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Volume 128 Issue 46
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Wednesday, November 12, 2014
Kansan.com | The student voice since 1904
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COLORS OF CRIME
Clothesline Project raises awareness of domestic violence
LANE COFAS
@OttoVeatch
For the second year in a row, colorful T-shirts are strung up in The Underground's windows. The display is called the Clothesline Project, brought to the University by The Willow Domestic Violence Center of Lawrence, which hopes to raise awareness for survivors and victims of sexual and domestic violence.
"The Clothesline Project
of The Willow Domestic Violence Center is a powerful, visual display bearing witness to violence against women, men and children," said Kristine Chapman, director of community engagement at the Center. "It honors and gives expression to adult and child victims of violence."
The Clothesline Project forms as a way to make statistics more real and visual to the a college campus, where one in three college-aged women will experience abuse from a partner. Also, one in three women and one in seven men experience some form of domestic violence during their lifetime, Chapman said.
This project was created in 1990 to help domestic violence survivors heal, to
Chapman said the T-shirts represent males, females and children in Douglas County and also represent University students. Each colored T-shirt represents a different crime,
educate the public about violence in relationships,and "give voice, especially to those who traditionally have been silenced in our society" - women and children," Chapman said.
according to the Clothesline Project website.
Rachel Carey-Harper, a visual artist from Massachusetts, started the Clothesline Project to remember the large number of women who were killed during and after the Vietnam War due to sexual and domestic violence. This idea
came from when women used to exchange conversation with neighbors while hanging clothes on a line, according to the Clothesline Project website.
The Clothesline Project is used by many domestic violence centers across the U.S., and the Center is just one of the many centers with the display, Chapman said.
The T-shirts will be on display until mid-December.
Edited by Kelsie Jennings
T-shirt color meanings
Rape or sexual assault
Murdered because of sexual or domestic violence
Battery
Child sexual abuse
Attack because of sexual orientation
Attack because of political reasons
Senate addresses crime alert system
MIRANDA DAVIS
@MirandaDavisUDK
Student Senate leadership met with University administrators and officials from the Office of Public Safety on Tuesday afternoon to discuss concerns with the individuals in charge of the University's alert system after last Wednesday's masked man incident.
Morgan Said, student body president, Miranda Wagner, student body vice president, and Garrett Farlow, chair of the student safety advisory board, met with officials to get questions answered and bring student input into the conversation.
Ralph Oliver, police chief for PSO, explained the police response for Wednesday's incident.
"We got notified that there was a person on campus who was in a mask who had gone into a lecture hall, made some kind of speech and left," Oliver said. "No threat to anybody in the room, or anything like that and left. So we dispatched an officer to that classroom to talk to that professor."
Oliver said the office doesn't put any information out before it fully understands what is going on with the situation.
According to Oliver, particular kinds of reports get an immediate response, along with an officer sent to the scene. If PSO gets a call about someone making a threat to students or displaying a weapon, it can activate the emergency response broadcast system.
Oliver said while PSO is dealing with the situation, it is also passing along that information to the Office of Public Affairs. Public Affairs then acts as the administration and may send out a text alert or a tweet from the University's official account.
Oliver said last Wednesday's incident didn't rise to the level of threat associated with the emergency response system.
Said said she was concerned about the lag time between the incident and the official University response, which concerned a lot of students.
"Policy doesn't always take peace of mind into consideration, and so my question is, when there are
things like this, where it maybe doesn't fit into this category of an 'imminent threat', but people are speaking about it in such a large scale manner, is there a different type of notification or warning that we can send out to the student body?" Said said.
Jack Martin, director of strategic communications in the Office of Public Affairs, said in the future, the office will err on the side of sending out alerts earlier. On the other hand, the office will still try to send out as few alerts as possible so students don't begin to ignore the messages, which is something that concerns the administration.
Said was concerned that even though it wasn't an imminent threat, many students took to social media and within minutes, the incident was getting a lot of attention.
Public safety officials encourage students to call PSO before they take to social media any time they feel unsafe or concerned about an individual on campus.
Both PSO and the University's administration said they are keeping watch on social media — they performed a safety sweep of Wescoe Hall after a post on Yik Yak, although this is not the most credible way to convey information about an active situation on campus.
Martin said he was unsure if they could send out a message without inciting more panic before the individuals were taken into custody. He said it's hard to make a judgment call in situations where there may not be an immediate threat to safety, but those on campus are still looking for an official response on a situation.
"One of the challenges that we face is those intermediate situations where its not 'the building's on fire, send an alert,' but people are talking about this, they'd like some information," Martin said.
"I, in the position I'm in, understand that we would have gotten something if there were a serious, serious threat, but the average student, walking down Wescoe beach, seemingly didn't feel as comfortable," Said said.
Said wanted to make sure students had a way of getting information about these types of situations in the future.
JAKE KAUFMANN/KANSAN
Sam, the Love Garden cat, hangs out on top of a stack of vinyls at Love Garden Sounds, 822 Massachusetts St. Love Garden is a local music store that buys, sells and trades records and CDs.
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22KILL challenge honors vets
DALTON KINGERY/KANSAN
A student does the #22KILL Pushup Challenge on Wescoe beach Tuesday. The challenge is to do 22 pushups, one for each of the veterans who commit suicide every day, according to Honor Courage Commitment, Inc.
DALTON KINGERY
@DaltonKingNews
On Wescoe Beach Tuesday afternoon, passersby were asked to participate in the #22KILL Pushup Challenge. The #22KILL program was started by Honor Courage Commitment, Inc., a nonprofit organization based in Texas that serves veterans.
The challenge consisted of stating your name and reason for participating, and
"You get a lot of people that come by here, and they hear that 22 veterans commit suicide a day," Blake said. "You can see it in their face that they didn't know it was that much."
"This was something that I wanted to do because I lost a close friend of mine a week and a half ago from suicide," Blake said. "I wanted in this memory of him
Blake also has a personal commitment to #22KILL's mission of raising awareness.
Thomas Blake, a junior from Silver Lake and a veteran who was in charge of today's pushup challenge, said the purpose of the challenge is to raise awareness for veteran suicide by talking to people and posting videos of people participating in the challenge to social media.
then performing 22 pushups one pushup for each of the 22 veterans who commit suicide per day, according to HCC.
and to prevent this from happening to other people I know"
Index CLASSIFIEDS 11 CRYPTOQUIPS 6 SPORTS 12 CROSSWORD 6 OPINION 4 SUDOKU 6
"I really respect all those who are in service right now, and veterans," Wang said. "He invited me last week so I wanted to come and do it for him."
Hongyi Wang, a junior from China, is friends with Blake, and made a point to come and participate in the challenge to support him
Edited by Ashley Peraita
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