CAMPUS
A county commissioner's opinion of the South Lawrence Trafficway draws protests. Page 3A
NATION
The GATT trade agreement is expected to clear
the House today. Page 5A
BREEZY High 42° Low 22° Weather. Page 2A.
KS STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
TOPEKA, KS 66612
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
VOL.104.NO.67
ADVERTISING 8644358
TUESDAY NOVEMBER 29 1994
(USPS 650-640)
NEWS 86044810
Renovation may silence ceremony
By Shannon Newton
Kansan staff writer
When KU graduates walk down the hill this May, they may hear only silence.
The Campanile's 53-bell carillon, which traditionally plays as graduates process down the hill, may be silent for yet another commencement ceremony, Albert Gerken, University carillonneur and professor of music and dance, said. The carillon has been under repair since last year.
Gerken said that he would know for sure if the
Jay Thornton / KANSAN
renovation would be completed in February and that if the bell tower was not ready by commencement then the next projected completion date would be Summer 1995.
The Campanile's 53-bell carillon, which has been under repair since last year, may not be ready for this spring's commencement.
S in ce 1951, the carillon has been used in graduation ceremonies and has ch imed every 15 minutes on campus.
"It's a KU tradition and I hope it gets done in time," he said.
Scott Moore, Lenexa senior, said he would be disappointed if the carillon couldn't play for graduation.
The extensive renovation includes the replacement of the keyboard and the playing mechanism. The clappers, which ring the fixed bells, will be replaced and new mounts will be added.
"Casting the new bells has caused the major delay," Gerken said. "We are also working on replacing the old mechanical timing device with an electronic one."
Many of the repairs have been completed, Gerken said. The practice room and the playing room have been repainted, the electrical system has been replaced and new air conditioning and heating units have been installed.
Gerken said that he discovered the bells would need repairs in 1971. He began in 1984 to look into proposals for the renovation.
Gerken said that because of the intricate renovation currently taking place, the bell tower should not have to undergo such repairs in the future.
When Gerken began researching the carillon repairs, his proposals were given to Campaign Kansas, a fund raising campaign through the Kansas University Endowment Association. Another endowment fund has been started to maintain the carillon and the Campanile. The fund's goal is to raise $200,000. Gerken said.
Courtney Slaughter, Leawood senior, said she understood that the carillon needed renovation and that she would understand if she had to walk down the hill in silence.
"I could tell that the bells were flat," she said.
"Better to have no bells than bad bells."
Atall order
Kansas basketball coach Roy Williams doesn't have to worry about not having a big front court this season. However, now he must decide which of three players will start.
A bloody broom handle was found at the scene, but Corrections Secretary Michael Sullivan said he didn't know if it was the murder weapon.
Yesterday's attack occurred as Dahmer and two other men were working on a cleaning detail in the recreation area of the maximum-security prison.
Page 6.
Dahmer murdered in prison
Inmate suspected in brutal slaying
The Associated Press
The 34-year-old former chocolate factory worker, who was serving 16 life sentences, had been attacked in prison once before. In July, an inmate tried to cut his throat during a chapel service, but the
razor blade attached to a plastic handle fell apart before it could hurt Dahmer.
Another inmate was being held in Dahmer's slaying and in the severe beating of another prisoner at Columbia Correctional Institution. Authorities wouldn't identify the suspect, who was serving a life sentence for murder, or offer a motive.
"Dahmer had a death wish, and I know that he didn't have the gumption to do it himself, so I had predicted that the day would come when he would be killed in prison," said Gerald Boyle, Dahmer's lawyer at trial.
MADISON, Wis. — Jeffrey Dahmer was attacked and killed while cleaning a prison bathroom yesterday in a gruesome end for the man who strangled and dismembered 17 boys and men and cannibalized some of them.
"It's not as brutal as what he did to our children," said Shirley Hughes, a mother of one of Dahmer's victims. "This was just a quick way out."
Dahmer had been in prison since July 1991, when a handcuffed man who had escaped Dahmer's clutches led police to an apartment containing body parts
Dahmer had extensive head injuries and died at a hospital about an hour after he was found.
packed in oil drums, skulls saved as mementos and one or two hearts Dahmer said he had set aside to eat later.
Sean R. Crosier / KANSAN
Preparing for old man winter
Larry Grammer, facilities operations employee, prepares Campanile hill for the onset of winter. Warmer temperatures are allowing facilities operations employees to finish necessary winter preparations.
Ethical investments not group's concern
By David Wilson Kansan staff writer
Ten years ago, the Kansas University Endowment Association, along with endowment associations across the country, found itself in hot water with student activists.
