Volume 128 Issue 60
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Kansan.com | The student voice since 1904
Alumni donate $58M to School of Engineering
Kurt Watson, the co-chair for the Far Above campaign, speaks about the $58 million donation to programs in the School of Engineering. The estate of Al and Lila Self made the donation, bringing their total contributions to the University to more than $1.2 billion.
CHANDLER BOESE
@Chandler_Boeese
CHANDLER BOESE/KANSAN
The University announced a gift of $58 million Tuesday afternoon to be given to programs in the School of Engineering by the estate of alumni Al and Lila Self.
In December 1989, the Selfs, who both graduated from the University in 1943, established the Self Graduate Fellows Program with their first gift. Throughout the following years, they continued to give to the University, creating the Self Engineering Leadership Fellows Program for undergraduates, even sponsoring the Self Computing Commons in Eaton Hall.
Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little, who announced the donation, said, "At the heart of both of these programs was a conviction that there could be no greater investment than the development of student leadership excellence."
Lamb
The Selfs, who both passed away in 2013, planned to continue giving to and supporting the University even after their deaths.
"Through their estate they
"At the heart of both of these programs was a conviction that there could be no greater investment than the development of student leadership excellence."
BERNADETTE GRAY-LITTLE Chancellor
planned to build upon and enhance that which they had established at KU during their lifetimes," Gray-Little said.
Including this donation, they have contributed $106 million to the University over their lifetimes, she said.
Of the $58 million recently donated through the Self's estate, $39 million will go to the Self Graduate Fellow
University. Kurt Watson, cochair of the campaign, said the Selfs' donation will bring the campaign's total donations to more than $1.2 billion.
Program, Gray-Little said, which provides $29,500 a year to graduate students who participate in the Fellow Development Program, according to the School of Engineering's website.
Also, $15 million will support the SELF Program which, according to the engineering website, provides select junior and senior undergraduates with $7,000 a year and a program to help develop their leadership skills.
Amanda Parks, a senior from Leavenworth and current participant in the SELF Program, spoke at the event.
"The experiences I've had as a participant in the Self Program have shaped who I am and who I will be," Parks said. "I had the opportunity to interact with alumni and professions to help me learn about engineering."
Another opportunity for undergraduates will be established with the
remaining $4 million. The Self Graduating Senior Fellowship fund will offer scholarships to newly graduated seniors for "their achievements and for their ability to achieve goals that require exceptional tenacity," said Lisa Scheller,
the media relations manager at KU Endowment. "Details about the fund are still being worked out," she said.
This donation is included in the Far Above campaign, KU Endowment's effort to support and better the
Edited by Kelsie Jennings
AARON GROENE/KANSAN
Dr. Clarence Lang mediates discussion over the Ferguson, Mo., shooting earlier this semester in Spooner Hall. The open forum aimed to get talks going in the community over the shooting of Michael Brown with goals of understanding and progression.
Professor discusses Ferguson's history
WILL WEBBER
@WMWebber
Clarence Lang, professor of African and African-American Studies at the University, has researched and taught in the areas of African-American working-class and labor history, the Black Freedom Movement and black urban communities in the 20th century Midwest. Lang led an open forum on racial disparities in the criminal justice system earlier in the year and continues to advise students looking to be more involved and informed. Recently, he spoke with the Kansan's Will Webber about the public's response to the Ferguson grand jury decision and issues in the police force.
Kansan: Your book "Grassroots at the Gateway: Class Politics and Black Freedom Struggle in St. Louis,
1936-75" highlights many of the racial and civil inequalities in not only St. Louis, but also in the surrounding area. What role does this setting play in how civil unrest has developed in Ferguson?
Lang: The St. Louis area, historically, was a pioneer in methods of racial segregation. It was one of the first to pass a housing segregation ordinance by initiative and petition ... and so it becomes no accident that St. Louis then becomes a pioneer in efforts to roll back housing segregation policies. St. Louis is surrounded by
Kansan: In your book, you emphasized how different social classes fought for civil
... African-Americans moved west, or north or wherever, these municipalities basically became racial enclaves. Ferguson was, until not too long ago, an example of this.
rights. Does that still persist today, and how do the actions vary across different segments of the population?
Lang: Even in the civil rights movement, African Americans agreed they needed to fight segregation, but there wasn't necessarily agreement on the methods ... We're seeing that there's segments of the movement who clearly favor more strident, more militant forms of protest with regard to the burning of vehicles or confrontations with the police ... There are some African Americans who can see more of a stake for themselves in the status quo than others who are completely locked out from the war on drugs, incarceration or unemployment. So you have a segment of the black population who trend younger and feel they don't have much to lose. But then others are critical of what's occurred,
but could never engage in the kinds of raucous protests that people have been focusing on.
Kansan: Speaking of the war on drugs, evidence suggests use and trafficking is consistent across demographics, but police target concentrated areas where they know you'll find drugs. How does that play into the relations between a community like Ferguson and the police force?
Lang: What we're seeing in Ferguson and around the nation is a more open form of the low-intensity warfare that's been ongoing between black communities and police. The war on drugs helped to reinforce the criminalization of black community spaces and citizens ... In Ferguson in 2013, 92 percent of the searches and 86 percent of
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Students utilize social media as liftoff for change
She and others created the hashtag #AGreatPlaceToBeUnsafe on Twitter, playing off KU's marketing slogan, "A great place to be."
When a Sept. 2 Huffington Post story about the University's response to a sexual assault case hit the Internet, Katherine Gwynn president of Students United for Reproductive and Gender Equity, wanted to spark discussion on the issue.
WILL WEBBER
@WMWebber
"The first thing you can do at 9 p.m. on a Tuesday night at the end of the day to try to get things started. We said, 'OK, a hashtag,' Gwynn said. The hashtag served its purpose, causing a torrent of comments from the KU community about the minimal punishment KU issued to a male student who admitted sexually assaulting a female student. But the social media activity soon died down.
Social media efforts succeeded in raising awareness about sexual assault and the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. However, it's the work offline that is more likely to bring about deep-seated change, experts and activists say.
"You had the big, loud conversation at first that was very attention-grabbing, but that was short-term," Gwynn said. "But now you need to have the long-term discussion for a long-term solution."
The challenge for activist groups is to build on the awareness created via social media, said Peter Levine, director of the Center for
Social media researchers sometimes refer to short-term engagement on social media as "clicktivism" or "slacktivism." Though the practice has benefits, they say it also has its share of shortcomings.
"Even in the old days when we didn't have the Internet, there were actions that were pretty superficial and dead end kind of actions, like putting up a yard sign or having a quick conversation but not doing anything," Levine said.
One example was this summer's ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, a viral video campaign that raised $115 million for the ALS Association. However, although thousands of people made videos, the campaign didn't necessarily bolster in-depth knowledge of the disease or a commitment to long term action by participants. According to an RJ Metrics study, only 26 percent of ALS Ice Bucket Challenge participants mentioned the disease in their videos.
Levine also said shallow engagement by citizens is not a characteristic exclusive to the social media generation.
"The way that social media
Index CLASSIFIEDS 9 CRYPTOQUIPS 6 SPORTS 12 CROSSWORD 6 OPINION 4 SUDOKU 6
"If you're trying to address Ferguson, you have to still be there five years from now because it's not going away," Levine said. "That ability to not just capitalize on what's hip or in the news, but to keep people involved in the long haul — I think that's a skill."
Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University.
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