Thursday
December 12,2002
Vol.113. Issue No.76
Today's weather 43° Tonight:28°
KANSAS
Tell us your news
Call Jay Krall, Brooke Hesler or Kyle Ramsey at 864-4810
Check out the Lawrence Christmas scene in Jayplay
HAPPY
HOLIDAYS
Ellsworth renovations on schedule
By Matt Stumpf
mstumpf@kansan.com
Kansas staff wr.ter
Ellsworth Hall is just a shell of its former self.
The residence hall closed this summer for a complete renovation, and construction crews gutted everything inside the building. Reconstruction has begun and the hall should reopen its doors next fall.
The $14 million project follows the renovations of Templin Hall in 1997 and Lewis Hall in 1998.The department of student housing finances the renovations through its budget.
"Everything comes from room and board," Ken Stoner, director of student housing, said.
Ellsworth Residence Hall closed this summer for a complete renovation. Crews gutted the building. Reconstruction has begun and the hall should reopen its doors next fall.
The housing department closed the top three floors last year to make
year to make sure the hall would open in time for Fall 2003. Crews began working on the 10th floor of the building and worked their way down, in assembly-line fashion, drilling holes for pipes and placing steel framework to divide the rooms.
The 10th floor is nearing completion, and the rest of the floors will follow in time for the Fall 2003 semester, Stoner said.
When completed, the hall will have a similar configuration to Templin and Lewis, with more individual bathrooms for the rooms and bigger living spaces. Stoner said the hall would have smaller lobbies on each floor because students didn't use them as much as before.
When the buildings opened in the '60s, the necessity for larger lobbies came from students' lack of television sets. Students would use the areas more to watch TV than they do now because most students now have televisions in their rooms, Stoner said.
Kari Morgan, Topeka junior, said she was arranging her fall plans around the hall's completion. Morgan is a resident assistant at McCollum Hall.
"I'm going to live there whether or not I'm an RA," Morgan said.
Stoner said he expected the hall wouldn't lack residents who wanted to live there. After the renovations of Templin and Lewis, students gravitated toward the newly renovated halls, Stoner said.
"Every time we open one there's a great interest," Stoner said.
Stop Day won'thaltfun
By Jenna Goepfert
joeopfert@kansan.com
Kansas staff writer
Tomorrow will be the first Stop Day for Kasey Monroe, Geneseo freshman, but that doesn't mean he doesn't know what it's all about.
"Everybody stops going to class and starts having fun," he said.
Stop Day is a one-day break in the University of Kansas calendar when students are relieved of campus responsibilities and can prepare for finals, which are Dec. 16 to 20.
With the prospect of four finals looming, the reprieve from responsibilities is
sending Tiffany Woods, Chicago sophomore, out on the town.
Woods plans to go out with friends tomorrow to get the partying out of her system. After that, she said she'd spend her time studying and stressing out.
"Power Hour" is a Stop Day tradition for Carlie Wagner, Springfield, Mo., junior. She and her friends take a shot of beer every minute for an hour and then go out to the bars.
She made it to 47 last year and then had to stop, she said, but most of her friends made it to 60.
Football will bring the men of Stephenson Scholarship Hall together tomorrow. Former residents and the
hall's upperclassmen take on freshmen residents every Stop Day at noon near Robinson Center.
Ryan Yaeger, Maple Lake, Minn., junior, is organizing this year's game of nopads tackle football and said injuries not studying were only worth worrying about.
"Watkins is right there," Yaeger said.
When the game is over, he and his hall-mates will probably just lay around and whine about be sore, he said.
whine about using KJHK is one of several groups having its own Stop Day festivities around 8 p.m. at the Pool Room, 925 Iowa St. The party will feature KJHK DJs, Archetype and Mac Lethal. Students can bring cans
of food to donate to the Lawrence Interdenominational Nutritional Kitchen.
Roland Rhodes, Washington, D.C., junior, said he wouldn't miss the festivities.
"I'll do a little break dancing," Rhodes said, grinning.
Rhodes said Stop Day was a great idea and helped him take his mind off of his three upcoming finals.
Yaeger he appreciated the break in his academic routine but had an additional request.
