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New organization LFK Pride aims to advance local LGBTQ interests p. 4 Opinion: Two columns in honor of NEDA Week explore eating disorders and offer tips for recovery p. 6
Association to host 5K promoting mental and physical health The University Daily Kansan
vol. 138 // iss. 12 Thurs., Feb 28, 2019
SEE GEAK5 • PAGE 7
COURTNEY BIERMAN @CourtBierman
KU
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Professor Henry Bial has been named the permanent Chair of the Department of Theatre & Dance.
KU fraternity partners with JED Foundation The Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity chapter on campus, along with its fellow national chapters, has partnered up with the JED foundation to encourage conversations and awareness about mental health.
New downtown cafe to donate proceeds to anti-human trafficking charity The Greenhouse Cafe, has pledged to donate half of all its proceeds to a charity that fights human trafficking.
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Willmott brings Oscar home
What’s New at
Department of Theatre & Dance names new chair
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Jacob Downing/KANSAN
Less than 48 hours after winning an Oscar, Kevin Willmott was back in the classroom. Willmott boarded a plane to Kansas City the morning after Sunday’s
ceremony, where he won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for his work on “BlacKkKlansman.” “It’s still a little bit of a blur,” he said. “But I taught [Tuesday], and it was good to get back in the flow again.”
Sunday was Willmott’s first time attending the Oscars after a 20-year career. He brought his wife and daughters and wore a suit from Weaver’s. The win may go down as one READ MORE ON PAGE 4
BUDGET TENSIONS RISE Lejuez gives new timeline On the west side of Watson Library on Tuesday afternoon, Interim Provost Carl Lejuez updated the campus community on the roll-out of the new budget model during the first budget conversation of the semester. Earlier conversations with Lejuez said he was hoping to have a budget conversation every month, but no budget conversation was scheduled for the month of February. At the previous conversation, Lejuez announced to those in attendance nearly 60 positions were eliminated since July 2018 due to the University’s budget cut. “I want to be really clear. It’s been really hard for higher education. We’re tens of millions of dollars behind where our budget needs to be, and where we want our state to be investing in our University, and not on the back of students,” Lejuez said. READ MORE ON PAGE 2
NICOLE ASBURY | @NicoleAsbury & SOPHIA BELSHE | @SophiaBelshe
Emma Pravecek/KANSAN Interim Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Carl Lejuez speaks about the budget for the University of Kansas.
Graduate students protest
As Interim Provost Carl Lejuez gave the campus updates on the latest budget conversation, about 15 graduate students stood up, wearing the same blue T-shirt to represent the University of Kansas’ Graduate Teaching Assistants Coalition (GTAC) on Feb. 26 in Watson Library. While the $20 million budget cut has been underway, and Lejuez has hosted campus budget conversations, graduate teaching assistants have consistently asked the provost about financial support for graduate students. They’ve asked how administrators at the University are able to retain six-figure salaries while graduate students have earned about $16,000 per year, as said during a budget conversation in December. Members of GTAC on campus chanted, “Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Overpaid admins have got to go!” READ MORE ON PAGE 2
KU Libraries negotiate deal to battle budget woes NICOLE ASBURY @NicoleAsbury SOPHIA BELSHE @SophiaBelshe
University of Kansas libraries are in the process of signing a final deal with scholarly journal publishers Wiley and Oxford to restore, in part, resources that were previously at risk of being cut.
Oxford and Wiley provide a number of scholarly journals to the University’s libraries, which are often accessed by researchers on campus. The elimination of these resources “would undoubtedly have a major impact on the research directions of the university,” according to an email sent to faculty by the Office of the Provost on Dec. 13.
Sarah Wright/KANSAN Director of Libraries Kevin Smith discusses budget decisions concerning academic journals.
Following the announcement of a possible decrease in these resources, Oxford and Wiley reached out to Dean of Libraries Kevin Smith and Interim Provost Carl Lejuez to seek a resolution. “The news is actually not as bad as what we thought it was going to be when we announced in December,” Smith said. Smith said the libraries were able to negotiate a deal with both Wiley and Oxford. Wiley agreed to negotiate for a smaller package. Rather than having 80 or 90 titles from Wiley, as originally anticipated, the libraries will instead have a package deal for about 216 titles with inflation capped at 3 percent, according to Smith. Initially, the University’s libraries had about 1,500 titles from Wiley, meaning the libraries are anticipating a cut of around 1,300 titles, according to Smith. Wiley still had not signed the deal, as of the evening of Wednesday, Feb. 27.
Oxford is where significant cuts are underway, according to Smith. Specific numbers weren’t available from Smith, but he said approximately 50 percent of the current package will be cut.
“...until we get our budget in order and healthy, we’ll be making some tough decisions...” Interim Provost Carl Lejuez
It is unclear how much of a percentage Wiley and Oxford titles make up of the libraries’ full resources, Smith said, since it partially depends how total library resources are counted. The cuts to these resources would primarily affect faculty and graduate students who are looking for the most recent research in specific areas, according to Smith. “We hope to minimize the impact. I think most
students won’t feel much impact at all,” Smith said. “For some it may mean a little bit of delay to get exactly the works that they need.” The collections budget for the library has not been affected by the the recent $20 million budget cut, but it has not increased in nearly 10 years, according to Smith. With inflation on journal subscriptions averaging 5 to 6 percent each year, Smith said the rising costs caught up to the flat budget. “We’ve done a lot to survive in this situation with flat funding for 10 years,” Smith said. “This year, it caught up to us because we had four major journal packages that all had to be renewed this year.” Lejuez said in a previous conversation with the Kansan in January the decision to cut titles from Wiley and Oxford had nothing to do with the importance of the libraries. “Without question, the libraries and access to journals are one of the most
important things at this University,” Lejuez said. “At the same time, our budget cut is because we no longer have resources for all of the things that are important, and until we get our budget in order and healthy, we’ll be making some tough decisions that are less about what we want to do and more about what we simply can’t afford to do now.” The Office of the Provost sent out an email on behalf of Smith and Lejuez in early December, previously stating in part the libraries would be going through significant cuts at the end of the calendar year. “We know that the cancellation of these subscriptions will have far-reaching effects on student scholars and faculty researchers at our university,” the email said. “KU Libraries understand that many of these resources are vital for the work that you do, and the decision to cancel these packages was made after much deliberation and analysis.”