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In stark contrast with her predecessor, Kansas University Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little opted to attend meetings at KU Medical Center this morning instead of attending a press conference held to introduce new KU football coach Turner Gill.

While former Chancellor Robert Hemenway flanked Mark Mangino along with then-athletic director Al Bohl when Mangino was hired in 2001, Gray-Little spent this morning in Kansas City, Kan.

She said the meetings at the medical center had been scheduled for awhile, and she'd already met with the new football coach and his family.

Monday morning, she praised the hire, saying she liked what he was saying about coming to KU.

"I enjoyed my conversation with him," Gray-Little said.

Here's a video you won't see every day.

Around 1:30 p.m. Thursday, the first of Kansas University's Monarch Watch monarch butterflies — a female — in space emerged from its pupa. As you can see, she looks a little confused:

Chip Taylor, a KU professor and director of Monarch Watch, said that he was "amazed" that the monarch butterfly was able to emerge from its pupa, which had been floating around in its habitat for the better part of a week.

The butterfly is still floating and clinging to a part of the pupa from which it emerged, and may continue to do so until another butterfly joins her, Taylor said.

Follow along with the rest of the mission at the <a href="http://www.monarchwatch.org/space/index.html"

Monarch Watch Web site.

A Kansas University voice professor earned a positive mention in The New York Times recently for her performance in Gian Carlo Menotti's opera "The Consul" at the Glimmerglass Opera in New York City.

A photo of Joyce Castle is on the first page of the link, and, later in the review, a reference is made to the veteran performer as an "always excellent" mezzo soprano.

Castle is a professor in KU's School of Music who has performed in numerous other roles since her debut with the New York City opera in 1983.

Kansas University students were among the top finishers in San Francisco recently at the William Randolph Hearst Foundation's Journalism Awards national championships.

Competing among 24 of the winners of monthly competitions, Mark Dent finished second and Rustin Dodd finished third in the national writing championship. Dent earned a $4,000 scholarship and Dodd earned a $3,000 scholarship for their efforts.

Matt Erickson won the Best Reporting Technique award, earning a $1,000 scholarship, for his work on an article published in The University Daily Kansan called "Facing the Music," about students' legal battles with the recording industry.

The Columbus Dispatch newspaper in Columbus, Ohio, published over the weekend the results of a six-month long investigation into the athletic departments of the 119 colleges and universities in the Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A).

The newspaper sought the release of information on things such as who accompanied the team on flights, who received complimentary tickets and details surrounding NCAA violations. Sixty-nine of the schools provided the information, though many hid behind privacy laws.

Kansas University was one of 14 schools that the newspaper said was effectively able to close access to public information by making it unaffordable.

KU wanted a fee of $328 for the information that most of the universities provided for free or for a charge of $40 or less, the newspaper reported. KU's fee was the eighth-highest fee requested by any of the schools surveyed.

Yes, that's a parrot. And yes, it does appear to be doing the Rock Chalk Chant.

The video was posted as a response to the KU Alma Mater and Rock Chalk Chant on the official KU YouTube page.

It's not an altogether poor effort, especially for a bird.

Make it three years in a row for Kansas University School of Journalism students.

The school accumulated the most total points in the William Randolph Hearst Writing Foundation Awards competition.

The points were awarded based on six writing competitions throughout the year. Coming in behind KU were the University of Missouri, Northwestern University and Arizona State University.

KU journalism students have won a total of $10,600 in the contests this year, and the School of Journalism received matching funds of $10,600, plus an additional $10,000 for finishing first in the Intercollegiate Writing Competition. Three KU journalism students, Matt Erickson, Rustin Dodd and Mark Dent, will travel to San Francisco in June to compete in the national writing championships.

While the Jayhawk basketball team has been eliminated from post-season competition, it looks like the Kansas University debate squad is performing well in its national tournament.

According to unofficial Internet postings from people following the National Debate Tournament in Austin, Texas, the top KU team of Nate Johnson and Brett Bricker are the top-ranked overall seed, and have advanced to the "Elite Eight" round of competition, where they appear to be facing 8th-seeded Mary Washington after defeating 16th-seeded Dartmouth.

If you're on Twitter, Towson debate coach Andy Ellis is also live-tweeting the results @debatetwit, and you can follow anyone talking about the tournament using the hashtag #ndt.

The debaters will chatter away long into the night, and a champion could be decided by early Tuesday morning.

The Kansas University Alumni Association is asking its Jayhawks for Higher Education members to contact their state senators and appeal for lower state budget cuts.

A letter from Kevin Corbett, president of the KU Alumni Association, and Chancellor Robert Hemenway asks alumni to tell their senators to scale back the proposed cuts to the university.

"The Senate Ways and Means Committee has crafted a budget that would cut KU's budget by an additional 12.7 percent next year," the letter reads. "This cut not only is disproportionately large compared to other areas of state government, but it also would seriously damage our ability to fulfill our mission of preparing students to contribute to the Kansas economy."

The double-digit cuts would lead to more layoffs, reduced course offerings and larger class sizes, the letter said.

The letter says that "fortunately," the Kansas House has taken a more reasonable approach, proposing a budget cut of just over 8 percent.

"While this reduction would still harm the University, it is clearly more manageable than the deeper cuts proposed by the Senate," the letter reads.

Worth $21.7 million, Kansas University's men's basketball team is the fifth-most valuable in the nation according to Forbes magazine.

KU has moved up three spots on the annual list since last year, and reported an income of $2 million in income from basketball-related merchandise, powered by sales from the Final Four, according to the magazine.

Allen Fieldhouse ticket receipts accounted for $10 million from 20 games.

Also, according to the magazine, the team was boosted by a $1 million premium from television revenues as compared to the average conference member for winning the national title.

North Carolina was the top-ranked team, with a value of $25.9 million. They were followed by the University of Kentucky, the University of Louisville and Indiana University.