SPORTS: The Kansas women's basketball team defeats Southwest Missouri State 65-51, Page 9
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
VOL.102.NO.75
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1992
ADVERTISING: 864-4358
(USPS 650-640)
NEWS:864-4810
Plans draw new attention to minorities
By Mark Martin Kansan staff writer
A member of the U.S. armed forces takes cover after an early morning beach landing near the main airport in Mogadishu, Somalia.
Knight-Ridder Tribune
A recent proposal by the African American Student Concerns Task Force and a resolution passed by Student Senate three weeks ago have rekindled debate concerning the creation of an administrative position responsible for cultural affairs.
Administrators say they are looking into the recommendations, but many minority students at the University of Kansas wonder whether their concerns are really ever heard.
"It seems like nothing will be done with this until students make some noise about it," said Peter Braithwaite, off-campus student senator and member of the African American Student Concerns Task Force.
Braithwaite pointed out that in 1989, a task force recommended that the University create a new position to oversee minority affairs on campus.
That position was never created
Some think raising OMA's status would allow it to be more effective. Hispanic students have complained that the OMA has been insensitive to their needs and lacks Hispanic resources such as magazines and journals. Most say that with an expanded role, the OMA could serve minority students better.
"The problem with the office currently is that students come there with problems they're having on caverns."
Braithwaite co-wrote the Senate resolution this year, which demanded that the Office of Minority Affairs, which operates within the division of student affairs, be moved up to operate within the executive vice chancellor's office. The resolution also calls for elevating the OMA director to assistant or associate vice chancellor status.
and once he has power on change policies, B said. "They can just make suggestions. We're j that the office needs more respect on campus power."
Tim Dawson, chairperson of Student Senate's affairs committee and the co-author of the SENaition, said that the OMA was lost in the shuffle because it was too low in KU's organizational structure.
"Right now they have to go through too many clog get anything done," he said. "They have to go to tl life, then to the vice chancellor for studies then to the vice president for students before people at the top even hear about them."
Before 1887, OMA worked within the chancellor and the director reported straight to the chancellor office was moved into the student affairs division stands now.
David Ambler, vice chancellor for student aff the office was moved to student affairs because determined that the office's main function wa with students.
Moving the office to student affairs would also contact with students and with other offices it work with, such as admissions and financial aid.
Ambler said that because of KU's budget constraint did not think the University would be able to crea
"The University is carefully studying the reforce report," he said. "One of their recommendations to create a University-wide council that could ove the programs that deal with minority needs."
Sherwood Thompson, director of minority affa-
tion that is KU became more multicultural, more woo-
ted, and more inclusive.
Administrators point to the planned multicultural as an example of KU's commitment to minority. And minority enrollment has risen each of the last years.
"With more and more minority students coming it may be necessary to have a representative at the sativa level," he said. "It would help to coordina and assess the needs of minority students in all are
But a planning committee has yet to be formed center, and the original opening date of Fall 1993 h pushed back a year. And despite the enrollment incore more than 90 percent of the student body is white.
"Right now, it seems like minority and cultural affairs treated as a program at KU, instead of within UniStructure." Braithwaite said. "We need someone who knows where people are, people we ask what's going on, and what needs to go on."
Cashing in on books
After a semester reading and hom work problems, students can avenge the pain by cashing their textbooks.
See related story, Page 12.
See related story, Page 3.
Students live unhealth
See related story, Page 14.
A recent study shows that most health habits in incoming freshmen worsened after a year in college.
W whenever a band appears for a long time, it has fairly good of.
breaking its sound instead of making it again. The new album can be brilliant beyond most people's short-timed expectations or an insult to accomplishments of the past.
After a three-year hiatus, the last thing 10,000 Manias wanted to do was insult their audience. So they stayed brilliant.
Our Time in Eden, the first effort from the Jamestown, N.Y., folk-band rock since 1989's Blind Man's Zoo, continues its touching, powerful songwriting. And like a fine wine, the band has matured, and it comes to its sound with songs centered more on group jams than pieces written in isolation and assembled in the studio.
10,000 maniacs
The band's lead vocalist Natalie Merchant doesn't see anything so odd about the band's
After a three-year hiatus, Natalie and crew have found their place in Eden.
anything, she says, it may be the best thing the group's ever done.
"We took some time off because people wanted to organize their lives, we'd been on tour for years," she said.
BY KEN HUNT, The Daily, U. OF WASHINGTON
In that time, other band members got married, and one had a child. Writing the new material took a year.
Whatever may have happened since the band's last tour, it worked. Our Time in Eden calls to mind much of the music from "The Laws of Life."
"I think we all grew to appreciate what we do for a living. 'Merchant says.' "When we were so involved with touring, I think we all lost sight of how enjoyable it was to be a musician. And there's better communication between the people in the group. It's like a short separation is healthy for a friendship or working relationship—that's why people take vacations, isn't it?"
From haunting songs of their early newway songs to Motown beats and James Brown horns, the Manias
stretch their already wide musical tent.
And while the band has brought other instrumentalists into the studio before, it's never been to this extent or effect. Bassoon duets, percolating percussion and ever-present strings lend depth and richness.
Paul Fo's production of *Our Time In Eden* also marks a break with Peter Asher, who is largely responsible for firming up the band's sound in *In My Tribe and Blind Man's Zoo*. The abusive but effective Asher so fully realized the Mamias' potential that to many it seemed odd to leave him behind. But they did, and it worked.
"Because the members of the group haven'i changed, it seemed like maybe bring in in a fresh pair of ears and a new influence of some sort would be good," Merchant says. "It was good to work with someone who grew up listening to the same music we did. Paul'a musician in his own right—a jazz piano player —so he was really good."
But Our Time in Eden truly distinguishes itself in
Merchant's approach to lyric writing. In the past, she has written in third person, made political declarations or presented an "I" as a distinctly separate character. The new songs have more of an introspective feel, a sense of continuity between the artist and the product.
"That was an interesting experiment for me because I think it showed a bit of confidence and maybe maturity at the same time since I wasn't afraid to use myself as subject matter." Merchant says. "In the past I felt like kind of disguised myself in other characters, or I would make a composite personality. Some of that exists on this record, but I think it's a very honest record and a bit more personal."
every room," she sings, nearly crying.
Merchant says she 'took this approach after revisiting old albums by Van Morrison and Bob Dylan, who she realized "could handle the personal and the political on a record and the shift wouldn't be jarring at all. I thought I had been doing that, too, but maybe I was avoiding being too personal — I thought it was selfindulgent and dangerous." She said she could probably by that sort of content in other writers' works, so maybe I should try it myself and not be embarrassed.
The effect is most striking in "jeezebel," a heartbreaking tale of disintegrating love. While very much in the spirit of "Verdi Cries" and "Jubilee" from the past two albums, Merchant does not distance herself with this one. "You lie there, an innocent baby. I feel like the thief who is raiding your home, entering and taking in
But, she says, "It's not about me anyway." (This means R.E.M.'s Michael Sleiver – Merchant's semi-significant other—can breathe a sigh of relief.)
"I've always used first person before; I'm not a single mother or a factory worker, but I've written songs from the perspectives of these characters ['Eat for two' and 'Maddox Table']. And I've never been married."
Except to the 10,000 Maniacs. And now, after what appears to be a healthy separation and renewed energy, the band's ready to give it another shot.
U. THE NATIONAL COLLEGE MAGAZINE DECEMBER 1992