CAMPUS/AREA UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Wednesday, January 19, 1994
3
Students to rebuild old school
By Roberta Johnson Kansan staff writer
This summer, KU students can take part in rebuilding history.
The Barber schoolhouse, a 123-year-old abandoned building west of Lawrence, is undergoing a restoration project through the School of Architecture and Urban Design. Students can earn six credits in the course ARCH 359, Historic Preservation Practicum and Studio. The course will be taught by Barry Newton and Harris Stone, assistant professor and professor of architecture and urban design respectively.
Enrollment in the school is not required to participate in the program.
"The only prerequisite is knowing how to prevent constant chigger attacks," Newton said.
A meeting for all interested students will be at noon today at the Jury Room in Marvin Hall.
This is the second year that the school has offered the project, which includes physical rebuilding, architectural planning, historical research and tours and studies of buildings that are similar to the schoolhouse.
A portion of the schoolhouse will be rebuilt during the next four summers, Newton said. The southwest corner and most of the roof were unsafe and were torn down during the summer.
"Most of the roof had rotted out," said Kristin Gossman, Peculiar, Mo., senior. "The back wall had crumbled on. There was a big crack down the back wall in the stone."
The students and professors had to stabilize the building because it had no existing foundation, Gossman said. They also took out several stones to help stabilize the schoolhouse, and they clipped out old mortar.
The Barber school was named for abolitionist Thomas Barber, who was shot near the site in 1855. The school was built in 1871 and remained open until 1946. It closed because the school district had only two students.
Newton said that the building had been neglected for 20 years and that people had vandalized and stolen stones from it during that time.
The class is working with the Douglas County Preservation Alliance.
Once restored, the building will be used by the preservation alliance and other community and civic groups for meetings, Worster said.
LesBiGaySOK offers acceptance
Group battled for recognition
By Denise Nell Kansan staff writer
Scott Manning, Lawrence graduate student, once heard a rumor that a KU teacher said he wished that all gay and lesbian students would be locked up in a cellar in Strong Hall.
"I hear a lot of really homophobic remarks in classrooms, sometimes by teachers," he said. "I'm a teacher, and I've heard my own students say stuff like that."
Manning, the co-director of LesBiGay Services of Kansas, said this type
UNITING TO BE HEARD
of discrimination had prompted the creation of LesBiGaySOK, an organization for lesbian, bisexual and gay KU students. The group sponsors programs such as the safe zone program, in which red signs are placed in office windows to let students know that they will be accepted there.
Karl Woolz, a Fair Oaks Ranch, Texas, graduate student and an assistant for gay, lesbian and bisexual concerns in the Student Assistance Center, said he had helped begin that program in October for National Coming Out Day.
"What the sign does, hopefully, is to
show a lesbian, bisexual or gay person — or a straight person — that this is a place they can find support, someone who will listen to them, that this person is someone actually trying to educate himself or herself about Les-BigGay issues," he said.
Lesbian, bisexual and gay students didn't always have as much help finding support on campus.
An article in the Vanguard, a magazine published by LesBiGaySOK during 1992's Gay and Lesbian Awareness Week, said that the group — known in the 1970s as the Lawrence Gay Liberation Front — started in 1970 with a lawsuit for official recognition by the University. In 1973, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the University's position. The group
appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the court refused to consider the case.
After the case, the University enacted a policy for student organizations. The policy said an organization could not promote or oppose "particular and customarily private activities, habits or proclivities." This denied organization status to the Lawrence Gay Liberation Front.
In 1980, David Ambler, vice chancellor for student affairs, submitted a proposal to then-Chancellor Archie Dykes asking to abolish the policy. It was approved, and by the 1980-81 school year the group was registered as an organization and was eligible for Student Senate financing.
name changes since then. It was expanded to include lesbian students in 1981 and bisexuals in 1993. The current name, LesBiGaySOK, was adopted in May.
Woelz said that most of the lesbian, bisexual and gay students with whom he talked thought that KU's campus had a relatively friendly atmosphere.
Today, the group has about 100 members and sponsors dances and other social events throughout the year. It also provides peer counseling for students.
"My sense of the campus in talking with other queer people is that it's a relatively safe place physically," he said. "It's rare that there are instances of physical abuse. My experience with people is that more often than not, they're willing to be open."
Photographer captures wetland's plight
Photo courtesy of Vic Banks
A caiman, a relative of the crocodile, is a common sight in Brazil's largest wetland, the Pantanal. Vic Banks, a photo- journalist, documented the Pantanal in a photo exhibit, which is on display at the Museum of Natural History until April.
