University Daily Kansan / Thursday; March 19, 1992
CAMPUS / AREA
3
Religious art in Union causes controversy
When Leigh Winter created "After to Feminism," she expected people not to like it.
By Shelly Solon
Kansas staff writer
But Winter, Chesterfield. Mo., senior, said she was surprised to learn that people wanted the piece removed from the student art show in the Kansas University gallery.
Winter's work is on display at the Union's
fourth floor gallery as part of a student art exhibition.
The work is a box, 7 inches by 2 inches, that encases a figurine of a baby inside with a plastic rosary wrapped around it.
Phrases such as "Pro-choice," "God is a
Woman," and "Help" are written on the inside and the cover of the box in white letters. Two condoms are inside the box and a cross comes out of the top.
Winter said her work expressed her opinion about the positions of the Catholic Church.
"Igrew up Catholic and went to Catholic high school, but I have had a lot of problems with some of their beliefs," she said. "I'm not saying that people have to change to believe what I do and I'm not trying to change the Catholic Church. But I can't practice a religion that I have so many disagreements with."
SUA released a statement yesterday in
Winter said she did not plan to remove her work from the exhibition.
response to requests it received from religious groups to remove the piece from the gallery.
The statement was written by Dean Newton, president of SUA, April Edwards, fine arts coordinator of SUA and Sue Morrell, director of SUA. The release stated that SUA did not necessarily advocate or agree with the viewpoints expressed by the art.
The release stated that the exhibition was a forum for student artists and that SUA's role was to incorporate all aspects of the fine arts into the educational process.
Edwards said it was up to the individual artist to remove the work, not SUA.
ty drew when it came to art that bashed certain people.
"If a piece of gay-bashing art was displayed and it hurt the gay community, there would be no question that it would be removed," he said. "If it were an anti-Muslim, anti-Black or anti-feminist piece, it would be the same. But because this piece of art is bashing Christians we are told to eat the hurt and that the art has a reason for its existence. You think this would be done for the sake of not hurting anyone."
Rev. Leo Barbee of Victory Baptist Church said the piece should be removed.
He said the piece was a product of society. "It's a sick society we have," Barbee said.
"We are a morally bankrupt society and this is just one sign of that."
Father Vince Krische of the St. Lawrence Catholic Center said that SUA told him the piece had educational value, but that he did not agree.
"It's a bad piece of art," he said. "And it's not even a politically correct statement the artist makes."
Krische said he had been Catholic all his life and that Catholic-alwais alws had existed.
"That's the way it goes," he said. "I don't want to make a huge issue out of it. I'm not interested in pursuing it any further. The quicker it dies the better."
Peggy Woods/KANSAN
Med students matched with future residencies
By Katherine Manweiler
Kansan staff writer
A good day for ducks
Two students rush between buildings to keep from getting too wet in the rain that fell almost all day yesterday. The KU weather service said that snow flurries were expected this morning with a predicted high of 45 degrees.
KANSAS CITY, KAN. - Seniors at the University of Kansas School of Medicine met their matches yesterday.
Match Day at KU is part of a national program in which medical schools across the nation announce the results of the National Resident Matching Program. The program matches senior medical students with residency programs.
Laura Zeiger, coordinator of student affairs for the KU Medical School, said all 165 KU Medical School seniors were matched with residency programs this year. The number of KU students who receive their first residency choice is slightly higher than the national average.
*“Considering that 70 percent of our students get their first choice, there’s going to be some fairly excited people here today,” she said.
The process of residency placement started several months ago when seniors completed applications and are now with numerous residency programs.
Students and residency programs ranked their preferences in February, and those results determined where the would continue their medical training.
Envelopes with individual residency results were handed out.
Screams of joy, high-fives and hugs broke the nervous tension for many seniors as they received their placements.
Kathleen Blake was placed at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City for her general surgery residency.
"This was my first choice," she said. "I'm very excited. I had been told that I had been ranked high enough to be placed here, but you never know until you open the envelope."
But Match Day was not a happy experience for all of the seniors. Some of the students sat quietly, studying their results with looks of disappointment.
Brian Turvey leaned against a wall and sighed after he opened his envelope. He will complete his radiology research in Oklahoma City. It was within choice.
Turvey said his first choice was the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
"I'm satisfied," he said. "It's just that
city. City is such a boring city
?YR burying!"
