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BY ERIN WILEY editor@kansan.com KANSAN CORRESPONDENT
Dr. Michael Yellow Bird
Director of the center of Indigenous Nations Studies
Could you explain your job?
Dr.Michael Yellow Bird is the director of the Center of Indigenous Nations Studies and an associate professor of American Studies.
I spend a lot of time trying to fulfill the mission and the vision of the Center. Working with faculty and students, I do a lot of global outreach to indigenous
communities, individuals and leaders. I work with local indigenous groups and organizations national and also international groups, bodies like the United Nations on behalf on indigenous peoples. Trying to connect with these different bodies to collaborate on issues and topics that are very important to indigenous peoples and communities. We talk about everything from trying to work with indigenous people in different parts of the world.
What is the most rewarding part of your job?
The biggest thing is trying to innovate new ideas, programs and initiatives that would be beneficial to indigenous communities. Providing support to those communities in terms of technical support, whether it be help
ing them evaluate the needs of their communities or standing in solidarity against external oppressive forces. Providing direct consultation and training indigenous students who come to the Center. Get some of the best and brightest students that we can here and get them to address and confront complex issues and problems their communities faced. Get them ready to create some kind of positive effect in their communities.
What is a typical day like for you?
I don't know when it ends or begins, because being an indigenous person, there is a particular kind of
protocol that we live by. There are constantly a number of things we have to work on. During work, after work and during the weekends, it's supporting people and communities in a number of ways. We stay very involved with our communities wherever they may be. It's unending, it's not a typical day. We are always confronted with things that are going on throughout the world that affect indigenous people.
Why do you think it is important for students to learn about cultures other than their own?
I think it's very important, because cultures have so many domains that are beneficial to mainstream peoples. Diversity can be a very beautiful thing. Ideas and intelligent technologies come from indigenous people, from different cultures. Things that people eat today, the places they inhabit, the things that they know and the things that people say today, are all because of the innovation and cultures of indigenous people. There aren't many people in the United States who have some type of indigenous heritage. There is so much that people have to offer: medicines, ideas, engineering, the arts, everything. Anything you can think of. They infuse the place with diverse ideas.
diverse experiences. The world wouldn't survive well with out diversity. Ideas would be come entrenched and meaningless. Diverse people help people shift their paradigms.
What is your favorite KU tradition?
I like the Columbus Day protests at Wescoe. That's what indigenous people do, they provide a diverse discourse. They enlighten the campus. Students who haven't heard or don't understand the history of indigenous people or the myths of American history. People sit there and they listen, and it starts to provoke thought.
Edited by Becca Evanhoe
Waiting on elevator repairs
BY GABY SOUZA
gsouza@kansan.com
KANSAN STAFF WRITER
SAFETY
Facilities Operations has a list of elevators that are in need of repair, and the broken down Strong Hall elevator is just the tip of the iceberg.
Others include three in Malott Hall and at least one in Watson Library, said Steve Green, associate director of Facilities Operations.
The Strong Hall elevator broke down last Wednesday. It will be out of service for four to six weeks, said Jim Long, vice provost of Facilities Planning and Management.
Long said it would cost an estimated $35,000 to fix the elevator. All funds for repairs come from the Facilities Operations' budget, he said. Other elevators on campus will be repaired as soon as funds are allocated.
Facilities Operations has repaired five elevators since 2000. These five elevators include the out-of-use elevator in Strong Hall.
Green said the reason for the breaking elevators was outdated parts.
He said four elevators — two in Dyche Hall, one in Watson Library and one in Blake Hall — still have hydraulic systems. In these systems, a water-powered cylinder is installed in the ground and raises the elevator.
The problem with these systems is that, over time, water leaks through the cylinders because of excessive rusting, which eventually breaks the elevator. Green said.
The elevator will lose its power if too much water leaks through. Safety requirements now enforce replacing the old hydraulic cylinders with sturdier ones that don't rust as easily.
Green said vandalism and overuse also have played a part in the elevators breaking. People often overcrowd the elevators and don't follow safety instructions.
"We've always got people trying to pry the doors open when they're riding the elevator," he said. "I guess they want to see what goes by when they're riding it."
Green said he thought Facilities Operations was well aware of the condition and safety of the elevators. He also said that even though neither the city of Lawrence nor the state of Kansas require safety inspections, Facilities Operations still goes through an annual safety inspection, as well as a more comprehensive inspection, every
five years.
Taylor Miller/KANSAN
Classes in Strong Hall with students who had mobility problems were moved to handicap-accessible rooms. A wooden ramp was built behind the building Thursday to give students with disabilities access to
While most students prefer to take the stairs over the clattering elevators in Mallott Hall, David Smith, Virginia graduate student says he uses them often. "I've never had a problem with them," Smith said. In addition to needed repairs in the elevators in Mallott Hall, Facilities Operations also listed needed repairs in Strong Hall and Watson Library.
the first floor. Melissa Manning, associate director of disability resources, said she had not received any complaints from students about getting around in Strong Hall.
— Edited by Kellis Robinett
COURTS
Bush defends, supports justice nominee
BY DEB RIECHMANN THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — President Bush and his wife, Laura, offered a double-barreled defense of Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers on Tuesday while the White House worked to dampen opposition from the right and win confirmation for the president's pick.
In Philadelphia, Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., told The Associated Press that he hoped to begin the confirmation hearing for Miers within a month. Questions for the hearing, which he said he hoped would last no more than
"Harriet Miers is going to be confirmed, and people will get to see why I put her on the bench," Bush said in a television interview on NBC's "Today" show. The Bushes were in Covington, La., at a Habitat for Humanity housing work site just north of New Orleans.
a week, likely will focus on her approach to constitutional issues, he said.
Bush's nomination of Miers has fractured his conservative base of supporters. In recent days, some conservatives have expressed outrage that Bush did not choose a nominee with a judicial record. They said it was risky putting Miers on the court because she was a blank slate on issues such as abortion and the death penalty.
Some activists have called on Bush to withdraw her nomination. Bush also rebutted worries from his right flank that Miers will be another justice David Souter, a little-known judge nominated to the court in 1990 by President George H.W. Bush. Souter has disappointed conservatives by drifting, over the years, to the left.
"She won't change," Bush said. "I mean, the person I know is not the kind of person that is going to change her philosophy, and her philosophy is, is that
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"She's very deliberate and thoughtful and will bring dignity to wherever she goes, but certainly to the Supreme Court."
Laura Bush
First lady
she is not going to legislate from the bench."
Bush said Miers was the most qualified candidate for the job, and Mrs. Bush agreed: "Absolutely, Absolutely."
"She's very deliberate and thoughtful and will bring dignity to wherever she goes, but certainly to the Supreme Court," Mrs. Bush said. "She'll be really excellent."
The public appears more concerned about Miers' close ties to Bush and lack of judicial experience than they are about any ideological effect she would have on the court, a Pew Research Center poll found.
Most in the poll, 56 percent, said they were not worried about whether Miers, the White House counsel, would make the court too conservative or insufficiently conservative. Almost four in 10 said they viewed Miers less favorably because she had never served as a judge and once served as Bush's personal attorney.
Presidential advisers are reaching out to GOP skeptics to reassure them that Miers is a solid conservative. In the calls, the White House is arguing that Miers is an accomplished lawyer and that the president's nominees for the federal bench prove that he is consistent and committed to conservative judicial philosophy.
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