KU chancellor to lead Europe fund-raising trip

Kansas University Chancellor Robert Hemenway will lead an entourage of KU officials on a 10-day trip to Europe beginning today.

The trip, paid for with private funds, according to KU officials, is for the group to meet with KU alumni and potential donors. More than 1,000 graduates and others have been invited to receptions in Berlin and London.

Hemenway’s itinerary includes delivering a lecture Tuesday at Humboldt University in Berlin. Hemenway will discuss Zora Neale Hurston, the novelist whose biography the chancellor wrote in 1977.

Others traveling to Europe are Jeff Weinberg, assistant to the chancellor; Kirk Cerny, senior vice president for membership services with the KU Alumni Association; Dale Seuferling, president of the KU Endowment Association; and Hodgie Bricke, assistant dean of the KU graduate school and international programs.

State

Task force appointed on wind-energy issues

Lee Allison, chairman of the State Energy Resources Coordination Council, has appointed a 17-member task force to examine the issues involved with bringing more wind power to Kansas.

The task force also will be led by Jerry Karr, of Emporia, a former state senator, and Jerry Lonergan, of Topeka, president of Kansas Inc. The group includes Jennifer States, operating manager for Lawrence-based J.W. Prairie Windpower.

The task force, which will meet for the first time Friday in Topeka, is designed to help Flint Hills communities through the decision-making process on whether to locate wind-energy projects in tallgrass prairies. Several projects in the Flint Hills have raised concerns over how the turbines would affect the ecosystem.

The group plans to hold a series of public hearings to gather information and is expected to have a report to the governor by May 31.

Foreign relations

Military leader in Bosnia to discuss state-building

A former military leader who led peacekeeping efforts in Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina will speak in Lawrence next month.

Retired Gen. William L. Nash will speak at 3:30 p.m. Feb. 17 in the Kansas Room at the Kansas Union. His topic will be “From Bosnia to Baghdad: State-Building as a Military Task.”

Nash was commander of military peacekeeping operations in Bosnia in the mid-1990s, and was civilian administrator for the United Nations in Kosovo.

He now is director of the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C., adjunct professor at Georgetown University and a military analyst for ABC News.

The lecture, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the political science department and Center for Russian and East European Studies, both at Kansas University, and the Foreign Military Studies Office at Fort Leavenworth.