Some people might not realize as they enter one of the University of Kansas’ busiest buildings — Kansas Memorial Union — that they are stepping into a World War I memorial. But a reconstruction project that finished Sunday and added 129 stars under the union’s archway was an effort to increase awareness of the building’s status and remind people of the 129 fallen Jayhawks who served in the first World ...
Today, it is legal to buy tobacco and vaping products if you are 18 years old and inside the city limits of Lawrence. But take one step outside the city limits, and you have to be 21 years old to buy the same products. The discrepancy is the result of a disagreement between city and county officials, but it may become null if a current effort to pass Tobacco 21 legislation in Kansas succeeds. Several local ...
The University of Kansas has announced that, come January, it will have a varsity esports team that will compete in League of Legends through the National Association of Collegiate Esports. League of Legends is a multiplayer online video game developed and published by Riot Games. In a news release, Michelle Compton-Muñoz, who will coach the team, called the formation of the varsity esports team “an ...
At a strategic planning kickoff event, University of Kansas Chancellor Douglas Girod said that while the state of higher education looks bleak, KU is in a good position to deal with the difficult landscape. Girod noted that universities in Kansas face many challenges, including population decline in parts of the state and the Midwest region, drops in international student enrollment and the perception that ...
University of Kansas provost candidate Barbara Bichelmeyer said Thursday that if she got the job, she would first listen to KU community members and then create and implement a shared vision for the university. “I know that I don’t know very much about KU,” she said, noting that she’s spent the last few months learning as much as she could through conversations and research. “I have some ideas, but ...
The University of Kansas will soon offer group tours of certain athletic facilities on non-game days with the help of a group with which the university has signed a four-year agreement. Complex Sports, which will be known publicly as the “Jayhawk Experience” group, will manage group tours on non-game days, Chris Freet, KU’s deputy athletics director, announced at the Kansas Athletics board meeting on ...
University of Kansas provost candidate Dave Cook emphasized in his Tuesday presentation the importance of stability, making it clear that he does not view the provost role as a mere means to an end. “Provost positions tend to be a stepping stone,” he said, adding that it drives him nuts. “My background in organizational communication — my background in administration — has led me to this point where I ...
Donors from 43 states chipped in money to send James Naismith to the 1936 Olympics to see the sport he invented played in the international competition for the first time. But when he arrived, there wasn’t any fanfare for his presence, nor complimentary tickets. “After traveling 4,809 miles from Lawrence, Kansas, to Berlin, the inventor of basketball couldn’t get in to watch the first Olympic basketball ...
After nearly 10 years of investigation into the KU ticket scandal, University of Kansas professor emeritus George Frederickson said three things led to the university scam. First, the remodeling of the ticket system from legacy-centric to donor-centric; second, hiring new people and not properly vetting them; and third, a poor accounting and oversight system. “I think that’s where the problems were,” ...
University of Kansas senior Joey Shondell spent Friday morning with some of his Alpha Tau Omega fraternity brothers, planting trees and shrubs near the west end of Jayhawk Boulevard. “This area really hasn’t been landscaped since 1947, so it’s cool that we’re coming in here,” Shondell said. The best part of the morning, according to him, was the “satisfaction of actually putting the tree in the ...
Provost candidate Carl Lejuez said the University of Kansas needs to take a hard pivot from the traumas of the past to the possibility of the future. “Why I’m here today is to tell you we need to pivot at this point,” he said. “We need to pivot to being strategic. We need to pivot to being data-driven. We need to pivot past our current trauma.” Lejuez has been serving as KU’s interim provost and ...
The current interim provost at the University of Kansas will soon present his candidacy for the permanent position. Carl Lejuez, who has been serving as the university's interim provost and executive vice chancellor since spring of 2018, will deliver a public presentation at 4 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 31, in the Big 12 Room of the Kansas Union, KU announced Tuesday morning. A reception will follow from 5 to 6 p.m. ...
Provost candidate Margaret Raymond said she asked those she met on campus Tuesday to tell her what at the University of Kansas gives them joy. She expected to hear stories of remarkable student projects, she said, but instead, heard things like, “I like Lawrence” and “I like the people here.” “I think we need to recapture joy,” Raymond said at her afternoon public presentation in the Burge Union at ...
According to KU's annual Equity in Athletics report, at the University of Kansas the average salary of head coaching positions of men’s teams is over $1.5 million more than that of the head coaches of women’s teams. The report, which was due Oct. 15 to the NCAA, was recently requested and acquired by the Journal-World. The report also notes that women's teams, in contrast to men's, lose millions of dollars ...
A Nov. 15 lecture at the University of Kansas by a survivor of the February 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Fla., has been canceled. Speaker David Hogg canceled his lecture because of "personal care reasons," according to the website of the Lied Center, where Hogg was set to speak. “It’s disappointing,” said Don Haider-Markel, chairman of the political science department at KU and organizer of the ...
When Melissa Etheridge was young and growing up in Leavenworth, all she wanted to do was get out. Now, 40 years later, she feels a deep connection to her home state. “It’s a part of me that’s just never going to go away,” she said in a phone interview earlier this month. Etheridge, 58, will return to Kansas to perform at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 3 at the Lied Center, 1600 Stewart Drive. The two-time ...
A dedication ceremony Wednesday night celebrated a permanent spot on the University of Kansas campus that honors the nine historically black Greek-letter organizations. In the Burge Union courtyard, nine monuments dedicated to the nine organizations in the National Pan-Hellenic Council have been erected. The NPHC is one of four Greek councils on campus, and four of the KU chapters of the NPHC were chartered on ...
Secretary of Commerce David Toland, speaking at the University of Kansas, following a lecture some called “a funeral of rural Kansas," touted Lawrence as a model community for the state. Kansas State University professor Matthew Sanderson began Thursday’s Kansas Economic Policy Conference with the lecture titled “Kansas Population Trends: Where Are We Going?," in which he highlighted rural population ...
It was Hailey Solomon’s first KU football game, and ESPN captured about 10 seconds of her experience on video. There she was, in a red sweater and puffy coat, the stands empty around her, crocheting. Of course, Solomon was simply occupying herself during the rain delay, but that was hardly important to the 1.4 million people who viewed the viral video, many of whom took the opportunity to joke that KU ...
The Lawrence lecture of Parkland shooting survivor and gun-control activist David Hogg has been pushed back a week. The student who survived the Feb. 14, 2018, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Fla., will now speak at the Lied Center Nov. 15. Don Haider-Markel, chairman of the political science department at the University of Kansas and organizer of the event, said the event had to ...