University Daliv Kansan / Wednesday, October 4, 1989
5
Prof to examine U.S. racism
By Doug Fleback Kansan staff writer
When William Tuttle, professor of history, recently read graffiti on the wall of a Wesco Hall bathroom, he was reminded that racism and hatred were not just things of the past.
"AIDS — The Lord loves holocaust!" was one scrawl Tittle read.
Though the message was contemporary in its subject, its spirit was identical to the haired directed at minorities years ago, Tuttle said.
Tuttle will join two other speakers Saturday for "Academic Excellence in a Multicultural University," a symposium to discuss the strength found in a broad cultural and racial university population. The symposium, sponsored by University governance and the office of the executive vice chancellor, will begin at 8:30 a.m. at Woodruff Auditorium in the Kansas Union.
Tuttle's speech will deal with maligned and ignored groups. He said he planned to point out examples of hatred, bigotry and insensitivity from the past so that people might learn to recognize and combat them in their present forms.
Tuttle said it was important for U.S. citizens to learn from the past in order to deal with the new influx of diverse cultural groups. Nearly 12 million immigrants, refugees and undocumented workers have entered the country in the past decade, he said.
"What we're going through right now is the largest emigration of people of color to this country since
1970," Tuttle said. "We have an opportunity to do it right this time, and I hope we will."
Literary scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., another of Saturday's speakers, said the academic world was opening for minority groups, showing improvement from 20 years ago.
Gates, the W.E.B. DuBois professor of literature at Cornell University, said the cultural and literary canon of the West was expanding to address the roles of previously neglected groups.
For example, he said, most "self-respecting" English departments now sponsor women's studies and Black studies in their literature offerings.
"That's clearly a change from the early 1970s," Gates said. "People are developing the right to see themselves in the curriculum."
Philip Uri Treisman, the third speaker for the symposium, will discuss minority demographics and how they relate to curricular reform.
Treisman directs the Charles A. Dana Center for Innovation in Mathematics and Science Education at the University of California at Berkeley. He has created minority math workshops to challenge these groups to excel in that university's rigorous math program.
Treisman cites the low number of minority scholars in math and science as evidence of a decline in multicultural academics.
Last year, the United States produced only four Black mathematics doctorates, he said.
"We're definitely in a period of declare." Treisman said.
He said one reason for the low
number of minority math and science students was that early programs for those groups tended to be remedial. While white, middle-class students get academic "nourishment," Treisman said, Blacks and other minorities are given "medicine," which often forces them into a track of imposed mediocrity.
track of import.
Another obstacle to minority scholarship is that these groups often view social and academic worlds as unrelated, he said. The lack of personal interaction within the academic sphere puts them at a disadvantage, Treisman said.
"It turns out that minority students tend to become isolated from the academic and social mainstream," he said.
Part of solving the problem of minority under-representation in math and science scholarship is integrating social support groups with academic challenges, Treisman said.
Judith Ramaley, executive vice chancellor, said KU was beginning to focus more on the personal aspects of higher education.
"We're in a somewhat different era," she said. "We're focusing on campus environment, quality of life, support for people."
Ramaley, whose office is co-sponsoring the symposium, said the University was beginning to take up the challenge of deriving excellence from the diverse population it had attracted.
"The next question for society and for KU is, 'What can we make of this opportunity we have created?' " she said. "I can't think of a more enjoyable time to be in higher education than today."
A week to learn about mentally ill
By Tracy Wilkinson Kansan staff writer
The American Psychiatric Association has designated this week as National Mental Illness Awareness Week.
Linda Keeler, a physician at Watkins Mental Health Clinic and coordinator of the week at the University, said awareness of and education about mental illness would be highlighted here this week.
"Often when people don't understand mental illness there becomes more of a stigma," she said. "As more education comes about, hopefully people will understand more."
Keeler said that neither the clinic nor the health education department would be offering any formalized programs this year, but that there would be even more resources available than normal to assist in the education of the student population.
"It is important for people to see the problem as common," Keeler said. "Mental illnesses and mental problems are common medical kinds of difficulties. It is important for people to seek care without the stigma of being made fun of or ostracized."
Keeler said that somewhere between 30 to 45 million Americans suffer from a mental illness of some
sort during their lifetime
Between 8 and 14 million Americans each year will suffer from depression, she said.
"When we're talking about an illness that could effect 20 percent of the people of the country, we're talking about major health problems," Keeler said. "It is important for people to be aware of that and that people who seek help are not crazy or psycho."
"It is when people don't understand or have sufficient education to realize the fantastic advances that have been made in the field that the problem comes."
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