The students' point of contention: money invested in companies with interests in South Africa. Students demanded across the country, unsuccessfully at the University of Kansas, that their universities' associations withdraw the money to protest anaphrid.
Today, things have cooled off. The KU students who built small-scale shantytowns on the association's front lawn to symbolize the plight of black South Africans are long gone.
But the question raised by those students still exists, said Dennis Highberger, who was the 1984 student-body vice president and an advocate of withdrawing money from companies with interests in South Africa. Should the association monitor the ethical behavior of companies and make investments accordingly?
Yes, said Highberger, who now is an attorney living in Lawrence.
"Our University should lead the way in building a better world," he said. "People with that much money can make a difference."
And the association does have a lot of money, about $389 million in total assists.
But students and faculty who want to know the companies in which the association invests won't have much success. As a private corporation, the association is under no obligation to disclose that information. Moreover, the association doesn't keep a running tally of such companies, said John Scarffe, director of communications for the association.
"We work with professional managers," Scarfe said. "We don't know from day to day what the businesses are."
So what recourse is there for students who suspect that some of their scholarship money comes from a corrupt company? For one thing, they don't have to accept the association's money, said Jim Martin, president of the association.
"In a nutshell, if you are a student who is the recipient of a scholarship, and you feel you should not accept those funds because you have strong beliefs about investment policy, you can return the money," Martin said.
Last year, the association gave almost $37 million in scholarships, professorships and other gifts to the University of Kansas.
In short, the association's job is to make its money make more money, Martin said.
"The job of the overall program is to provide the best return," he said. Ethical considerations, then, don't come into the picture. Scarfe said.
But other universities take a different approach. Harvard University, for instance, has had a committee to consider the ethical dimensions of its investments since 1972.
Elizabeth Gray, a Harvard administrator who sits on the committee, said it had been formed to consider withdrawing investments from General Motors because of its reluctance to reduce the emissions of its cars. During the 1980s, the committee called for and got the withdrawal of investments from some companies with interests in South Africa.
Most recently, Harvard's committee prompted the withdrawal of its endowment money from tobacco companies.
The association's moral obligation to monitor the behavior of companies is inescapable, Gray said.
"Owning stock makes you part of the process of running a company," she said. "You can't avoid that."
But Harvard's attention to ethical investments is rare, Martin said.
"It is by far the exception."
Social welfare professor wants true representation
Native American Heritage Month
By Nathan Olson Kansan staff writer
A conspicuous sheet of paper can be seen in Michael Yellow Bird's office. On the sheet is a quotation from former President George Bush that reads, "I never apologize for the United States of America. I don't care what the facts are."
For Yellow Bird, the quotation symbolizes the American mentality of getting ahead without thinking of the costs. The assistant professor of social welfare believes that the system that has made the United States powerful has done so at the expense of its native peoples.
The terms "Native American" and "American Indian" are examples, he said. Neither truly represents Yellow Bird. The former assumes that he is an American, while the latter assumes that he is an Indian. Both are inaccurate, both mask the diversity of
the people and both emphasize that he and his ancestors were forced into American society.
"In the last ten years or so, in Canada the indigenous people have started calling themselves First Nations Peoples," he said. "That term puts us in a proper political and social context."
Yellow Bird is roughly 91 percent First Nations, mostly Arkira (Sahnish) and Hidatsa. The other 9 percent is probably Welsh, he said.
Yellow Bird said that he is so precise about his ancestry because the government kept meticulous figures about First Nations peoples.
Julianne Peter/ KANSAN
Michael Yellow Bird, assistant professor of social welfare, stresses the importance of First Nations peoples gaining economic independence from the U.S. government.
"It's like we're the only pedigree race in the world," he said.
Yellow Bird grew up on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in west central North Dakota. He said that he had a love-hate relationship with the reservation.
"I loved being around my people," he said. "I loved the hunting, fishing, ceremonies and storytelling. But I also hated the social oppression — the alcoholism and the deaths."
Yellow Bird particularly disliked the educational system.
“There were beattings and whippings,” he said. “Sometimes you were made to stand in a closet all day. Other times you had to kneel on rocks for hours.”
The oppression of that system, and the lack of confidence instilled in most students, guided Yellow Bird into education
garnished Yellow Do not eat him.
As a teacher, Yellow Bird said that in his
social work practice seminar he focused on issues of social justice with First Nations peoples. Yellow Bird said that he was currently interested in colonialism as a paradigm for oppression. In colonialism, smaller colonies help sustain larger
See YELLOW BIRD, Page 3
1