Heard on the Hill: KU Cancer Center director touring state; universities across country take sides on Chick-Fil-A issue; KUMC beginning to use new Google Fiber service

Your daily dose of news, notes and links from around Kansas University.

• The Pittsburg Morning Sun reported over the weekend on a meeting of members of the Midwest Cancer Alliance and its role in KU’s recent National Cancer Institute designation.

“It’s the best cancer care you can find anywhere in the world,” Boban Mathew of Via Christi Cancer Center told the newspaper. “And you don’t have to go to KU. You can get it here.”

It’s a good reminder that much of the cancer care available to patients will be accessible throughout the state through the Midwest Cancer Alliance, a group of hospitals and other research groups that are partnering with the KU Cancer Center.

Roy Jensen, director of the KU Cancer Center, has been zipping around the state after the KU Cancer Center won its big prize last month, and he is scheduled to speak to the Lawrence Noon Rotary today.

• The online publication Inside Higher Ed took this good look at the Chick-Fil-A issue, and the attention that it’s drawing nationwide, including at KU.

It’s interesting to note how colleges across the country are handling the political firestorm after the company’s CEO made some comments on a radio show expressing his views against gay marriage.

The article notes KU’s competing petitions, with the one to remove Chick-Fil-A from campus with more than 2,150 signatures, and the two supporting Chick-Fil-A with more than 700.

Administrators are getting involved in other colleges. At the University of Louisville, the president and provost sent a statement to the campus LGBT group saying “they won’t be eating at Chick-Fil-A anytime soon.”

Still, they supported the restaurant’s right to remain on campus, citing their commitment to free speech and diversity of ideas, saying students also had the right to spend their money where they wanted.

Meanwhile, Liberty University, founded by pastor and co-founder of the Moral Majority Jerry Falwell, announced it would be opening a second Chick-Fil-A to its campus after the whole flap began. It also has plans to add a third.

• One thing to watch in the coming months will be how KU Medical Center in Kansas City, Kan., finds new ways to capitalize on the new Google Fiber high-speed Internet connections coming to that city.

The medical center is already demonstrating one capability of the new system at the Google Fiber showcase at 43rd and State Line in Kansas City.

KU dietitians conducted 50 one-on-one nutrition consultations using teleconference systems during the first weekend of the showcase.

It will be interesting to watch how the new Internet service will affect KUMC’s efforts in tele-medicine in coming months and years.

• I’m not going to tell you what to eat or where to eat it, but with your help, I will tell you what’s going on at KU if you’ll continue sending me tips at ahyland@ljworld.com.