THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, APRIL 2, 2015
PAGE 3
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First meeting on Ninth Street Corridor set for April 8
KELLY CORDINGLEY
@kellycordingley
The first community engagement meeting to discuss how the Ninth Street Corridor Project can best cater to the community will take place next week.
The meeting will be April 8 from 7 to 9:30 p.m. at New York Elementary School at 936 New York St. and is open to the public.
The area on Ninth Street between Delaware and Massachusetts streets will get a facelift after the Art Center received an ArtPlace America Grant in June 2014 to revive the Ninth Street corridor. The firm, El Dorado Inc., is heading the project, and project lead Josh Shelton said this is a perfect opportunity to weave art into infrastructure.
"We have the unique opportunity to integrate art into the infrastructure of the street improvement," Shelton said. "We have the unique opportunity to work with Tristan Surtees and Charles Blanc with Sans Façon. They have good experience working with municipalities and working with these art and infrastructure projects."
Shelton said he and the Sans Facon firm from Canada are focused on learning about the people of Lawrence before making decisive plans.
"They're focused on social engagement and they're curious about Lawrence and East Lawrence," Shelton said. "We're interested to understand the role this project will become. Their practice seeks to understand a place and the people of a
place before the art emerges. They don't bring any preconceived notions and neither do we."
The City of Lawrence added $3 million to the $500,000 grant awarded to the Art Center. The project area will see implementation of new infrastructures and improvements to the roads and sidewalks.
Chair of the Lawrence Cultural Arts Commission and member of the citizen advisory committee for the Ninth Street Corridor Katherine Simmons said the grant money is specifically for reviving the streetscape, which could lead to more growth in that area.
"That doesn't involve any arts-based business or anything like that; that would perhaps happen naturally
on its own," she said. "This project is only relevant to that actual streetscape."
To ensure the community is mirrored in the project, El Dorado Inc. put together a citizen advisory committee. It will have its first open meeting April 8, and meetings will span through November. The first meeting will be presented by architecture and landscaping firm Coen + Partners from Minneapolis, who will be working with local civil engineering firm Bartlett & West. The second meeting, April 9, will be with Sans Facon and El Dorado Inc. A full list of meetings can be found on the City of Lawrence website.
"I think the nature of the workshop will be input from the public and the people that live in the neighborhood
to better understand the dynamics that surround Ninth Street Project," Shelton said.
The City of Lawrence posted a PDF on its site that reads in part, "The project will create a multi-modal connection utilizing accessible complete streets' concepts, upgraded amenities, and a new model of urban infrastructure that will enable local artists to engage our community in ways inspired by the revolutionary and counterculture spirit of Lawrence and our favorite iconoclasts John Brown, Langston Hughes, and William S. Burroughs."
Shelton said while the City of Lawrence would likely hope to connect East Lawrence to downtown Lawrence, he's talked to many community members whod rather see
a more community-based project.
"There's a diverse set of perspectives on how the corridor should function and what role it should play in Lawrence," he said. "I've talked to a lot Lawrence residents who'd like to see it as a community asset. It might be a quiet, more community-based area where kids could play or people could meet."
The implementation date is set for late 2015 or early 2016, and Shelton said moving forward, they'll be taking it step-by-step.
"We have to look at what's appropriate for Nintti Street, block by block," he said. "It's going to have to be a very site-specific and sensitive project for the urban context."
Edited by Mitch Raznick
University to offer more intersession courses
SKYLAR ROLSTAD
@SkyRolNews
The University is working to offer more accelerated intersession classes, or four-week courses over winter or summer break, following the success of these courses over the last two years.
The William Allen White School of journalism has been "the primary stakeholder" in intersession courses, said Julie Loats, director of the Center for Online and Distance Learning. Now she is working toward
incorporating more subjects. "The more central discussion started about two years ago in trying to build a broader portfolio of courses and to do promotion and communication about those courses so everybody knows that this is an option instead of it being a very decentralized department-by-department type of strategy." Loats said.
Loats said the intersession courses offered online provide flexibility for students who want to get a head start on graduation.
"The idea is that our winter break is relatively long and so students [are] able to utilize that time they're otherwise not taking a course to make progress toward the degree," Loats said.
The journalism school began offering intersession courses during winter of the 2013-14 school year. Because of the shorter time period, these classes were more theoretical and fact-based, like Ethics and Professional Practice, instead of practicebased courses. Most of them were required for a degree.
According to a University press release, many more students than expected expressed interest in the shorter-term courses.
"What we've seen is far more demand for the minimester than can be accommodated," journalism Dean Ann Brill said in the press release. "Our students have appreciated the opportunity to complete some of their core courses online, and our faculty have enjoyed shaping their courses for a more intense learning environment."
Although Loats said the
courses offer flexibility, she also said the courses are just as difficult as a typical 16-week course during a fall or spring semester.
"They're not really selfpaced in that there's a sense of community in those courses and [professors get] students to interact with other students," Loats said. "You really have to work on a four-week course every day."
Loats wants to change the perception that online courses or shortened courses are easy.
- Edited by Samantha
@UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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