keffer said that the Wednesday night program was not bringing in the funds that he hoped it would.

Kim Koelling, Colleyville, Texas, freshman, has volunteered weekly at Jubilee Café since her arrival at KU last semester. She said that she didn’t understand why there was a funding crisis.

“At the ‘Breakfast for Dinner’ deal, anyone can come and spend only $5 for all they can eat,” Koelling said. “That $5 means almost four meals for someone less fortunate on Tuesday and Friday. Homeless people need food and fellowship more than anything, and all Lawrence people have to do is spend a few bucks once a week to give them those things. But, for some reason, not enough people want to do that.”

Recently, Koelling and two other freshmen volunteers at Jubilee Café came up with another fundraising opportunity. Koelling, who played volleyball all four years for her high school in Texas, decided to attract donations through a volleyball tournament. The tournament will be held at 1 p.m. on May 11 at the Clinton Lake volleyball courts. Anyone interested in playing in or watching the tournament must pay $5. The tournament will feature five-person co-ed teams.

Josh Ibarra, Overland Park, Kan., freshman, helped Koelling organize the fundraiser and said that he hoped it would be a huge success.

“Anyone can come out on Stop Day, bring whoever they want and just have some fun for the afternoon,” said Ibarra, a volunteer at Jubilee since the beginning of the semester. “We’re advertising the event on Facebook, and we already have more than 50 confirmed attendants. At $5 per person, that’s about $250 going toward Jubilee Café right there.

Jubilee Café serves breakfast every Tuesday and Friday morning from 7 a.m. to 8:15 a.m. in the Bailey Hall room at First United Methodist Church, located at Tenth and Vermont Streets. Anywhere from 50 to 70 homeless people attend Jubilee Café on a given Tuesday or Friday, and in just this year, the café has served more than 100,000 meals. Keffer said that it costs about $1.30 to prepare each meal.

The Lawrence Housing Practitioners Panel, who conducted a survey of the city’s homeless community in January of 2005, described a homeless person as an individual who lacks a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence. According to the survey, as of January 28, 2005, there were 112 homeless people in Lawrence. Lawrence 6 News did another study of the city’s homeless community in November of 2006 and found that the number had increased to about 413 homeless people in Lawrence, as of January of last year. The news program said that homeless count was Lawrence’s highest ever.

Jubilee Café is not the only support service for the homeless in Lawrence. Four days a week, Lawrence Interdenominational Nutrition Kitchen, or LINK, serves lunch at First Christian Church, located across from the Lawrence Community Shelter at 214 W. 10th Street. The Salvation Army Center is another homeless shelter, at Ninth and New Hampshire Streets.

Ronald Tinkham, 41, has been homeless in Lawrence off and on for almost three years, and he said that none of the services compare with Jubilee Café.

“I don’t like the Salvation Army Center at all,” Tinkham said. “I used to stay at the Community Shelter and eat my meals with LINK, but I just recently started going to the Jubilee thing. I wish it was open every morning.”

Along with those services already mentioned, other organizations serve Lawrence’s homeless population, as well. The Lawrence-Douglas County Housing Authority, the Pelathe Community Resource Center and Faith Based Initiatives are three other main support services. Even with so many programs, Keffer said that the city still falls short in how it accommodates its homeless.

“Lawrence tries real hard to treat the homeless people around here,” Keffer said. “But, so far, we haven’t been able to make a unified effort. There are several different entities that help the homeless in Lawrence and Douglas County, but somehow, we aren’t able to join together and work on a common front.”

Loring Henderson, the executive director of the Lawrence Community Shelter, knows Keffer and said that Jubilee Café is an excellent program. However, Henderson said that he doesn’t agree with what Keffer said about Lawrence’s lack of unity.

“Up until a few years ago, the Salvation Army was the only true service for the homeless here,” Henderson said. “But since then, several organizations have arisen and really done a great job in providing emergency and housing services. There’s still a lot of work that can be done, but overall, Lawrence is much more accommodating for the homeless than it ever has been.”

Koelling said that she hopes the volleyball tournament can keep Jubilee Café going because it has become something that she looks forward to every week. She said that she has even brought a little tidbit from KU into her fellowship with the attendants.

“We get to sit at tables with the people and actually serve them and talk to them,” Koelling said. “Recently, I’ve been teaching a few of the regulars how to play Sudoku. A couple of them finish their breakfasts more quickly now, just so they can play Sudoku.”

Jubilee Café means more to the people of Lawrence than just a place for games, however. Keffer said that for the homeless people who come every week, it’s a place for food, fellowship and encouragement.

“As long as we can keep getting the funds and volunteers, the program will go on,” Keffer said. “Lawrence really would be a different place without Jubilee Café.”

It has only been 15 minutes since the students brought out the biscuits and gravy, and those customers who were first in the room are already back in line for seconds. A couple of volunteers are back in the kitchen slicing bread and bacon. This morning, Kim and Josh were in charge of the eggs, and the first batch is already gone. Josh whisks away at the egg yokes and milk as Kim turns the stove back on and greases the pans. Other students yell from outside the kitchen for more eggs, but neither Kim nor Josh gets frustrated.