Although Zeiger said it was unusual for students to be matched with their four or fifth preference, she said all students were placed at good residence programs.
University responds to GTA union asks administrators to be impartial
"They shouldn't be disappointed," she said. "A lot of students put down really long shots for their first three choices. They aren't receiving bad placements."
By Ranjit Arab
Kansan staff writer
University officials responded for the first time last week to an ongoing effort by graduate teaching and research assistants to form a union.
Del Shankel, interim executive vice chancellor, outlined the University's stance toward the attempt to form a union in a memorandum issued March 12. The memo was sent to vice chancellors, deans, directors and chairpersons of University departments.
"It is the position of the University that these students are at the University primarily for the purpose of obtaining a degree, not the purpose of employment," Shankel said.
Because of the situation of the graduate students, he said that they were not true
"We further believe that an appointment to either a teaching or a research assistantship is a form of financial aid and does not constitute a true employment relationship." Shankel said in the memo.
In a telephone interview, he said that the purpose of the memo was not to encourage or discourage the formation of a union. Instead, it was meant to inform administrators to remain impartial toward the graduate students' movement.
"...They are trying to prevent us from organizing a collective bargaining unit."
David Reidy
Graduate teaching assistant
In the likelihood that a union is formed by the graduate students, it will be important that everyone complies with the Public Employer-Employee Relations Act guidelines, he said.
He said that because graduate teaching assistants and graduate research assistants signed contracts with the Board of Regents and had worker's compensation deducted from their paychecks, they were
David Reidy,graduate teaching assistant in philosophy, is one of the students on the committee to form the union.
true employees
Reidy said that he did not think the memo advocated impartiality.
"There is no doubt that they are trying to prevent us from organizing a collective bargaining unit," he said, referring to KU administrators. "They are just trying to do it in a legal way."
The association requires 30 percent of the people in an organization to sign a show of interest card before the organization can vote to have a union.
The first step taken by the committee was to file a unit determination with the Kansas Association of Public Employees in Topeka. The board will determine whether the students are defined as public employees, he said.
Christina Sharp, graduate teaching assistant in philosophy and member of the committee, said that a union was the only way graduate students could receive the benefits equivalent to those given to graduate assistants at KU's peer institutions.
Reidy said that the committee had collected more than 500 of the 600 signatures required by the association.
She said that many graduate students wanted salary adjustments, medical benefits and full fee waivers from the University.
Campus concessions recycling plastic rings off soda six-packs
By Erik Bauer
Kansan staff writer
Since Jan. 1, plastic six-pack rings from canned beverages at the University of Kansas have been set aside for recycling.
Prompted by a student's letter last year, Bob Derby, manager of KU contacts, contacted two bottling companies that have six-pack ring recycling programs.
KU concessions decided to recycle the rings through the Coca-Cola Bottling Co., Derby said.
Various food and beverage companies deliver products to KU concessions, he said. Workers remove the plastic rings as they distribute the beverages.
The rings are removed before cans are filled into the 90-can beverage machines in more than 50 buildings on campus. They also are removed from cans that are at Wescrose Terrace catera- cateria and the snack areas at Murphy Hall.
Todate, vending service employees have filled eight 55-gallon garbage bags at Memorial Stadium with the ringers. Derby said.
He said the ringers would be picked up periodically by the Coca-Cola Bottling Co. and sent to a company in Illinois for recycling.
Derby said machines at buildings such as
He said the program did not cost KU extra money.
A representative from Coca Cola Bottling Co. said the program did not cost the company any money except for labor.
Strong Hall, Summerfield Hall and the Kansas Union were filled with about 22 cases of canned beverages each day at each location.
Illinois Tool Works Hi-Cone of Itasca, Ill., the company that recycles the rings, knew about the process almost three years ago.
Jim Cathcart, director of environmental affairs for TWI Hi-One, said the company first developed the rings in the 1970s and recently wanted to find a way to recycle them.
"With the growing awareness of recycling, we were looking at how to recycle used six-pack rings," he said. "We look at it as a long-term project."
Cathcart said the largest cost for the program was the shipment of the rings.
He said the rings were gathered from six other universities nationwide.
Sue Ask, associate environmental ombudman, said the recycling was a good idea because the recycled six-pack rings were used to make more rings instead of different plastic products.