Learning about cultures
"I've heard some colleges have stop week," he said. "I think the University should look into that."
HALO share, teach a Hispanic traditions to children
Edited by Chris Wintering
By Katie Nelson
knelson@kansan.com
kansan Staff Writer
Sharing information about Latin American culture has been bittersweet lately for the Hispanic American Leadership Organization, but it is attempting to overcome its woes with sugar.
In early November, HALO partnered with the Lawrence Big Brothers Big Sisters program for a Day of the Dead educational event. It was canceled at the last minute because of parents' skepticism and lack of interest.
The Kansas Union's ballroom was teeming with people during the Center for Community Outreach's holiday children's party yesterday afternoon. The event was for Lawrence-area children and was run by volunteers from both the University and the Lawrence Community.
"The coordinator for Big Brothers Big Sisters said she had several parents call her, concerned with the theme," said Juan Garcia, who was planning the event for HALO. "We were very sad to see this reaction, and it has made us realize that we'll need a much greater effort to try to make the Hispanic culture well-understood."
The timing of the activity was part of the problem, said Erika Zimmerman. Big Brothers Big Sisters programming coordinator. More activities than usual were planned for the month, she said.
But parental uncertainty about what the organization was exposing their kids to was probably at least part of the reason for low interest in HALO's activity, admitted Zimmerman.
ry, darren:
"Hindsight is always 20/20," she said. "Looking back, we definitely could have made the filers more
detailed, explaining what it was. When they called, I just told them my understanding, and even I didn't know exactly what Day of the Dead involved. Really, it was a lack of education on everyone's part."
But HALO isn't giving up. Yesterday, it used the Center for Community Outreach children's party to do Hispanic culture education.
Student organizations were asked to create activities for the kids. Some
activities focused on the different types of holiday celebrations around the world.
"We want the kids to learn that every-
SEE HALO ON PAGE 7A
—Edited by Adam Pracht
Anton Bubnovskiy/Kansar
Native status, financial aid complicated
Benjamin Washee, Lawrence resident, forms the ceiling on the fourth floor of Ellsworth Hall. The renovations are on schedule, and the hall should reopen next fall, said Ken Stoner, director of student housing.
By Sarah Smarsh
ssmarsh@kansan.com
Special to the Kansan
More than 200 KU students recognized as Native Americans receive financial aid based in part on their blood ties to indigenous peoples. The distribution of this money raises the question, "What is a Native American?"
While issues of both blood and culture come into play, the deciding factor when applying for financial aid is the Certificate of Indian Blood card, a federally granted document proving recognized native lineage and providing eligibility for financial aid from tribes, universities, the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs and organizations like the American Indian College Fund.
But a CIB card does not necessarily indicate tribal involvement or cultural identification, said Michael Davis, a
Lawrence resident who is more than one-half Hopi, Choctaw and Apache Indian.
Davis said he had a CIB card as a child but no longer maintained contact with his tribe. He said he would not feel justified receiving funding for education through his tribe, the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs or other organizations. He said available funds should go to students with more traditional Native-American upbringing.
"I'm not knowledgeable about my tribe," Davis said. "It's meant to be used for people who are oppressed, living on reservations."
Terra Houska, Rapid City, S.D., junior, who also takes classes at Haskell Indian Nations University, where students pay no tuition, said some resentment existed within the Native-American student community toward those who made little or no effort to participate
in cultural events and preserve Native-American heritage.
"They're getting an education just because they have a little Indian in them." Houska said.
Circe Sturm, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Oklahoma, said most people in this area of the country had some Indian blood, which complicates matters of identification
complicates matters of interest. Sturm, recent author of Blood Politics: Race, Culture, and Identity in the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, said the difficulty of defining Native Americans lay in a complicated web of "history and legality." Sturm said CIB cards were granted based on documented lineage stretching as far back as the Dawes Rolls, the federal government's early 20th-century attempt to create a native registry. This quantifiable approach, which
SEE NATIVE STATUS ON PAGE 8A
John Nowak/Kansas
Olivia Standing Bear, co-president of KU First Nations Student Association, says she thinks too many people take advantage of the benefits Native-American students receive.