“Sometimes, it’s hard for me to get up so early and have to cook food for almost two hours,” Ibarra said. “I almost slept in, this morning, actually. But, it’s totally worth it because we’re sacrificing a few hours a week for people that suffer almost every hour of the week. It’s a lot of fun, too. I just hope it will all keep going.”

These days Lee Gerhard, retired University of Kansas geology professor, considers himself an independent geologist. He sits in his office in the the basement of his three-story home looking out into the tree-lined backyard. He settles back in his chair and slowly reaches up to fold his hands behind his head. His desk has papers and strewn across it. Plaques marking his achievements are scattered across the wall behind him: he was the Getty professor at Colorado State University, State Geologist of North Dakota, Principle Geologist of the Kansas Geological Survey, the list goes on.

He takes a concentrated breath as he prepares to make his case. After years of research he has concluded that human activities; mainly activities that alter the natural carbon cycle like burning fossil fuels for energy and mass transit, and cutting down forests to make way for urban and agricultural development, are not influencing global climate change. He knows his conclusions aren’t popular in the debate over climate change. In fact the debate over whether humans are changing the climate has all but diminished since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently released a report with 90 percent confidence that humans are in fact contributing to global warming.

“One might say there is a human hubris involved,” Gerhard said. “That humans, at least in this generation, think they are responsible for a lot more impact on the world than perhaps humans have.”

Gerhard’s data shows that human activity has little to do with global climate change. He wrote a book in 2001 called “The Geological Perspectives of Global Climate Change.” It’s a compilation of years of data from scientific journals. He said that climate does not flat-line. He pulls out a graph that explains the correlation between the sun and the climate and shows that carbon increase in dioxide doesn’t match up. He claims that the sun and the impending approach of the next ice age are the causes for the rapid change in climate.

Gerhard pulls out another graph, explaining excitedly that human intervention ranks at the bottom of the list when it comes to impact on the global climate. He has studied four billion years of geological history to come to his conclusions, and says you can’t accurately judge the current situation without looking to the past. He points out that politics, rather than science, are influencing the majority of current climate change studies.

“We have to remember that it was a politician who started this debate,” Gerhard said. “The same former-vice president who claimed he invented the internet.”

While most of Washington, minus the Bush administration, agrees with the IPCC report, there are members of congress who agree with Gerhard. For example, Senator Jim Inhofe, Rep. Okla., said in 2003 that man-made global warming was a hoax.

Gerhard worked in the oil and gas industry before he began researching climate change and was inducted into the Kansas Oil and Gas Hall of Fame. But he’s adamant that he does not receive funding from them. He doesn’t receive government funding either. He said he resents people who try to demonize him by claiming his funding biases his research. In fact he was recently turned down for government funding for a research project that he said would further prove humans have little effect on climate change.

“There isn’t a choice,” Gerhard said. “In order to get the funding, you have to do the science that the funders want done. Competition for funds has become more and more difficult. I’m not saying that individual scientists are submitting, but the funding is biasing the science.”
The debate over whether humans play a role in climate change has dwindled. A recent CBS News New York Times poll found that 84 percent of Americans believe human activity contributes to global warming.

Johannes Feddema, KU geography professor, said the climate has a complex system, but has no doubt that increased carbon dioxide concentrations will increase climate effect. His graphs, unlike Gerhard’s, show a direct correlation between climate change and carbon dioxide. In fact, he says that observed climate in the last one hundred years cannot be replicated in the graph without using carbon dioxide as a variable.

Feddema said humans are changing the carbon cycle by changing the natural decomposition of vegetation through agriculture, urban development and deforestation as well as emissions from energy consumption and the burning of fossil fuels. He said the debate whether humans impact climate change doesn’t exist in the scientific community.

“The media feels like it has to be fair to both sides of the issue,” Feddema said. “So they have only one guy on each side to be balanced, even though 99 percent of scientists agree that we are having an impact on climate change.”

Other professors at KU agree with Feddema. David Braaten, atmospheric science professor, said models that only use natural forces such as the impact of the sun can’t explain observed temperatures. Another KU professor, Dr. Nathaniel Brunsell, studies biometeorology, the interactions between life and climate. He said the sun does have some effect on climate change, but that it’s too small to account for the climate change we’ve seen in recent years.

Gerhard does have two findings that agree with the majority of scientific findings. First that we have to reduce our energy consumption and use alternative energy routes. Second that no amount of data can predict with certainty what will actually happen.

Gerhard said we are more likely to find ourselves in an ice age over the next 20 years than in a warming trend. He said that in the past, the Earth has gone through an ice age every 11,000 years, and we are coming up on that mark. Gerhard said that the government wastes money going green, and that it would be better spent preparing for survival in arctic temperatures.

“The number one job for the government is to prepare to adapt and mitigate for certain climate change, warmer or colder,” Gerhard said. “When it happens, the problem of feeding the world in a colder climate is key.”