By Angelina Lopez Kansan staff writer
Vic Banks loves the underdog.
As a science writer and a photojournalist, he has been defending one of the world's largest underdogs for the last 10 years — Brazil's Pantanal.
The Pantanal is the largest wetland in the world and is home to rare birds, plants, reptiles and mammals. Banks said. The Pantanal's environment and life forms are constantly threatened by man.
"This is a world-class region going rapidly to the dogs, and no one is doing anything about it." Banks said.
Little attention has been given to the plight of this area because of the emphasis placed on the Amazon rain forest, said Kathryn Wiese Morton, coordinator of marketing and public relations at the Museum of Natural History.
Banks, however, has spent seven years of his life, has written a book, and has produced an audio cassette, a documentary film and a traveling exhibition on the Pantanal. The photo exhibition, "The Pantanal: Brazil's Forgotten Wilderness," is on display at the Museum of Natural History until April.
The Pantanal covers an area about the size of Wyoming and lies around the head of the Paraguay River. Although "pantanal" means "swamp land" in Portuguese, the Pantanal
resembles the dry savannas of East Africa half the year, Banks said. However, from December through April, the savanna is flooded. This flooding causes vast, shallow seas known as water holes.
These water holes attract an exotic array of animals. More than 600 species of birds congregate around the water holes to feed on the fish that are caught in them, Banks said. Fish — such as piranhas and flesh-eating catfish — may do the feasting, as well. Endangered animals — such as the spotted jaguar and the caiman, the cousin of the crocodile — roam the land and run from the illegal hunters who prey upon them.
"Vic is very committed to bringing awareness to the public," Morton said. "To him, it's a personal matter."
Morton said the museum tried to attract exhibits that opened the public's eyes—exhibits such as Banks'.
She said people should be aware of the Amazon rain forest but should realize that there were other areas with beautiful animals that were just as important.
"You can go around the corner and be awe-struck," Banks said.
Courses teach fluency outside language classes
By Susan White
Kansan staff writer
According to a 1909 study by the Department of Education, only 8.5 percent of all college and university students in the United States studied a foreign language.
KU students are no different, said Terry Weidner, associate director of the Center for International Programs. He said most KU students did not take foreign language classes beyond their college requirements.
But Weidner said the center was trying to change that through its new program, KU's Language Across the Curriculum. The program allows students to take courses in humanities and social science partially or wholly
in a foreign language.
"It will supplement normal language programs to allow language students to become more fluent while working on regular course work," said Weidner, director of the program.
The program offers students six new courses this semester, five in Spanish and one in French.
The program began in the fall with three classes: Topics in the Economy of Latin America, Latin American Reference Resources and Ancient American Civilizations: Mesoamerica.
John Hoopes, assistant professor of anthropology and instructor of one of the classes, said the students in his class had been allowed to attend a one-hour Spanish discussion in addition to the regular three-hour class.
Those who did attend, he said, got a lot out of it.
"The students participated with a lot more enthusiasm than the students in the English part of the class," he said.
Octavio Hinojosa, Hutchinson senior, said the class had been beneficial because it allowed him to use what he knew about the course and apply it in Spanish, his native language. He recommended that other students who wanted to practice language skills take one of the classes.
"There's something about a class in a foreign language," Hinojosa said. "I was really comfortable with the whole discussion in Spanish."
Luis Villaba, a Lawrence graduate teaching assistant of Latin American history, taught Topics in the Economy of Latin America in Spanish. He said students had been given the opportunity to learn the language while studying economics.
"They were able to actively use the language in context," he said. "It was a small class, so there was a lot of time for interaction and more discussion."
Weidner said the Office of International Studies and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences had contributed funds to the program so it could provide students with classes in German and Russian in future semesters. He said he also wanted the program to extend to KU's professional schools.
The classes are not full, so students still can add one of the classes to their schedules.
Spanish Courses
Diversityinclass
Spanish Courses
HIST 401: Topics in the Colonial History of Paraguay, Argentina and Uruguay
Instructor: Luis Vilala
EPL 598: Hispanic Education and Culture — undergraduates only Instructor: Adriana Hernandez
LAA 232: Language and Society in Latin America
Instructor: Anita Herzfeld
INMA 502: Patterns in Latin America
LAA 502: Topics: Patterns of Sociolinguistic Inequality in Latin America
Instructor: Anita Herzfeld
HIST525: Modern France: From Napoleon to DeGaule
Instructor: John Sweets
Source: Kansan staff reports
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